Why are you an atheist/Agnostic

[FirstSunday33ad]

Here's just two reasons:
- the world is not perfect, therefore it was not created by a perfect being
- we do not have have proof that even one religion is right, but we do have proof that many must be wrong, since many religions contradict each other -that is, they can't all be right.


What is the reason you think Santa Claus doesn't exist?


I think this is true. That is why I do not tell other people to stop believing in God. But judging from your post I do have a feeling that you on the other hand want me to change my worldview based on your criteria of convincing evidence.....

Oh, I don't know, perhaps because the tomb had been found empty?

The problem with absolute beliefs: God does not exist; God does exist and this is His name and address; etc., are that they presuppose that we possess all the information necessary to arrive at a conclusion and that this conclusion is correct.

But given that human beings can know only a minute fraction of everything that there is to know, it is practically impossible to state anything with such certainty. Given that fact, it is understandable that there would be as many religions as there are and that each would be as certain of their validity as the next. It is not much different with politics - everybody is convinced that the party they support is the best party and their opponents party is the worst.

But if you start with the realization that everything you believe could be false and then examine it as set against a whole, you stand a better chance of sifting out desire and being left with cold hard fact. For the most part, religion is explainable and dismissible. We can reasonably explain much of the "why" when it comes to religions. Each has a flaw that can undermine its acceptance - and this is also true of Christianity.

But in doing this, we need also to examine everything each religion says and claims as truth. We can't just brush over those parts that defy explanation simply because it is too uncomfortable to address. We can't just assume "oh it must have been due to this" or shrug our shoulders and say "who knows, does it matter?" We can't because it does matter. If we have a claim that can not be explained outside of accepting the claim as being true, then we have a problem if we insist that the claim is false. Simply brushing over this claim is irrational; it is saying in effect that we don't care what the evidence says we won't accept the claim. This is attitude of the dogmatic. Once we start dismissing or ignoring evidence we have ceased thinking rationally and have started thinking fanatically.

[FirstSunday33ad]

I am an atheist because I'm fairly certain that humans are the creators of their gods, and not the other way around.

I have no idea why the followers of Jesus of Nazareth claimed he resurrected; any more than I know why anyone else makes supernatural claims.

Then you are following a religion which was invented by men.

[FirstSunday33ad]

So you agree that some religious groups will make claims for purposes of countering others rather than just because the claim is true?

You also seem to agree that some religious groups will make claims similar to the claims potential converts may already believe.



We obviously have a different understanding of early Christianity.



Most of the beliefs of early christianity existed before the 1st century among certain sects of Jews. Read the Wisdom of Solomon as an example.



I figured as much.

I have read Wisdom of Solomon. As well as the Talmud and texts on ancient Judaism, Islam, Greco-Roman theology, philosophy and society.

What I have discovered is that there is no plausible reason for early Christians to make the claim of a resurrected Jesus - other than that it actually happened.

If you have some meat to put on those bones, I would be happy to see it.

[FirstSunday33ad]

My excuse for being an atheist, I tried to argue with them about the existence of God. As I felt doubt creeping in I soon started to observe the evidence from a increasingly objective standpoint, went in to a breif period of deism in which I do not remember but one day I merely noticed I'd discarded God as a plausible notion. I didn't activley make the choice to as I did when discarding christianity. I suddenly had the thought, NOW REALLY, am I actually saying that a completeley random being just magiced the universe in to existence. Flooded the planet in order that he might fail to wash away mankinds sinfulness, turn people in to towers of salt for looking at their burning home, and suicidal demon pigs all happened.

You threw the baby out with the bath water.

The universe came into being 13.9 billion years ago, earth about 4 billion years ago, life evolved including human, there was no global flood, Lot and Sodom are legends as are much of the first five books of the Bible and human beings wrote it not God.

Those facts explained; can you explain why early Christians claimed Jesus of Nazareth resurrected?

[Carpedm9587]

You reject a God belief because your rational thought prevents the likelihood of a God's existence.

My rational thoughts don't prevent anything. God either is or isn't, independent of my thoughts. My reasoning merely tries to discern which of those conditions is true.

The points you raise are valid and true.

However, it does not explain Christianity.

You didn't ask me to explain Christianity. You asked me to explain why I was atheist.

Given that people are for the most part reasonable and need to be convinced before accepting an idea as true; why did the early Christians make a claim that from the outset would have been rejected as ridiculous?

The Christian claims aren't rejected as ridiculous today - so why do you think they would have been rejected as ridiculous 2,000 years ago when polytheisms were still rampant and belief in the supernatural even more common?

People accept beliefs for reasons that are reasonable to them. Sometimes they are rational reasons, sometimes they are not. And even rational people accept beliefs that are false, unless you want to argue that every non-christian in the world is "irrational" because they aren't Christian?

Why did they hang everything they were claiming about Christianity on this one point; that Jesus of Nazareth physically rose from the dead?

We have no clue. Why did people kill themselves with change in their pocket to catch a comet shuttle? Why did people drink the Koolaid in droves in Jonestown? Why did (and do) people follow the teachings of a con man? Why did the ancient Egyptians believe in Osiris? Isis? Why do people avoid walking under ladders? Why do otherwise intelligent people refuse to change their socks as long as their team is winning?

There was no reason to do so if any other explanation for Christianity is valid.

And here you make what appears to be JPH's invalid assumption: that people always make reasonable choices and that we can reason back from behavior to causes - as if every behavior has only one possible cause. Who knows how and why Christianity caught on. Right message. Right place. Right time. Right people. People believed it because they found it likely - attractive - convincing - or because they had personal experiences they interpreted as in support of it. They believed then for the same reasons they believe today - and the reasons are vast and varied - and not always reasonable.

If it was a philosophy, a resistance movement, an anti-Pharisee, return to God or Israel first cabel; there was no need to invent a story of a resurrection and then to say "if it did not happen our new faith is false".

And who was going to be able to check and verify? What were they going to do - bring the CSI folks down to check the site? What evidence do you think was provided back then besides testimony of people making claims about what they saw and heard?

Until this question can be satisfactorily answered, to reject Christianity is the irrational act. You must reject evidence that supports its claim and invent "stories" in order to provide an alternative explanation.

It has been my rule of thumb that the more outlandish the explanations become the greater the likelihood what is being claimed is false.

In general - I agree. It's one of the reasons I'm not Christian. The explanations are simply too outlandish and improbable for me. And most of them are riddled with assumptions that cannot be supported.

It has been my experience, that when the question of the resurrection is addressed, the counter explanations to it actually being an event in history become increasingly ridiculous.

The English in this one is a bit tortured, but I think you're saying that people explaining why the resurrection is NOT historical end up with incredibly complex explanations - so you don't buy them. This you are free to do, obviously.

Personally, I don't set out to try to explain what happened 2,000 years ago. I don't need to. We don't have enough information to make that assessment and make a determination one way or the other. We know "something happened" or there would not have been a Christianity. I think there is enough evidence to support the claim that there was a Jesus of Nazareth who lived and preached and died. And there is enough evidence to support the claim that he had followers who basically took up when he left off.

What happened in the 20-30 years between the death of Jesus and the initial documentation of the life of Jesus is lost to history. The details of what happened during the life of Jesus is lost to history. What we HAVE is the claims of a community that had been slowly growing (presumably) from the time Jesus first started preaching until those documents were written. Which parts of those documents are historical fact and which are the results of decades of theological musing and revision we will never know - except (of course) for those parts we have been able to historically verify).

We do know that this community had at least one, and possibly several highly charismatic leaders. The power of a charismatic leader to convince and sway a population is pretty well documented over the course of time. For any proposition offered, there is pretty much always a willing audience somewhere. Combine those two things, make the message a strongly psychologically coercive one that is unverifiable, integrate elements that are part of familiar religions of the day, toss in the willingness of a few key characters to die for it, and I see all of the makings for a religious cult forming and taking root. And it doesn't have to require that someone actually "rose from the dead" back then any more than it does today.

Your argument essentially boils down to "they were much closer to the event than we are - so they MUST have known. I find that unconvincing. A few years or a few millenia - if the evidence is "someone told me," it's all the same. And we don't know they had any more (or less) information to work with than that. If it convinces today, why not then?

And when I observe that Christians reject every OTHER claim for the supernatural but their own, every OTHER body of evidence for other faiths but their own, and offer nothing but word-of-mouth (or word-of-text) for their evidence, I see no basis for following that pack.

Michel

[FirstSunday33ad]

Dear FS33,

Why do you think there are atheists?

Love

Trout

Atheism is a product of our culture, history and time. Democracy, the Protestant movement, scientific discovery and free speech.

[FirstSunday33ad]

Personally, I don't set out to try to explain what happened 2,000 years ago. I don't need to. We don't have enough information to make that assessment and make a determination one way or the other. We know "something happened" or there would not have been a Christianity. I think there is enough evidence to support the claim that there was a Jesus of Nazareth who lived and preached and died. And there is enough evidence to support the claim that he had followers who basically took up when he left off.

What happened in the 20-30 years between the death of Jesus and the initial documentation of the life of Jesus is lost to history. The details of what happened during the life of Jesus is lost to history. What we HAVE is the claims of a community that had been slowly growing (presumably) from the time Jesus first started preaching until those documents were written. Which parts of those documents are historical fact and which are the results of decades of theological musing and revision we will never know - except (of course) for those parts we have been able to historically verify).

We do know that this community had at least one, and possibly several highly charismatic leaders. The power of a charismatic leader to convince and sway a population is pretty well documented over the course of time. For any proposition offered, there is pretty much always a willing audience somewhere. Combine those two things, make the message a strongly psychologically coercive one that is unverifiable, integrate elements that are part of familiar religions of the day, toss in the willingness of a few key characters to die for it, and I see all of the makings for a religious cult forming and taking root. And it doesn't have to require that someone actually "rose from the dead" back then any more than it does today.

Your argument essentially boils down to "they were much closer to the event than we are - so they MUST have known. I find that unconvincing. A few years or a few millenia - if the evidence is "someone told me," it's all the same. And we don't know they had any more (or less) information to work with than that. If it convinces today, why not then?

And when I observe that Christians reject every OTHER claim for the supernatural but their own, every OTHER body of evidence for other faiths but their own, and offer nothing but word-of-mouth (or word-of-text) for their evidence, I see no basis for following that pack.

Sorry, but your reply is unconvincing and more importantly utterly fails to answer the question why they said this to begin with. And if you are to be rational, you DO need to know what happened 2,000 years ago. Otherwise, all you have is wishful thinking and faith.

I accept the fact that people are essentially rational animals. We act on motive. If I say something happened there is a reason for my saying it. If I claim something outrageous happened and stake everything on its being true, I definitely have a motive – a very large motive. You accept as historical fact that shortly after Jesus’ death, written documents began to appear that claimed that He had resurrected. In light of what we know about ancient texts, it is apparent therefore that word of mouth of this event preceded these documents by decades.

Lets assume therefore, that the event did not happen. Jesus has died a shameful death, which under Jewish Law makes him cursed by God. His followers start the story that he did not stay dead but resurrected. They further claim to have numerous witnesses to this fact. They go on to state that if he did not resurrect their entire belief is false and that they are lost. Now, these people are Jews. Based on their writings, they were devote Jews. Yet, here they are making a false claim that is essentially blasphemy. They are cut off from their community, eventually excommunicated, persecuted and killed. Yet they cling to the invented story. What makes the story all the more dangerous is that is WAS verifiable. All you had to do was go to Jesus’ tomb. Ancient Jews always buried their dead – even those cursed by God. They buried them in family plots or on public land set aside for the poor. Claims that Jesus might not have been buried ignore this fact and are therefore invalid. It is telling that even anti-Christian Jewish leaders claimed that his body had been stolen and not that it was still in the family plot.

Now, I am not going to say that it is impossible for people to do things like this, but I will say that if they do do them they have an extremely powerful and overarching reason for doing so. Yet whenever the question of this motive is raised all I get in reply is silence or suppositions without evidence.

The question is basic and goes to the heart of Christianity; without suppositions or “maybe it happened like this” – why did early Christians claim Jesus had resurrected?

[wattsr1]

Yes. Failure to answer a key question does indicate that regardless of whatever objections may exist, the possibility of validity is stronger and of fiction. Christianity rises or falls on the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth - nothing else. Demonstrate a plausible alternative to its actual occurance and you have undercut its foundation.

So far no one has ever been able to do this.

So who says no one offered a plausible alternative?



Regards, Roland

[Roy]

Please don’t say “because there is no evidence”; that statement is vapid and false. Evidence exists to support any and every belief ever held by people.

No, that is vapid and false. People have believed plenty of things for which there is no evidence.

Eat hot death dirtbag

So why don't you worship Osiris?

Roy

[John Powell]

What is the definition of extraordinary and supply an example of extraordinary evidence as it applies to a natural question and an example of it as it applies to a supernatural question.

POWELL:
Easy.

Extraordinary: beyond the ordinary.

Example of extraordinary evidence: Seeing it with your own eyes.

Applied to a natural question: You won the multi-million dollar lottery. Seeing the announcement on T.V. Seeing the oversized check. Seeing the regular bank statements. Seeing large quantities of cash readily given to you upon request.

Applied to a supernatural question: The dead rise. Seeing dead bodies rise out of their graves.

Any more questions?

John Powell

[Carpedm9587]

Sorry, but your reply is unconvincing...

And I should care because...?

You didn't ask me to convince you, FS, and I had no expectation of doing so. You asked me to tell you why I am, and I did. If you had asked me to convince you, I would have said "no thanks." Believe what you want. It makes little or no difference to me.

and more importantly utterly fails to answer the question why they said this to begin with.

We don't KNOW why. That's the whole point.

And if you are to be rational, you DO need to know what happened 2,000 years ago.

No - I don't. What Alexander the Great had for breakfast on this 23rd birthday is also lost to history. I don't waste a lot of time thinking about it. How Muhammad got his start is lost to history. I don't spend much time there either. Who killed and sacrificed the first goat to their god is lost to history. It doesn't make me less rational not knowing who it was.

Otherwise, all you have is wishful thinking and faith.

Umm.. actually... I am far more comfortable with "I don't know" than with "some god must have done it."

I accept the fact that people are essentially rational animals. We act on motive.

Yeah - but the problem is you think you can discern that motive based on the behavior. It doesn't work that way.

If I say something happened there is a reason for my saying it.

Probably. And the reason could me it actually happened, or you're trying to fool people, or you hit your head and hallucinated, or you're mentally ill, or you accepted the word of someone else uncritically, or you are afraid to be wrong, or <insert reason here>. You're trying to argue that you can know the motive of a person on the basis of their behavior.

That doesn't even work in the present - never mind trying to do it for people who lived 2,000 years ago, with scant information about them, in a different culture, different language, etc., etc., etc. Perhaps you can convince yourself that you KNOW what happened. However, to do so you have to make more assumptions and swallow more unsubstantiated claims than I am comfortable doing.

If I claim something outrageous happened and stake everything on its being true, I definitely have a motive – a very large motive.

Probably. The problem, of course, is determining what that motive is.

You accept as historical fact that shortly after Jesus’ death, written documents began to appear that claimed that He had resurrected.

The only ones we have date back to the early second century, but the contents make us think we're talking mid-late first century for the original works. So a couple of decades after the events, give or take, as best we can determine.

In light of what we know about ancient texts, it is apparent therefore that word of mouth of this event preceded these documents by decades.

Oh I'm sure the word-of-mouth thing traces all the way back to the life of Jesus. Once the community started, they would likely been having theological and religious discussions from the get go.

Lets assume therefore, that the event did not happen.

If you wish.

Jesus has died a shameful death, which under Jewish Law makes him cursed by God. His followers start the story that he did not stay dead but resurrected. They further claim to have numerous witnesses to this fact. They go on to state that if he did not resurrect their entire belief is false and that they are lost. Now, these people are Jews. Based on their writings, they were devout Jews. Yet, here they are making a false claim that is essentially blasphemy. They are cut off from their community, eventually excommunicated, persecuted and killed.

Actually - they are cut off from THAT community, but apparently see themselves as the actual "true" community that is the possessor of truth. That seems to happen when religions split into individual sects. Each one thinks they have "the truth." If they didn't, they wouldn't split. Happens all the time.

Yet they cling to the invented story.

If it was invented, of course. They may well have believed it to be true.

What makes the story all the more dangerous is that is WAS verifiable. All you had to do was go to Jesus’ tomb.

Meh Gerbil actually painted a marvelously plausible scenario in another thread that was amazingly complete, and did not include a resurrection whatsoever. It involved a disgruntled leader of the Judaic community with an axe to grind, wealth, and access to the right people to bribe to set the entire farce up, and convince a few key players it was real.

Of course, THAT would be dismissed today as "implausible." That is the typical way these things are dealt with. The problem is, it required no supernatural events, and accounted for all of the events. And it is only ONE of a hundred possible scenarios, most of which don't even have to include "they were lying and faking."

You are left with the same basic problem, FS - you are assuming that you can look at a behavior and reason to the motivation for the behavior. It doesn't work that way. The best you can say is "this seems possible" or "that seems likely." But, at the end of the day, you just don't know.

Ancient Jews always buried their dead – even those cursed by God. They buried them in family plots or on public land set aside for the poor. Claims that Jesus might not have been buried ignore this fact and are therefore invalid.

And claims that this never happened any other way are assumptive and unsubstantiated. The bast you can do is say "this is what Jews generally did." But you are talking about a Jew that, by your own argument, was killed in an humiliating fashion by a foreign power. Your claim rests on the assumption that there are no exceptions to human behavior: The Jews always do X. The Romans would have done Y. The apostles would have done Z.

But people do what they do for reasons known only to them. Your faith is based on a tissue of assumptions you cannot substantiate.

It is telling that even anti-Christian Jewish leaders claimed that his body had been stolen and not that it was still in the family plot.

Actually, FS, you don't even know THAT. What you know is that is what the gospels say. But the gospels were written well after the fact, and you have no way to sort out what is historically accurate from what is the result of a few decades of theological discussion, rumination, and evolution.

Now, I am not going to say that it is impossible for people to do things like this, but I will say that if they do do them they have an extremely powerful and overarching reason for doing so. Yet whenever the question of this motive is raised all I get in reply is silence or suppositions without evidence.

That's the point, FS. There IS no evidence - outside of what is documented in the gospels. You cannot demonstrate that what they report is historically accurate, and I cannot demonstrate it is not. You can only assume it is.

The question is basic and goes to the heart of Christianity; without suppositions or “maybe it happened like this” – why did early Christians claim Jesus had resurrected?

You can't answer that question without suppositions, FS. Your faith is riddled with them. You suppose the gospels relate accurate information. You suppose people behave precisely and predictably. You suppose you can take a behavior and reason to its motive. You suppose people would not act outside their cultural norms.

But history belies your suppositions. People act erratically - sometimes. People act outside of the cultural norm - sometimes. People accept belief on scant evidence - sometimes. People adopt beliefs on the basis of thin evidence - sometimes.

As I said - you are free to have your beliefs. It makes no difference to me whatsoever. And I have no intention of trying to convince you. I know that attempt would be futile and it is not my place. Your beliefs will change, if they do, when you determine the evidence you have doesn't support the beliefs. If you never determine that - you will go to your death with your beliefs, just as I will likely go to mine with mine.

Such is life. :shrug

Michel

[familyof6]

Then you are following a religion which was invented by men.

I do not follow any religion.

[Warcraft3]

By definition. Do you think there's any gold...?

Gold?

Maybe I'm a bit slow, but I'm not getting it...

Well, you COULD, Grasshopper. But the wise man wouldn't.

Perhaps.

I could be wrong...

Now THAT's interesting.

Well.....its the truth...

There is hope for you yet, Grasshopper.

I certainly hope so....

Hopefully you have turned to the light.

Well I am no YEC if that is what you mean.....my positions on the age of the earth, evolution, and the Genesis account are very close to Glenn Mortons positions.

It would be an interesting exercise, Russ, to take the various pieces of evidence we examine when it comes to things like the biblical claims and examine how we interpret them individually and collectively. It might even be a useful exercise. I picture a blank tally board with "evidence for," "neutral," and "evidence against" as the headings. Each would present a piece of evidence they consider when assessing the "truth of the claims" and indicate where they would place it and whether it constitutes strong or weak evidence.

I'm game...

For example - if the focus was on the claims concerning the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, one piece of evidence we would clearly have to consider is the gospel accounts. To me, they are obviously evidence that would go into the "for" column because the texts make the claim the resurrection occurred, and they relate some details about the event. I would, however, flag it as "weak" evidence. My reasons for considering it weak include our inability to corroborate the claims via any external sources, the time separation between the events related and the writing of the stories, and our inability to determine authorship with any degree of reliability.

Where would you put this piece of evidence and how would you flag it (strong/weak)?

If I was just looking at the gospel accounts alone....I would obviously put them into the "for" category and I would label them as weak since we do not have and existing external sources to confirm the event.

I do not think the time separation or the authorship issue are valid reasons for considering them weak though.....but I do think the external sources argument is a valid one.




Russ

[Nicholas]

It doesn't actually, but thank you for thinking of me

What's the point of asking people if you all you are going to do is dismiss their responses? I could go on and on in detail about why I am an atheist and, based on what you've said to others, you will not consider any answer adequate, no matter how much detail someone places into their description.

[nickcopernicus]

Please don’t say “because there is no evidence”; that statement is vapid and false. Evidence exists to support any and every belief ever held by people. We select the evidence that supports our beliefs and reject the evidence that contradicts them. So a claim of no evidence is meaningless.

Please don’t say “because there is no convincing evidence”; that is as bad a claim as the above. Convincing evidence is only that which we are pre-disposed to accept. There are those who believe irrefutable evidence exists to support UFO’s, monsters, flat planets and 9/11 conspiracies. All you are saying when you claim an absence of “convincing” evidence is “there is no evidence that I am willing to accept”. Unless you possess the one thing that no one possesses – a truly open mind, free of prejudice – your criteria of what is evidence is no better than anyone else’s

Perhaps the best way to start to answer this question is to see if you can answer the following question:

Why did the followers of Jesus of Nazareth claim that He had resurrected?

If you can plausibly answer this question, you may be able to answer the original question.

Nick:

Why are you an atheist/Agnostic

This is an answer to your question about your god. "Because the existence of your god is logically impossible.

Why did the followers of Jesus of Nazareth claim that He had resurrected?

Temporary insanity.


Cheers,

Nick