Rationalising The Irrational - Hardcore Theists Apply Within

Did what Jesus say have any bearing on the existence or non existence of God?

Does it matter who Jesus is?

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Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.~Proverbs 28:26

To get you to tell me who you represent. For the record, I'll just mark down that you say its irrelevant. Or I can ask you again. Who do you represent in these discussions?

And I would agree. So about verification....Who Do You Represent?

Is it possible to belong to a club and ignore certain bylaws since the bylaws have no evidence? (Yes)Is it right to call yourself an Elk without believing in the Elk bylaws?Is it more honest to represent the Elks when talking about what the club stands for or to represent yourself? (The Elks)

In your case they likely would keep you around for comic relief. Edited by Phat, : added sentence

One of the better counter-arguments to this quote is known as Russell’s Teapot
Essentially the counter-argument is that absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence.

quote:

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We have good reasons for doubting an orbiting teapot; we know a good deal of relevant facts about entropy, materials science and the difficulty of getting an object into solar orbit. This is evidence which we can apply to the claim ‘there is a teapot orbiting the Sun between Mars and Earth.’ Teapots do not (except with vanishingly small probability) exist in nature except when human beings make them; and so we can say with confidence that it is immensely unlikely that there is such a teapot.

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What, then, can we say about the probability of God? Nothing. We know that the probability of rolling a die (unbiased!) and getting a 6 is 1/6 because we have observed many, many dice rolled many, many times and we can count how often a 6 comes up.

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But we know of only one universe, and the question of whether or not it is governed by God is the very point being debated; to assume that is unlikely is just to assume that you’re right without proving it at all. If we knew of 1,000,000 universes, and we knew that only one of them was governed by God, then we could say that God governing this universe is unlikely.

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But of course we have absolutely no such knowledge. God may or may not exist; we can say nothing about the probability either way.

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The link goes on to explain the life of Jesus as further evidence. The author concludes Or... we might point our metaphorical telescopes the other way, write articles about how ridiculous the idea is, and tell everyone that since there is no evidence, we refuse to believe it.The bottom line(in my mind) is not the proof itself. It is the necessity for such proof and the openness of the human heart to receive such an idea.Edited by Phat, : fixed breakage

You may have a point. I'll take it into consideration.

What I mean is that the public reaction to the death, burial, and reported resurrection of Jesus is much greater than most others who have died.Does a reaction count as evidence?

For supernatural, call GHOSTBUSTERS. For Humor call either Ringo or Charles Schultz For answers as to why it all sounds like meaningless cliches, try this:

would you say that the Bible itself sounds like meaningless cliches? In general, that is? Give me an example of something said that is meaningless and I'll see if I can explain it.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

The article covered this: The whole idea is based on faith. There never was meant to be evidence.But if you prefer, you can have faith that Donald Trump will make America great again or that there is no such thing as sin and this world will someday suddenly learn how to get along. I would never squash such hope. Why is it that men such as Richard Carrier attempt to spread misinformation and attempt to squash the faith of Christians?
Of course our faith will never be quenched even if they burned every Bible and religious tract on the planet. Christians won't disappear... Teach your children well because some of their friends will always be believers.

Greg Boyd, eh? I can google the sermon and even the Bible reference, but lets do something different. Pretend that I am an associate Pastor at your families church. You see me and we briefly chat and shake hands. You ask me if I have a few minutes to talk and I say sure, lets go into the cafe. So here we are.(we just had coffee...you offered to buy, but I beat you to it! So perhaps your question sounds something like this: "Phat, to be honest with you, that sermon today by guest speaker Greg Boyd made absolutely no sense to me." It sounded like a string of meaningless cliches and pious platitudes. Am I missing something?"Does that sound right so far?Edited by Phat, : edit

Im not sure that I don't actually agree with you. What I was trying to do, however, is to engage you in a conversation about whether the texts out of the Bible upon which the sermon was based were meaningless. If so, I suppose the discussion is stalled at that point.

I looked at the material that Boyd used as well as the scripture. I just was not feeling it and in fact see your point. Itr does sound meaningless! But then I am at Day 80 of sobriety and am getting prepared for some serious mental brain healing. It will be interesting whether I will become more or less of a zealot once my brain changes.I dont doubt my faith....just my logic.