I Know That God Does Not Exist

Apparently, my opponents have set the measurement of the goalposts in this discussion.Were this topic in Faith & Belief, I would have stronger ground to defend my world view through a good sermon, despite my opponents vilification of all apologetics as word salad! We are here, however, and the debate has to be framed that the "God" and subsequent "God Characters" are all inventions of the human mind and that the entire lot of them are contained "in the book"....namely the books known as the modern Bible. The ESV, the NKJV, and/or the KJV are the best known. (You can have the NIV! ) Nonetheless, for the purposes of this discussion, earlier Canons are irrelevant as are scribblings from various contemporary mythicists. It is only fair, as my opponents seek to discredit the apologists as well. Moreover upon examination I see no compelling evidence from any of these people.So we stick to the book.The first crazy argument, found online at an atheist website (surprise, surprise) is this:
How and Why Did a Snake Have the Ability to Talk? by Austin Cline, himself an interesting Bio:

quote:

---

Austin Cline, a former regional director for the Council for Secular Humanism, writes and lectures extensively about atheism and agnosticism.

​

Citation: Cline, Austin. "How and Why Did a Snake Have the Ability to Talk?" Learn Religions, Jun. 25, 2019, learnreligions.com/punishing-the-snake-for-telling-the-truth-247982

---

The article parrots almost exactly the same counter-dogma (I will call it) that ringo and jar regularly use in their arguments.The strength of their argument is that it is taken nearly verbatim from the scripture itself. Even though a room full of apologists would nearly universally disagree with the argument, it is a sound argument on the surface. A Science Forum is the only place such an argument would be left alone---and it appears from the posts by EvC Atheists Stile, Tangle, Theodoric, and ringo (jar is simply an old curmudgeon who insists he is a Christian simply because he belongs to an established club) that the basic scientific argument against Christian Apologetics and Biblical Christianity is that evidence and facts are the gold standard for any belief. Intuition, Internal Indwelling by the Holy Spirit, and an appeal to popularity among modern day believers all lack clout in such a science-based approach. All that I can really use is the book itself, since that is what was used to ground this scientific argument to redefine Biblical meaning.Give me a day or so to write my argument. ringo will no doubt claim that I still have but an assertion.

And still he gets it wrong....evidence and facts are the gold standard for KNOWLEDGE. And are therefore worthless. The book is all you've got but even you accept that it's myth and primitive storytelling so it's a puzzle why you're so hung up on trying to argue on a factual basis - the only facts you have confirm its fiction.You really should just claim it to be a mystery which has been personally revealed to you by the voice in your head and get on with preaching to your converted.

If a conclusion is reached using logic and reason, it is rational. It may or may not be correct.

So start a topic in Faith and Belief.

Consider the phrase, "It was a good idea at the time, but knowing what we know now..."

You're not reading my lips: Wrong is not necessarily irrational; right is not necessarily rational. That's why they made us show our work in math class.

That is correct. But I wasn't commenting on whether or not is was "wrong" or "right" or "correct" or "incorrect" for people in ancient times to believe in gods, or for people nowadays to believe.For earlier people it may have been rational, as their knowledge was less extensive than ours. As you implied, one may make the wrong decision rationally.

Again, rationality is not based on knowledge. It's based on logic and reason. More knowledge may make for more correct answers more often but it doesn't improve your logic.

So, to follow your analogy to math class, two plus three is always five, whether I'm asking you, now, or asking Alcibiades in Classical times, or Og back in times the Creationists say didn't exist?

ringos basic problem is that he thinks he can figure out what truth is.

Our knowledge is always imperfect, but still we try to find out the truth as best we can.

Isn't that pretty obvious?

You have it backwards. You are the one who thinks he can get "truth" from the voices in your head. I think we can get correct ( and useful) answers by using logic and reason.

quote:

---

In another example, Peter Gordon spent many years living among the Pirah tribe of Brazil learning their language and culture. He noted that the Pirah have only three words for numbers: one, two, and many. He also observed that they found it difficult to remember quantities and numbers beyond three even after learning the Portuguese words for such numbers.
Chapter 1 – The Culture Concept | Selected Perspectives: an Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

---

What's your point?