Only two different types of belief

[atheist buddy]

In my opinion there are only two types of beliefs.

Examples of type 1 beliefs
Planet earth is approximately globe shaped, 2+2=4, my mother loves me, Los Angeles is west of Chicago, I have a million dollars in my bank account, humans have 23 chromosome pairs, Napoleon was born on August 15th 1769, Bradd Pitt is married to Angelina Jolie


Examples of type 2 beliefs
Jesus was born of a virgin, Mohammed flew into heaven on the back of a winged white horse, there is an alien space ship hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet which you can teleport to by committing suicide, Apollo causes the sun to rise eveyr morning by carrying it up into the sky on a charriot, the Lock Ness monster exists, Frosty the Snow man occasionally comes to life, Santa delivers gifts from his invisible North Pole factory to millions of homes every Christmas night.

What do all type 1 beliefs have in common? They are all supported by empirical evidence.

What do all type 2 beliefs have in common? They are all NOT supported by empirical evidence, and in many cases contradicted by empirical evidence


If you are religious, which type do your religious beliefs fall into?

If type 1, can you please spell out what your beliefs are, and what the empirical evidence for them is?

If type 2, can you please outline what justification there is for believing your specific type 2 belief and not any other type 2 belief?

If you agree that they are not type 1, but assert that they don't belong in type 2 either, could you please outline what attributes your beliefs have that differentiate them from type 2 beliefs?

[Zzyzx]

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Also virgin birth of Jesus is not against true laws of physics; it is against your current knowledge or understanding of what is really possible.

In order to legitimately state / claim / profess that a "virgin birth does not violate the true laws of physics" (in honorable debate) you MUST know what the "true laws of physics" REALLY are and be able to demonstrate that knowledge.

Do you know that? If so, kindly share with us here and with all the world.

If you cannot state "the true laws of physics" you have no legitimate grounds for claiming to know what is or is not possible.

In the real world there are numerous REPORTS / CLAIMS of virgins giving birth.

(Reuters) - Nearly 1 percent of young women in a U.S. study who have become pregnant claim to have done so as virgins, according to a report in the Christmas edition of Britain's BMJ medical journal.
The authors of "Like a virgin (mother)" - whose prose is devoid of irony - say such scientifically impossible claims show researchers must use care in interpreting self-reported behavior. Fallible memory, beliefs and wishes can cause people to err in what they tell scientists.

Based on interviews with 7,870 women and girls ages 15 to 28, 45 of the 5,340 pregnancies in this group through the years - 0.8 percent - occurred in women who reported that they conceived independent of men. The figure does not include pregnancies that result from in vitro fertilization or other assisted reproductive technology.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/ ... F020131217

Who is it, exactly, that knew that "Mary" (storied mother of Jesus) was ACTUALLY a virgin?

In ancient times many mythical / religious / political characters were said to be virgin-born (and may have been believed. However, if someone today makes that claim they are generally not believed (except perhaps by very gullible people or those who WANT to believe that the woman never had intercourse – or artificial insemination).

Why disbelieve the one in a hundred modern virgin-birth claims and believe the ancient claims? OR – are some (or all) of the modern claims true also?

[atheist buddy]

Napoleon being born DOESN'T VIOLATE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.

Also virgin birth of Jesus is not against true laws of physics; it is against your current knowledge or understanding of what is really possible.

That's an argument from ignorance.

You're saying "We are currently ignorant of a method by which the virgin birth could have happend in the iron age (other than Mary taking a bath in water where a man had just masturbated), therefore Mary was a virgin." Argument from ignorance.

Think about it 1213, is there ANY belief you could not make that argument for?

I could say "Mohammed's flying horse violates the laws of physics"

And just as easily as you said it about the Virgin Birth, you could say "Mohammed's flying horse is not against true laws of physics; it is against your current knowledge or understanding of what is really possible".

I could say "Buddha being born from a slit in his mother's side violates the laws of physics"

And just as easily as you said it about the Virgin Birth, you could say "Buddha's miracolous birth is not against true laws of physics; it is against your current knowledge or understanding of what is really possible".

Come on 1213, you can get this! If an argument for something demonstrates your case no better and no worse that it demonstrates something which actually isn't true, then your argument is not valid.


There is no reason today to believe the virgin birth happened. You're saying that's because our curent knowledge of physics is incomplete. Well, the time to start believing the virgin birth happened, is when our understanding of physics increases, and we have evidence that the virgin birth actually happened (and Buddha's miracolous birth didn't).

[1213]

Think about it 1213, is there ANY belief you could not make that argument for?

I think there is, those claims that can be proved wrong.

..."Mohammed's flying horse is not against true laws of physics; it is against your current knowledge or understanding of what is really possible"...
..."Buddha's miracolous birth is not against true laws of physics; it is against your current knowledge or understanding of what is really possible".

I agree with those. If I can’t prove something impossible, then it may be possible. It does not mean that it should be believed, it means it can’t be truthfully said impossible.

There is no reason today to believe the virgin birth happened.

Ok, why then some people believe so, if there is really no reason to believe so?

[1213]

In order to legitimately state / claim / profess that a "virgin birth does not violate the true laws of physics" (in honorable debate) you MUST know what the "true laws of physics" REALLY are and be able to demonstrate that knowledge.

But is it possible to show that something doesn’t exist? I don’t think so. Therefore I just say, no real law of physics is against birth of Jesus. You beliefs of what is possible may be against that, but your beliefs are not laws or physics, unless you can prove otherwise.

This is not about believing that someone was born of virgin, but about is it possible.

[atheist buddy]

Think about it 1213, is there ANY belief you could not make that argument for?

I think there is, those claims that can be proved wrong.

Such as?

..."Mohammed's flying horse is not against true laws of physics; it is against your current knowledge or understanding of what is really possible"...
..."Buddha's miracolous birth is not against true laws of physics; it is against your current knowledge or understanding of what is really possible".

I agree with those. If I can’t prove something impossible, then it may be possible. It does not mean that it should be believed, it means it can’t be truthfully said impossible.

Right, just because Jesus's virgin birth, or Mohammed's flying horse, or Buddha's miraculous birth or Superman's allergy to kryptonite cannot be proven impossible, it doesn't mean that it should be believed.

Thank you!

So since, by your own admission, the virgin birth as no more going for it than the fact that, just like Mohammed, Buddha and Superman claims, it cannot be proven impossible, then why do you believe the Jesus story and not the Mohammed, Buddha and Superman stories?

There is no reason today to believe the virgin birth happened.

Ok, why then some people believe so, if there is really no reason to believe so?

Argument from popularity!

Some people believe in the virgin birth, for the same reason hundreds of millions believe in Mohammed's flying horse, in Buddha's miraculous birth, in Santa, in the alien spaceship behind the Hale-Bopp comet, in scientology and in voodoo.

It's because the human mind is subject to indoctrination.

[atheist buddy]

This is not about believing that someone was born of virgin, but about is it possible.

Actually, no. It's about believing that someone was born of a virgin.

We all agree it's possible. ANYTHING is possible. Mohammed's flying horse is possible. Spiderman is possible. Santa is possible.

We are not discussing what's possible. We're discussing what's reasonable to believe actually happened.

[1213]

So since, by your own admission, the virgin birth as no more going for it than the fact that, just like Mohammed, Buddha and Superman claims, it cannot be proven impossible, then why do you believe the Jesus story and not the Mohammed, Buddha and Superman stories?

I believe what the Bible tells, because I can see it true in many cases. Also things that are said about Muhammad, Buddha may be true. They just don’t matter much. For me, the teachings in the Bible are the reason why I accept it and why I believe to Bible God. The “miraculous� claims are not the point, especially because no one can prove what happened 2000 years ago.

[ThePainefulTruth]

If you are religious, which type do your religious beliefs fall into?

If type 1, can you please spell out what your beliefs are, and what the empirical evidence for them is?

No, this isn't a cop out, it's the only rational answer possible. I believe there is no (non-hearsay) evidence about the creation of the universe either way. Therefore the only rational position on God is a purely agnostic one; i.e. a spontaneous creation, or a creation carried out by a non-detectable (in this universe), laissez-faire God.

We can speculate about the nature and motivations of such a deistic God, but it can be nothing more than that, pure speculation based on a pure "if".

[atheist buddy]

So since, by your own admission, the virgin birth as no more going for it than the fact that, just like Mohammed, Buddha and Superman claims, it cannot be proven impossible, then why do you believe the Jesus story and not the Mohammed, Buddha and Superman stories?

I believe what the Bible tells, because I can see it true in many cases.

Ok, but in the cases where you can clearly see that it's not true, like when it talks about talking donkeys and about the earth freezing in it's rotation, then you don't believe that, right?

Also things that are said about Muhammad, Buddha may be true.

Right, there are some truths to many books. Even the Spiderman Comics tell the truth about the fact tha tNew York exists, and about many of its architectural attributes.

They just don’t matter much.

Wait, what? How does one book with hundreds of millions of followers "not matter much" while others with hundreds of millions of followers matter more? How can you make such statements?

For me, the teachings in the Bible are the reason why I accept it and why I believe to Bible God

Right, but we already discussed that the teachings of the Bible are mediocre at best. Everything good that Jesus said was already said earlier by better philosophers, and all the rest is abysmal teachings about murder, rape and slavery.

The “miraculous� claims are not the point, especially because no one can prove what happened 2000 years ago.

Well, we can "prove" that 2000 years ago nobody got pregnant without male intervention.

[atheist buddy]

If you are religious, which type do your religious beliefs fall into?

If type 1, can you please spell out what your beliefs are, and what the empirical evidence for them is?

No, this isn't a cop out, it's the only rational answer possible. I believe there is no (non-hearsay) evidence about the creation of the universe either way. Therefore the only rational position on God is a purely agnostic one; i.e. a spontaneous creation, or a creation carried out by a non-detectable (in this universe), laissez-faire God.

We can speculate about the nature and motivations of such a deistic God, but it can be nothing more than that, pure speculation based on a pure "if".

Right. In the absence of evidence the only two options are beliefs not based on evidence (like Christianity), or refusal to form a belief.

That's what the speculation you described is.

We're not in disagreement and I don't think you're copping out. I too am agnostic about the existence of a deistic god.