My Beliefs- GDR

Yes, we all do it to varying degrees - confirmation bias is a well known psychological trait - but you're missing the first part of the process, the revelation.If, as you do, feel that a God is speaking to you or guiding or nudging you, you then you must have a need to know more. It seems to me that once you form the view that a god is taking a personal interest in you, the information that you go on to process is always going to be biased towards the belief. How could it be otherwise? I did understand that you hadn't had the full reveal, but your partial revelation wasn't my point. I'd had the full monty revelation during my Christian childhood and then noticed that it was nonsense when I was old enough to reason. The question for you is why a God would unreveal himself in that way?

I don't think GDR is seeking to justify that as such. His "justification" (if I have understood correctly) is to claim that those who believe the opposite are engaging in exactly the same but opposite fallacious reasoning. I know you believe that the resurrection didn't happen because you don't believe there is a god to have enabled the resurrection. Your rejection of the resurrection is a case of putting the cart before the horse. It's a logical fallacy. It's circular reasoning. See if you can follow your own reasoning: You believe god doesn't exist therefore the ressurection didn't happen. And you believe Christianity is wrong because Jesus wasn't ressurrected. How do you justify your own equal but opposite circular logical fallacy thinking based on the non-existence of God?Now I'm not defending GDR's position here (and he is welcome to tell me to butt out if he thinks I'm just confusing the issue) but as far as I can tell his position in this thread ultimately rests on the idea that everyone starts from a position of belief or disbelief and then draws their conclusions as to what qualifies as reasonable based on that starting premise.

What evidence is there that intelligence evolved without involvement of any external intelligent agency?

OK. Did chemistry and evolution exist when the world was first formed. Didn't chemistry and evolution have to emerge from the base elements and compounds that made up the planet at that time meaning that even then there had to exist the potential for sentient life? [qs=oni]I'm not following. Paul never saw Jesus yet claimed he appeared to him (or whatever it says exactly) - then Paul also writes of 500 nameless people, unidentified completely, who he says also saw Jesus.The only question that I'm asking you is do you think that can be faked?[qs] Of course. People can write whatever they want. That is your belief. I answered that question about faking a miracle and you agreed that they couldn't. I think what you are actually asking is whether it is easier to make up a lie about a miracle or for a miracle to have actually occurred.Well from Paul's POV obviously it is easier, (I think you likely meant plausible), to make up a lie as Paul is incapable of creating a miracle. If however the resurrection didn't happen it does become very difficult to sell that lie to those that actually lived through that time in Jerusalem. It would also require there to be a conspiracy between Paul and Jesus' followers when at the outset Paul was a sworn enemy of the Jesus' followers. Straggler has already addressed that and has accurately explained what I had been trying to get across.Thank you Straggler.

Arse about face, yet again. It's always the case that if you're claiming something then you need to support it - it's not on us to make the opposite case.But anyway we know that everything else about us and all life evolved without any intelligent intervention, the null hypothesis is that intelligence did too.We also see that other animals including our closest relatives have both intelligence and social skills and we see a development of brain size over time that shows its evolution. In other words, if god did intervene, he did it gradually over time in order to fool us into thinking it was a natural process.

You want me to prove something did not happen? What are you crazy? Or maybe you have no idea how science actually works. Is there a chance there was an intelligent agency behind it? Yes. Does the evidence show there was? No.See if you can follow.
At one time there was no life. Whether intelligent or not has no bearing on the subject. You are dissembling by focusing on intelligence. Now there is life.Therefore, life started some how.We have evidence of chemical reactions and we find precursors for life throughout the world and have created them in labs. We have no evidence for any supernatural occurrences. Evidently, in your view this god stopped doing miracles once science reached a point where it could actually detect or measure such a thing(convenient huh!, sort of like no nessy or bigfoot photos since advent of high quality cell phone cams).We have evidence that once life started, life evolved and has achieved many types of intelligence. It seems that intelligence is another word you want to redefine in order to bolster your arguments. Define what you mean by intelligence.We have no evidence of any supernatural creation of "intelligence", or anything at all for that matter.Follow the evidence. Again your comments and demands are nonsensical and show your beliefs have no basis in evidence. Faith and faith alone.

I completely agree. Personally I don't really think about it in those terms Frankly I just plough through life on the assumption that I am doing the right thing and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. The one time that I really did feel directed by God to do a certain thing it set me up for what has turned into a life long ministry from that point on. I talked about it in this post. Message 9 Other than that the only nudging I receive can be attributed to a heightened sense of conscience about what I have done and what I have left undone.Bottom line is I can't tell the difference between what I come up with on my own or when I'm being nudged. Essentially I'm just trying to live my life as best I can by following the teachings of Jesus. I'm not sure what you mean by the "full monty revelation" you received as a kid and I'm not sure that God did unreveal himself to you. In some ways it depends which version of Christianity you rejected. I reject the Christianity that agrees that God wanted His followers to commit genocide, or to engage in public execution by stoning people to death. If that is what you rejected then I think that your moving away from your Christian faith probably brought you closer to the heart of God than you had been previously.

Thanks Straggler. I know this is a debate forum but I have trouble dealing with it that way. I am really just interested in having a discussion and learning from it.I did however know that when I started this thread how it would go so I went in with my eyes open. Bottom line, I appreciate the help.Thanks

Yes, and as I have shown in this thread, he is wrong to do so. I don't believe a resurrection happened because there is no evidence for a resurrection happening. There are stories, there is no evidence. I know he's doing that, and he continues to be wrong in doing so.If I started with the position that magic was real, then I'd believe a number of supernatural events were real. That goes without saying.The point is why would one start from a position that is unevidenced - such as magic OR god - and then claim anything else is possible after that? That is begging the question.- Oni

This sort of rationalisation and dissembling is frustrating.I am an atheist, I reject the lot - to me the Christian faith (like all others) is, pure and very obvious, nonsense; a total delusion.So I went from believing everything as a child to knowing that it's all a human invention when I was old enough to think for myself.
I'm asking you to explain why, if God existed and wanted to save my soul, he then made me see the light and reject him? Why would he do that? Why put my immortal soul in jeopardy?(You do understand that this is a purely academic question - I'm not looking to be saved or be preached at and prayed for, I'm very happy in my atheism.)

The way you're asking that question leads me to think you may not know what either of those two things are.Chemistry is not something unique to our planet, chemicals bond everywhere throughout the universe. Evolution happens after life emerges - which is how you go from a single cell to humans after 4.5 billion years. In combination the two (chemistry and evolution) have all the potential for life emerging AND surviving.So yes, chemistry existed before the Earth formed. Ok, because you said before it was not possible.I was never talking about physically faking the miracle as in some kind of magic act. Maybe it was the way I worded it.I just meant, is it more likely that someone lied about seeing a miracle or that a miracle actually occured. Or, it could just mean the entire story is a fable, and as I have shown, pulled from other stories that wrote about the son of god, his death, and resurrection. Since the Bible doesn't come together as one book until over 200 years after the alleged death of Jesus, who knows who the sources are of these stories and if any of them actually saw what they saw. I do believe Straggler was playing devil's advocate. But I have also shown Straggler how your position of trying to reverse the logical fallacy is wrong.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Oni - You don't need to convince me!!Look it's the same old same old. GDR, Bluejay, RAZ etc. etc. etc. all effectively take the position that raging on-the-fence fundamentalist agnosticism is the only justified position and that either belief or disbelief (as they see it) are both just opposite sides of the same un-evidenced-personal-bias-it's-your-world-view-etc coin.You don't need to convince me of the flaws in this approach!!! I'm just trying to get you to see it from GDR's angle so that you can understand why he doesn't admit defeat when you point out that he is engaging in circular begging the question reasoning. He doesn't admit defeat not because he disagrees but because he thinks your position (and mine for that matter) is just the same as his but opposite.

Primarily, it seems, because they think faith=evidence.And amazingly GDR is so blinded by his faith he even thinks that you are supporting him.

I know! Well, if GDR's position was "I don't know if god exists so I can't know if a resurrection, and for that matter, Jesus himself are real" then this thread wouldn't have happened.GDR differs in that he starts not from an agnositic (I don't know either way) position, but from a firm "I know there is a god and therefore miracles can happen" position. This is not the same as RAZD's position of agnostism and is the reason his position specifically is a logical fallacy.I can almost get behind RAZD's position of admitting to not know either way, and as I have said before my position is that I have to know what you mean by god first before I can take a position one way or the other. But I can't understand why one would start with the belief that there is a god without evidence for said god, then, assume everything else claimed about god can be true because one already believes in the god....my head is spining. I don't actually think he feels they are the same. I think it's just what he's saying in this debate. If the discussion was about the abilities of unicorns, he would, as he has said already, need evidence for unicorns before one can claim a unicorn has any abilities at. Otherwise you have put the cart before the horse.Why he doesn't do the same for god is what I'm questioning.Furthermore, someone asking for evidence first for unicorns before believing they exist is NOT also putting the cart before the horse.- Oni

Personally, I find your position jess fine. You are welcome to your beliefs. And that position too is jess fine. I'm perfectly happy to pray for your salvation even if you don't believe it is worthwhile.