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Author Topic:   Are Atheists "Philosophically Limited"....?
Tempe 12ft Chicken
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 438
From: Tempe, Az.
Joined: 10-25-2012


(1)
Message 214 of 262 (724266)
04-15-2014 2:09 PM
Reply to: Message 209 by Raphael
04-14-2014 8:21 PM


Re: Repetitive
I am following this debate with some interest, but I thought of a question about the Bible verse that you keep quoting. I will quote it here so you know of which one I am speaking:
Bible writes:
58 Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. - John 8:58
My question does not hinge on the inaccuracy of the translation of the words. For the sake of this, let's assume the translation got the words exactly as they should be. However, what if the punctuation was not added in correctly in the translation, such that the verse becomes:
"Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was I am."
Then all this statement is saying is that before Abraham was the Jewish God, which refers to itself earlier in the Bible as, "I am that I am." This seems to make more sense grammatically and makes it seem like the comma was added to make people assume Jesus was speaking of himself by creating a slight pause in thought. Just a question about this verse and maybe you have a solution...
Onto the topic at hand as it has been discussed so far, I will leave the rest of these religious discussions to others more adept, it was just a question I thought of while reading that.
I do not see atheists as philosophically limited, rather we (at least myself) are philosophically patient. Many of us, such as myself, have spent a considerable amount of time giving back to our respective churches before leaving the faith and then through thought and searching determined that this use of our time and effort was spent toward a goal that lacks any sort of evidence aside from anecdote. I, along with many other atheists (a majority of atheists), would have no trouble accepting a God as an answer should it be willing to ever present any actual objective evidence about itself. However, myself, I do include a list of the likelihood of this or that God presenting itself in my mind as well. I find the odds of objective evidence being found for the Christian God, as described in the Bible, to be so close to zero as to make no difference. Why? Because this God is logically inconsistent with everything that is stated about him....all-loving, yet willing to massacre an entire planet because one species out of millions wronged him....All-knowing, but still acts like people have a choice to deny him, even though they were made with that already being known.......all-powerful, yet can't control a snake from convincing individuals to eat from a forbidden tree (which he would have known would happen). I find this situation very unlikely...could it be? Sure, but there is no reason to stress myself about this god without a large amount of verifying evidence. A theist God, I could see as requiring a little less evidence for me to buy into it, but it would still require some sort of objective evidence, above and beyond irreducible complexity. Mainly because of all the interesting little quirks in body plans (blind spot, largynal nerve in giraffes, rabbits' method of eating) that show that if this God is responsible for intelligent design, he is neither intelligent, nor a very good designer.
So, no I do not think that Atheists philosophically limit themselves, they just require some sort of evidence to back up a claim before it can be given any credence...evidence consisting of natural events or other items that affect the natural world, not anecdote and storytime....I had enough storytime growing up in the Church, I'd prefer good answers based on facts at this point of my life.

The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. - Richard Dawkins
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. - Issac Asimov
If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person’s body, and tied them end-to-endthe person will die. - Neil Degrasse Tyson
What would Buddha do? Nothing! What does the Buddhist terrorist do? Goes into the middle of the street, takes the gas, *pfft*, Self-Barbecue. The Christian and the Muslim on either side are yelling, "What the Fuck are you doing?" The Buddhist says, "Making you deal with your shit. - Robin Williams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 209 by Raphael, posted 04-14-2014 8:21 PM Raphael has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 220 by Raphael, posted 04-17-2014 1:57 PM Tempe 12ft Chicken has not replied

  
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