MegaRevolution1 : I'll do my best, sometimes I am not very good at explaining things but here goes...

"Can you please show me one example of an event that was depicted in the Bible before it had happened?" - One example is God used his prophet Isaiah to foretell the overthrow of mighty Babylon nearly 200 years before it happened. (Isaiah 13: 17-19) Another was the coming of his Son Jesus Christ, God foretold that through the Bible before it happened. (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:22,23) It was prophesied that Mary, who was a virgin would give birth to a son, and that was written before it happened. Says so a lot in the Bible.

"And also the research you have done to prove that they are "Facts"?" - If those things were written in a history book, everyone would just believe it happened. Well the Bible is like a history book. I've studied the Bible and read it in it's entirety since I was as young as I can remember. That's the research I've done. Also, the Bible was written thousands of years ago, and it says that there will be food shortages, nations will rise against nations,  (Matthew 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21: 10) This cannot be disputed, these things are happening everyday, and it was written before it happened. That's my reasoning. You may not agree, that's fine, but I have done my research, for years and these are the facts I present. It may not be the best explaination, that's not really my fault, having a mental illness, makes it hard to be able to explain things as clearly as others, well I don't have that privilege. Anyway, there ya go.

SunflowerGaming : For the ones depicting specific events, such as the overthrow of Babylon and such, are you positive those are from documents that predate it, or were they written in as they happened? The Bible was not written within a single day and night as you know, and pieces have been contributed in by many people many times, whether it be while they were happening or after, or even before, as you have said with the things happening in current times.

And as for the point "Also, the Bible was written thousands of years ago, and it says that there will be food shortages, nations will rise against nations, (Matthew 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21: 10)", this is not something that is hard to guess. Nations have always been rising against each other, including during the time that the Bible was written in. And as for Food Shortages, they could have easily looked around them, noticed there may have not been many animals, and guessed that they would have run out of food in X amount of years, and honestly, we really aren't even running out of food now. If you specifically are pointing at Africa, then you must realize that nobody is really giving a ton of support to them, which is their main problem. And most of the places that go without food are the places that have small communities and are hard to get to.

You're basically right with the Bible being a History Book, really. However, the only difference is that they go after specific events, most of which have probably been altered to death due to hundreds of rewrites. In fact, thenumberone (IIRC) even made a post in a different thread about the differences that different verses and books had of the same exact event, specifically the event of Jesus's Resurrection and rise to heaven, and they weren't small changes, but rather large changes that alter the whole story.

Anyways, thank you for you time and explanation, Nya~. Now to wait for the next person...

MegaRevolution1 : That makes sense. I've done research from the actual original Greek and Hebrew translations, I think that's the right word. But you are correct that a lot of the newer translations have changed. But I am referring to the actual language the Bible was written. Sorry I stink at trying to explain. It sounds like normal in my head and then I read it and I'm like what? Haha. But you bring out some good points. And yes, those events were written before they happened. I'd have to take some more time to find evidence of that, but I know there is proof. I just stink at explaining things so it makes sense.

Although I feel like a fool for returning to this thread at all I suppose I may as well clarify the reason for belief I gave earlier. It seems I was being a bit glib and possibly confusing. What I meant is this. Naturalistic “explanations” for the workings of the world are not explanations at all, they are just detailed expressions *of* said workings. Atheism is extremely sophistical: as polytheism accounts for the workings of nature by postulating a different higher power behind different natural processes whereas monotheism takes you a further step up the ladder by postulating only one higher power instead of just presuming that different events have different causes, you indeed would *think* that in principle the next and final step up that ladder would be to account for the world in a way that takes the same idea even further by not invoking any kind of higher power at all. But in actual fact atheism does *not* take you any further up the ladder. It isn’t even a step down. It’s the act of simply jumping off the ladder altogether (and perhaps risking a nasty fall in the process). If I had to boil atheism down to six words, they would be “the illusion of victory by forfeit”. Nature cannot explain itself. Nothing can explain itself. The cause is always separate from the effect.

 

Circular reasoning is absolutely inevitable whenever you try to limit yourself to one kind of knowledge, because situations will inevitably arise in which other kinds are needed. This is a major cause for the problems atheists themselves face from young earth creationists: the latter are simply not willing to think on more than one wavelength. Scientific knowledge is certainly no exception: the principle applies to everything. In the case of naturalism the circular reasoning happens specifically in reference to the laws of nature. On the one hand atheists will tell you that everything happens because of natural law (and natural law because of mathematical law) and not because of any sort of higher power. On the other hand, when it suits them they will also be the first to point out that laws are nothing more than descriptions or observations. So put the two claims together and what you end up with is a complete vicious circle: “What makes the world the way it is? Its laws do. What are laws? They’re descriptions of the way the world is.” Or to put an even finer point on it: “The reason we can say that things are the way they are is because we can say that they are that way.”

 

In order to avoid this circular reasoning you have to avoid the cause of it and *not* stop at the laws themselves. You have to accept that to describe something is not the same as to account for it. You have to go beyond physics and into metaphysics. It’s the only way to make any sense. There is no “god of the gaps” to be found. The thing about a gap is, you can come up with thousand-page dissertations going into extreme detail on each of its parts, you can determine the exact chemical composition of its walls and its floor, you can measure it to the billionth of an attometer in every direction in more dimensions than have yet been conceived of by man; you might even someday find a way to express every fact about every feature of the gap in the form of a mathematical formula. But in the end you will have accomplished *absolutely nothing*. IT’S STILL GOING TO BE A FREAKING GAP. The only way to fill any gap is to take something from outside of it and plug it in. But of course the materialist doesn’t see it. He only sees the words, the language, and completely ignores the fact that the words, the descriptions, are *about* something, that there is an objective fact there to *be* described, and that this fact is the matter at hand. It is in my experience that in *any* situation in life where people hyperfocus on semantics instead of looking at the actual issue it’s because they are *choosing* to do so (on some level). They don’t *want* to see. It’s a defense mechanism and seldom a genuine intellectual miscalculation done by sheer honest mistake.

 

But if you *are* willing to look beyond the words and try to genuinely explain anything, you will find that everything we see (and this was true even before Big Bang Theory came along) seems to point to a single origin, and that the effects we describe with natural laws are what shape and order the world. That we are capable of describing things with such a neat and organized system of mathematics is itself so telling that it puzzles and frustrates me that even believers don’t recognize this more often. So there is a single cause, exterior to and predating the world, and acting through mysterious agencies as is its organizer and structurer…why, we’re not too far now from the very *definition* of the word “God”, are we?

 

The counter-arguments to all this are so inevitable that it drives me crazy. It is disconcertingly ironic that about two-hundred-and-ninety-nine out of every three hundred people I’ve come across who call themselves “freethinkers” (what an arrogant word!) act like clockwork dancers, always following each other in exactly the same predictable behavior, towing the same lines with their “freethinking”, offering the same responses, living in perfect mental unison with the literature they parrot, seldom deviating very much in their arguments and rebuttals from the same exact *wordings*. And in this case we come to the single most predictable situation of all. Although there are a few other clichés which might possibly come up in a situation like this it’s pretty much certain that you’ll always get one or both of the same two responses.

 

The first is a case of yet another classic defense mechanism—namely the act of dodging a question with another question instead of actually making any attempt at answering it. You all know what I’m talking about: “If the world came from God then where did God come from? If God designed the world then who designed Him? What laws is *He* subject to? Yada yada yada.” You see what I mean about sophistry? This kind of evasion *sounds* clever until you really think about it. When a man is told by the friend journeying with him that the rock in the wild they’ve just come across cannot be a mere natural growth, due to its shape and smoothness making it look too like a statue, the man does not insist on holding off on believing the claim until his friend can explain who the sculptor’s parents were. Appealing to infinite regression never solves anything and it never even addresses the actual issue at hand. The rock is the subject under discussion—nothing else. Not to mention that experience teaches that designer and design are almost *guaranteed* in any situation to be different things which don’t necessarily operate by the same rules. And the argument is contradictory nonsense anyway, as it asks what natural law applies to a supernatural being, how a nonphysical entity can possibly not be subject to a physical property like spacetime, how a designer can ever be separate from the thing He has designed. What else *could* be the case?

 

The second response—sometimes the *only* response, because every once in a while the atheist will skip the first one altogether—is yet more circular reasoning: “The forces of nature are just a property the universe has”. Circular because it can easily be rephrased as: “The reason the world has certain properties is because it has certain properties.” It doesn’t matter in the very least if the latter is referring to a mathematical type of property: you’re still going, “The reason we can describe things *this* way is because we can also describe them *that* way.” Still choosing not to recognize the difference between observation and explanation. You may as well say that the smoothness and definite shape of that rock in the wild are there because the rock has mathematical curves and angles which amount to those elements. No kidding? So does Michelangelo’s David.

 

So you see, it is not because of some natural human need to explain things—the very same need, by the way, which drives and justifies science itself, and always has—that we need to use an external higher power to account for the laws of nature. It is because there is no even theoretically possible alternative to doing so which does not result in or amount to miserable tortured logic every bit as circular as Christian inerrantists appealing to 2 Timothy 3:16 (“All scripture is God-inspired…”) to prove that the Bible is infallible. It is remarkable, really, just how similar are the mistakes made by religious and antireligious zealots, how identical can be the ways the most otherwise different types of people can close their minds.

 

I have other reasons for believing too but this is enough for now.

I honestly think there is a god that does good stuff and bad stuff to us. There can be an argument over this belief and it can last for so long with people thinking there is not one. 

RalphTheWonderLlama :

I can appreciate any one who can recognizes fallacies and circular logic regardless of their belief system, however some of your examples of atheistic claims and arguments don't seem to be how you portray them to be. I will use a few quotes to try and explain my perception of them.

"So put the two claims together and what you end up with is a complete vicious circle: “What makes the world the way it is? Its laws do. What are laws? They’re descriptions of the way the world is.” Or to put an even finer point on it: “The reason we can say that things are the way they are is because we can say that they are that way." "

I am going to assume you meant "see that they are that way" and not "say that they are that way" in the last bit of that paragraph so correct me if I'm wrong. If I am wrong please explain what that last sentence means because it makes no sense to me.� Anyways I fail to see how this is circular logic. If observations are made that explain how things work then in what way is it circular logic to say "The world works this way because we can see that it works this way" ?�

Now if you gave an example like "Why do the laws of physics exist? Because of the laws of physics." it would be more along the lines of a circular argument. I have never met any one who has made a similar claim to that and I am inclined to think most atheists would say that they don't know exactly how or why there are laws. One thing is for certain though, an atheist wouldn't just assume that those laws exist because of a super natural entity.


"The first is a case of yet another classic defense mechanism—namely the act of dodging a question with another question instead of actually making any attempt at answering it. You all know what I’m talking about: “If the world came from God then where did God come from? If God designed the world then who designed Him? What laws is *He* subject to? Yada yada yada.” You see what I mean about sophistry? This kind of evasion *sounds* clever until you really think about it."

This example usually is not evading anything. It is a defense mechanism as you point out, but what is wrong with defending your belief even if it is answering a question with another question? Typically a response of "If the world came from God then where did God come from?" usually follows a question along the lines of "OK so the big bang exists but what caused the big bang". The response is just used to show the theist that there doesn't necessarily have to be a known cause. If asking a question is the best way to defend your position than there is absolutely nothing wrong doing so. Now asking a completely irrelevant question (similar to what politicians often do) would be avoiding the original question.

I find it odd that some theists have no problem with their god not needing a creator yet give atheists a hard time about thinking the universe exists without a creator.


" The second response—sometimes the *only* response, because every once in a while the atheist will skip the first one altogether—is yet more circular reasoning: “The forces of nature are just a property the universe has”. Circular because it can easily be rephrased as: “The reason the world has certain properties is because it has certain properties.” "

�I am curious about who exactly is saying anything similar to “The reason the world has certain properties is because it has certain properties.” . Seriously let me know who some of these people are, I would like to talk with them. Just because the origin nature can't be fully explained doesn't instantly twist the atheistic view into circular logic. To be honest I'm not even sure how you can "easily rephrase" the first response into the second without putting words into their mouth. The two say very different things. Perhaps you meant "misinterpreted" instead of "rephrased".



With this thread post I am not trying to say that atheists don't ever have fallacious arguments or circular logic, of course they can, instead I am simply saying your examples aren't either of these. If theism is a ladder than science is an elevator.

well you can belive in god or you dont. but no one will ever know becuase there is no exact proof or evidence. becuase just ask your self who made god. i belive in god thats just one of those questions you cant answer you know

Vizzed Maniac : A big yes to that question yes there is a God. I thank him every day for what he’s done for me and for allowing me to straighten my life out. It hasn’t been easy and there have been struggles, setbacks, self-doubt and such but God has always kept his hand on me, even during times where I have been angry with god. He’s never left me.

I will admit as I have on Vizzed many times that I do not go to church but I am a firm believer in God and pray daily and thank him for what he’s done for me. I actually sat through a mass earlier this morning. It was the first time in a real long time I sat through a mass. Although I did not attend in person I did feel better afterwards. I am really considering making it part of my daily routine going forward.

Although it is tempting sometimes to sit and look at all the things going wrong with this world, war, death, disease, bickering, bigotry, and hatred to say God doesn’t exist believe me he does. I have been through much in my life and was a screwed up kid as a teenager. Although I didn’t really get the wake-up call that I needed until my early twenties I never doubted God’s existence even when I was at my worst.

I have said several times that I am grateful that I got the wake-up call while I was still relatively young and not in my fifties or sixties. I just hope that I will not be defined by what I consider the bad period of my life but rather the person I hope to become and that when all’s said and done I will feel like I have done good and have done my best to help people. I respect everyone’s view no matter what that may be but that’s how I feel about it.

There obviously is a God.

Allah
Ell-ah
Both these terms mean 'God' in Arabic and Hebrew.
If you look at the bible in Arabic you'd find the word Allah mentioned thousands of time,
and if you look at the Qur'an in Hebrew language you'll find the word Ell-ah mentioned thousand of times. 

Believers have faith.

Islam & Christianity are both similar, However Islam explains in detail about many things and has more stories than the bible.

In case anyone is wondering I no longer let myself get drawn into extended arguments on this board. It wouldn't have been an issue but then the thread got oddly resurrected out of nowhere--not that it matters even now since my points have been only allegedly addressed anyway. It's all in my post already. I'm not going to repeat myself.

Oh and salaam, kKlLmM.

I have no religion, and I think that religion is kinda stupid I mean most wars wouldn't have happened if religion hadn't be existing.
because the war starts with "my religion is better than yours" then the war strikes, so that's what I think, and I may say  this is a really smart topic.

I believe that God exists. I am an avid Christian, and I know that God exists. I agree with Vizzed Maniac, and the Bible has been proven true by non-Christian sources. I have no reason to believe that God is a lie, and every reason that He is real. Therefore, I know there is a God.

Bible does not prove the existence of god since it is just a badly constructed and edited scriptures that condradict even each other.

Yet. Since this bunch of gospels and something older hastly sewn together in the 300 ad or something does not mean there aint no god either.

And yet the wisdom found in the bible is still there. As do on to others. Ye who is without sin and so on. Are those not the things you should think of atleast? Are there not atleast some sense even if you dont belive the I am the way, truth and the life part?

Sure, christianity has been been responisble for lots of war and genocide but... Okay, I stop here. For now.

Eh, I think God is about as existent as the tooth fairy. If God doesn't even bother popping up in the sky and informing people of his (or her, or its) existence, then what's the point?
Why believe in something that you can't see, feel or hear?

Inb4 someone says they saw God in their dream. Well, you can see pretty much anything in your dreams. Including an atrocious flying box of Mac and Cheese that eats kids.

There are multiple reasons I believe in the existence of a God, and none of them revolve around "a feeling" or "I just know", nor even "I have had a super-duper awesome spiritual experience". They all revolve around logic.

And just to note, the existence of God has is not one of those "You can neither prove nor disprove it" situations. That's bologna. God's existence is easily proven. However, whether God likes you, interacts with the world, and many qualities of the individual are unknown. Those cannot be proven. I thing there are strong hints, but not enough to say "proven".

Edit: I am really bad at spelling.

Please don't flame me, it happens.

No, I don't think there is one. I think this world was made with a big bang and that Charles Darwin was a genius who was right on the money. The reason I have waited up until now to say this is that I haven't felt comfortable enough on this site to say it. In the real world though, I catch a lot of flack for it, and have had a bible thrown at me. 

To those who do believe in god, you are very much welcome to your beliefs. But don't try to change mine.

@Ender



Would you mind discussing why you believe there is no God? If it is just what you believe is more probable, state what are your reasons for saying that its more probable. In our discussion, I promise to never ever use a single bible quote, church father reference, or convince you why you subconsciously want Jesus in your life but a demon is making you confused.

 I'll be upfront though. Am I trying to change your beliefs? Yep. I think you're wrong, just like you think I'm wrong. I am hoping to teach you there is a coherent reason for the belief in a God.

So far, there are no convincing proofs that a god exists. There might be one/several, but I need tangible proof of it. The same thing applies for faeries, aliens, ESP...

Wait... Tangible proof... for something that is inherently intangible??? That sounds like a color blind person not believing in red because it doesn't work in they're eyes. I can give you an argument that uses the existence of tangible things, but the argument is more centered toward the existence, not the things (and "existence", technically, is not tangible).