An image that got me wondering

[JBoy]

Christianity is about accepting god into your life so you can go to heaven. So what about people and cultures that existed before the bible and christianity, do they go to hell even though they knew nothing about god?

[SCope13]

Christianity is about accepting god into your life so you can go to heaven. So what about people and cultures that existed before the bible and christianity, do they go to hell even though they knew nothing about god?

Them along with the millions of people who follow a religion besides Christianity.

[magma]

There is more than circumstantial and common sense type evidence, but the definition of 'god' varies from person to person, sometimes even amongst the same religions, which makes it hard to even debate. Like how a lot of Catholics don't pay much attention to Jesus at all, they prefer saints and such. I mean things like lack of geological evidence of certain supposed events, lack of written testimony outside the specific religious circle, and far too many opposing and contradictory ideas and writings from around the same times, often in the same religious works that have been edited to shreds over time.

That mixed with logical fallacies and paradoxes such as the omnipotence paradox, and the idea of 'where did god come from? How is an all-powerful being created? If it always existed, why couldn't the universe and atoms always have existed, thus having no need for a conscious creator.'

Those 2 main ideas are more than enough for most people, which is one of the main reasons there are not loads of scientists everywhere trying to find a conscious creator, and why there is only a handful of traditionally religious scientists in comparison.

That's my point. You can easily prove there's no need for a conscious creator, but you can't prove there actually isn't one.

As for proving individual tenets of religions wrong, well that's easy. Religions don't even update themselves as science moves along. It was the belief in God I was really pointing at - it's still perfectly possible to be a scientist studying the Big Bang and hold a belief that a Creator could have set the whole thing in motion. We literally can't see into that moment at the moment, no matter how hard we try. It's hidden from us pending some serious leap in knowledge sometime soon.

For me, it's enough to live my life assuming there's no God... but I've met people that know an awful lot more about quantum physics than me that have faith... it is faith though, they haven't seen anything to back it (obviously, someone would've said)... but quite simply, we can't frame an experiment to deduce the existence of a Creator at this point.

As for trying to prove it with science, that's how things like Bertrand Russell's Teapot argument and Occams Razor came to be.

Those are philosophical tests, not scientific tests. William Paley would equally shoot back with the Watchmaker analogy and remind us that we still can't see that moment.

Tl;dr faith like this is tied to what we call the 'supernatural' (as in not natural) and already a firm belief, not an idea or hypothesis, and has no real relationship with natural science.

It can be supernatural... but most naturally faith sits in the unknown. Where it's impossible to know something, faith steps in and although evolution, geological records and cutting edge genetics point more and more to a lack of need for a Creator, we still haven't done two important things - we haven't created life from scratch (we've come fucking close) and we haven't seen the moment of Creation. That's enough doubt for a Creator to sit in if you're so inclined.

Faith sits in all kinds of unknowns... you have faith in the fact you'll wake up in the morning when you make plans for tomorrow.

What I really find interesting/funny is when a religious person brushes off the idea of extraterrestrials as stupid, or even worse as 'heresy'. Maybe the best is when they refer to aliens (or even creatures on Earth) as 'godless beings'. There is a real sick arrogance about religion, as if their god would only create humans (and sometimes only a specific race of human) yet somehow would also not be responsible for other lifeforms, yet they never really ask themselves where those lifeforms might have come from. Asking such things is considered heresy, because when you ask such things and question them, that's how religion starts to lose its power and die off, and that's why it's taboo and could get you easily murdered in the past, and sometimes still today.

You're allowing a specific example of a type of religious person to cloud your opinion of most of the people on the planet. Most of the stargazing scientists that mapped the Solar System, discovered the orbits and first fantasised about life existing out there were religious in some shape or form. Plenty of people make dicks out of themselves in public, it's not because they're religious, it's because they're stupid.

[cmgoodman1226]

Christianity is about accepting god into your life so you can go to heaven. So what about people and cultures that existed before the bible and christianity, do they go to hell even though they knew nothing about god?

That's just false. The basis of Christianity is the smashing of self and service to others.

[RightOnTime27]

I'm addressing this towards the original image: The events and people in the bible are real people that have been confirmed to have existed by non-religious scholars of those era's. Also the bible has stayed remarkably similar. There are 24,000 known early copies of the bible and there is a .2% difference in the language of those which is incredible. Also a large majority of those variations were articles . There are 500 known early copies of the Illiad and there is a 5% variation of the wording in those copies. There are no historical events in the bible that have been proven false, and while there are obviously faith based components, the bible does not ask you to believe in it only because it says to. Comparing the most historically accurate text in human history to greek mythology is ludicrous.

[SCope13]

I can reproduce any document I want as many times as I want with 100% accuracy using my laptop. That in no way means that what I write is factual.

[ketamine]

I'm addressing this towards the original image: The events and people in the bible are real people that have been confirmed to have existed by non-religious scholars of those era's. Also the bible has stayed remarkably similar. There are 24,000 known early copies of the bible and there is a .2% difference in the language of those which is incredible. Also a large majority of those variations were articles . There are 500 known early copies of the Illiad and there is a 5% variation of the wording in those copies. There are no historical events in the bible that have been proven false, and while there are obviously faith based components, the bible does not ask you to believe in it only because it says to. Comparing the most historically accurate text in human history to greek mythology is ludicrous.

[RightOnTime27]

And I'm sure all those 1st century scribes would have been super jelly of your macbook. What I'm saying is two things:
A. The people and the historical events in the bible existed, non-christian scholars confirm this. (I'm talking the non supernatural events). It is the most accurate text in human history.
B. 99.8% what the authors wrote up to several thousand years ago wrote is exactly what you can read today. If you choose to believe in Abraham's God that means that exactly what he wrote is what you can read today. The claims of "some douche along the way changed things so he could do what he pleased" are baseless. Obviously there are no empirical evidence in either direction, the events of my life have led me to believe in God. I can take comfort in knowing the accuracy of the bible. I'm not trying to convert anyone, merely vouch for the text.

[wormcode]

There is more than circumstantial and common sense type evidence, but the definition of 'god' varies from person to person, sometimes even amongst the same religions, which makes it hard to even debate. Like how a lot of Catholics don't pay much attention to Jesus at all, they prefer saints and such. I mean things like lack of geological evidence of certain supposed events, lack of written testimony outside the specific religious circle, and far too many opposing and contradictory ideas and writings from around the same times, often in the same religious works that have been edited to shreds over time.

That mixed with logical fallacies and paradoxes such as the omnipotence paradox, and the idea of 'where did god come from? How is an all-powerful being created? If it always existed, why couldn't the universe and atoms always have existed, thus having no need for a conscious creator.'

Those 2 main ideas are more than enough for most people, which is one of the main reasons there are not loads of scientists everywhere trying to find a conscious creator, and why there is only a handful of traditionally religious scientists in comparison.

That's my point. You can easily prove there's no need for a conscious creator, but you can't prove there actually isn't one.

As for proving individual tenets of religions wrong, well that's easy. Religions don't even update themselves as science moves along. It was the belief in God I was really pointing at - it's still perfectly possible to be a scientist studying the Big Bang and hold a belief that a Creator could have set the whole thing in motion. We literally can't see into that moment at the moment, no matter how hard we try. It's hidden from us pending some serious leap in knowledge sometime soon.

For me, it's enough to live my life assuming there's no God... but I've met people that know an awful lot more about quantum physics than me that have faith... it is faith though, they haven't seen anything to back it (obviously, someone would've said)... but quite simply, we can't frame an experiment to deduce the existence of a Creator at this point.

As for trying to prove it with science, that's how things like Bertrand Russell's Teapot argument and Occams Razor came to be.

Those are philosophical tests, not scientific tests. William Paley would equally shoot back with the Watchmaker analogy and remind us that we still can't see that moment.

Tl;dr faith like this is tied to what we call the 'supernatural' (as in not natural) and already a firm belief, not an idea or hypothesis, and has no real relationship with natural science.

It can be supernatural... but most naturally faith sits in the unknown. Where it's impossible to know something, faith steps in and although evolution, geological records and cutting edge genetics point more and more to a lack of need for a Creator, we still haven't done two important things - we haven't created life from scratch (we've come fucking close) and we haven't seen the moment of Creation. That's enough doubt for a Creator to sit in if you're so inclined.

Faith sits in all kinds of unknowns... you have faith in the fact you'll wake up in the morning when you make plans for tomorrow.

What I really find interesting/funny is when a religious person brushes off the idea of extraterrestrials as stupid, or even worse as 'heresy'. Maybe the best is when they refer to aliens (or even creatures on Earth) as 'godless beings'. There is a real sick arrogance about religion, as if their god would only create humans (and sometimes only a specific race of human) yet somehow would also not be responsible for other lifeforms, yet they never really ask themselves where those lifeforms might have come from. Asking such things is considered heresy, because when you ask such things and question them, that's how religion starts to lose its power and die off, and that's why it's taboo and could get you easily murdered in the past, and sometimes still today.

You're allowing a specific example of a type of religious person to cloud your opinion of most of the people on the planet. Most of the stargazing scientists that mapped the Solar System, discovered the orbits and first fantasised about life existing out there were religious in some shape or form. Plenty of people make dicks out of themselves in public, it's not because they're religious, it's because they're stupid.

I can't reply to specific quotes since I'm stuck on a phone travelling, but I do understand what you mean and I agree those are philosophical arguments, not scientific as religion/god is philosophical in nature when it boils down to it. Not scientific, so I don't see how science be used at all if they aren't related.

Yes there is supernatural aspects, and some that are less so, but as I said opinions on god and religion varies so much that it's extremely hard to debate at all. For example not all people who believe in god believe in a guardian angel, or ghosts, but some do. Obviously those are supernatural aspects.

Do you mean create life from scratch on a sub-atomic level? 'Witness creation'? As in recreating the conditions of the big bang? I do believe this will happen in time, the only thing holding it back is ourselves - humans. Too many conflicts, wars, politics involved. I have doubts it will happen in my lifetime, but I do think it would be possible if we did not have to waste funds and resources elsewhere like wars. Even space exploration has a rocky future because of this which is sad.

You're right, ancient stargazers and astronomers were largely religious, but as those sciences expanded, the practitioners started to abandon those beliefs and they were replaced slowly until the point of now being pretty rare. It was slowed down even more by things like crusades and other wars, if not for that, we probably would be more advanced in astronomy and might have already had a firm grasp on things like quantum physics. Things have been 'rebooted' too many times, and knowledge lost.
There are still scientists who hold religious beliefs (maybe 'values' is more appropriate for some), but I wonder how much is real and how much is habit. Kind of like atheists who still celebrate Christmas, but may not tie religion into it.

But I'm not allowing a specific example to cloud my judgement of most people, I know not everyone thinks that way. That's why I said 'a religious person', not 'all relligious people'. But I do think religion as a whole is tainted with arrogance, it can't be otherwise or else there wouldn't be so many different beliefs. One is thought to be right, others are thought to be wrong.

Personally, traditional religion and a conscious creator is not for me. I am interested in pantheistic ideas and some aspects of deism though. I enjoy discussing religion, and have studied it when I was younger, but I do not wish to change people's personal beliefs. I enjoy people being different, and would not want everyone to be the same religion (or none) just like I definitely would not want everyone to be the same race.

Even if that happened, we'd find something else to use as an excuse for argument and conflict I'm sure.

[cmgoodman1226]

I'm curious how many people here believe in god but do not believe in aliens or something like sasquatch? It seems very common based on discussions I've had or read in the past.

If you believe in one or the other, do you think they were created by the same creator/god as humans?

Personally I don't know if INTELLIGENT extraterrestrial aliens exsist because even as vast as the universe is, it just seems like a bit of a leap. To my knowledge (which isn't a lot so I very well could be wrong here), we've only been able to create the precursors of organic molecules from inorganic molecules. If I'm not mistaken I believe the experiment came out with the precursors of proteins from a mini system based on what we believe early earth was comprised of. From here, you still have to get to DNA, which is still in itself not alive. Then you have to get to simple cells, and then to even more complicated ones. All this being said, if the exsistance of life or intelligent life on other planets was discovered, I wouldn't be dumbfounded as the universe has been in exsistance for billions of years.

In regards to sasquatch, I believe it's possible, but IMO unlikely. And it's really a bit of apples to oranges there because the belief in a god is to believe in something outside of empirical data, something outside of human understanding (which I completely understand why and how that sounds ridiculous to so many people), whereas to believe in sasquatch is to believe in a creature that has exsisted among us for so long, yet aside from mostly sketchy video footage, there is no evidence for. There are no fossils or bones or skat or anything which we can attribute to a new species.

In all honesty, the biggest hurdle for me and my beliefs is questioning, "what makes humans so special in the evolutionary chain that we're the ones who have a belief in a god?". And I don't have the answer to that question, which is one of the reasons that I don't KNOW god exsists. I believe in god yes, but that's not to say that I don't have any doubts.

[ketamine]

And I'm sure all those 1st century scribes would have been super jelly of your macbook. What I'm saying is two things:
A. The people and the historical events in the bible existed, non-christian scholars confirm this. (I'm talking the non supernatural events). It is the most accurate text in human history.
B. 99.8% what the authors wrote up to several thousand years ago wrote is exactly what you can read today. If you choose to believe in Abraham's God that means that exactly what he wrote is what you can read today. The claims of "some douche along the way changed things so he could do what he pleased" are baseless. Obviously there are no empirical evidence in either direction, the events of my life have led me to believe in God. I can take comfort in knowing the accuracy of the bible. I'm not trying to convert anyone, merely vouch for the text.

[Dub_freak]

(I'm talking the non supernatural events). It is the most accurate text in human history.

So apart from all the things that make it non-historically accurate, it is historically accurate?

If you want a piece of text that is accurate, go read a science textbook.

[cmgoodman1226]

And I'm sure all those 1st century scribes would have been super jelly of your macbook. What I'm saying is two things:
A. The people and the historical events in the bible existed, non-christian scholars confirm this. (I'm talking the non supernatural events). It is the most accurate text in human history.
B. 99.8% what the authors wrote up to several thousand years ago wrote is exactly what you can read today. If you choose to believe in Abraham's God that means that exactly what he wrote is what you can read today. The claims of "some douche along the way changed things so he could do what he pleased" are baseless. Obviously there are no empirical evidence in either direction, the events of my life have led me to believe in God. I can take comfort in knowing the accuracy of the bible. I'm not trying to convert anyone, merely vouch for the text.

My only point about the bible earlier was that there seem to be a lot of inconsistencies in regards to God's laws. There are also plenty of passages that people today would see as morally reprehensible. That doesn't detract from it though. I see it as a book written by fallible humans. There's no shortage of good or bad messages throughout it, and I feel that using common sense would be usually enough to differentiate the "wrong" in it from the "right".

[cityzen]

The people and the historical events in the bible existed, non-christian scholars confirm this. (I'm talking the non supernatural events). It is the most accurate text in human history.

Source?

I tried googling it but all I get is a load of christian websites saying that the bible is true and that the evidence to back that up can be found.... in the bible

[Dub_freak]

In all honesty, the biggest hurdle for me and my beliefs is questioning, "what makes humans so special in the evolutionary chain that we're the ones who have a belief in a god?"

Because we are the only animals intelligent enough to question our existence and try to formulate an answer.

[RightOnTime27]

Can you prove Lazarus or Jesus were not raised from the dead? Neither can I, what I am saying is there are no archaeological finds that disprove any part of the bible, but many that give credence to specific events within the text.

And I saw an informal series of lectures on proving the bible outside of christian historians. It was mostly based on Roman historians of the New Testaments era, and Meditaranian scholars of the Old Testament area. I'll have a conversation with the guy who gave them, see if I can get his specific sources.

edit: cmgoodman I was referencing Scopes' post on making copies of something on his laptop, i wasn't directing anything at you

[Dub_freak]

Can you prove Lazarus or Jesus were not raised from the dead? Neither can I, what I am saying is there are no archaeological finds that disprove any part of the bible,

there are none that prove it either...

If there is no evidence for or against, then how can you call it accurate?

oh and i think its time to whip out some NSC...

[JBoy]

I'm addressing this towards the original image: The events and people in the bible are real people that have been confirmed to have existed by non-religious scholars of those era's. Also the bible has stayed remarkably similar. There are 24,000 known early copies of the bible and there is a .2% difference in the language of those which is incredible. Also a large majority of those variations were articles . There are 500 known early copies of the Illiad and there is a 5% variation of the wording in those copies. There are no historical events in the bible that have been proven false, and while there are obviously faith based components, the bible does not ask you to believe in it only because it says to. Comparing the most historically accurate text in human history to greek mythology is ludicrous.

HAHAHAHA Yes the bible has some truth to it but its mostly inaccurate bullshit. How can you say that no historical events in the bible have been proven false? There are a dozen 'events' that did not happen whatsoever. You must get your info from wikipedia or some christian website because anyone who is educated in history (or with common sense) will know what you've just said is total bollocks. Scrolls were recently found in egypt that contained lost gospels which spoke about jesus, his wife and his son but funnily enough these were either never included in the bible or removed. The old testament contained information that clearly states god had a wife and a council of gods, these gods later became the angels in later versions. Saying the bible is unchanged since the 1st century is wrong because it wasnt even compiled until the 4th. You obviously dont have a clue what shit youre chatting about mate.

[cityzen]

The people and the historical events in the bible existed.

Do you want to change this to be a bit more specific? Like, 'some people and some of the historical events in the bible existed/happened', or are you happy with the statement as it is?

[cmgoodman1226]

Can you prove Lazarus or Jesus were not raised from the dead? Neither can I, what I am saying is there are no archaeological finds that disprove any part of the bible,

there are none that prove it either...

If there is no evidence for or against, then how can you call it accurate?

oh and i think its time to whip out some NSC...

haha I love him. This is by far the best one