The faith of atheism

[Guest]

I keep hearing quite often people say "It takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian.

If You are an atheist, is that true, and why or why not??

If you are a theist, is that true, and why or why not?

[Jester]

Apologies for being absurdly long, it happens sometimes, and no worries about being busy. It happens to all of us from time to time.

Thanks!

I define atheism as the belief that no gods exist. This is not to say that one must be absolutely, unquestioningly committed to the idea in order to be an atheist. But reaching it as a conclusion, even a tentative conclusion, requires trust in some things that are not proved.

You can define it as milking cows in a pink tutu if you want, your definition has no application unless your definition has some meaning to the people you're talking to. You can't pick a word with an established meaning, assign an entirely different meaning to it and then hold people who already were using that word to your new meaning, it just doesn't work that way.

My definition can be found in the dictionary, and has been widely used since long before I presented it.

If you want to do that, come up with an original word to which you can assign any meaning you like, at least you're not trying to assign non-existent baggage to something without it.

The reason why we have the term non-theist is for people to avoid being grouped into the definition I mentioned when refering to thier beliefs. As most people in the English speaking world seem to define the term as I do (I've only heard your definition from people claiming to be atheists), it would make more sense to refer to this minority definition by the new word.

Regardless, I would argue that an atheist by either definition has not escaped the requirement of making a claim in order to enter a debate. If, in fact, atheism is not a belief or position on whether or not God exists, it is not relevant to such a discussion. It is merely an interesting tangent.

Please explain here what you mean by "doesn't accept", is that to say someone who believes God not to exist, or someone who is very unsure either way? Mostly, I don't accuse atheists of having a religious belief. I accuse them of having trust in some things beyond what is evidenced (just like everybody else).

There is no evidence for Bigfoot, therefore I do not accept the claimed existence of Bigfoot. If someone comes up with objective evidence for Bigfoot, I will examine the evidence and may change my mind based upon this new data. By the same token, there is no evidence for God (or any deity for that matter), therefore I do not accept the claimed existence of any god. If someone comes up with objective evidence for a god, I will examine the evidence and may change my mind based upon this new data. This is the same position I take for absolutely everything for which there is no objective evidence.

This is not an answer to my question above, unless you are seeking me to understand that this is the position that God probably doesn't exist with the stipulation that you are willing to change your opinion given new information. If that is the case, then I would consider you a person who holds the belief that God probably doesn't exist (which fits my definition of atheist). If not, please explain your position on whether or not God exists.

You're welcome to accuse them of having trust, you'd just have to be able to back that up. Personally, I cannot think of anything for which I have the kind of trust you claim I must have, certainly not for any position upon which I base a claim of factual truth. Maybe you'd like to point some of them out.

The claim of factual truth that I believe that you are making is that God probably does not exist. To this end, you cite a lack of evidence. Personally, I suspect that you are insisting on scientific evidence for a non-scientific entity, which would be a clear problem. Thus, I would suggest that many atheists have trust in the idea that, if God exists, there would be clear scientific evidence that would convince most skeptics, and I believe that this is a position that is not in line with the facts. It is, therefore, based on blind trust.

My comment above was not referencing personal evidence. We were actually discussing the Bible as an historical document as a primary source.

There are some things in the Bible which have some historical weight and many, many things which do not. Simply appearing in the Bible doesn't make it any more likely to be factually true than appearing in Harry Potter.

If this is your argument, then I would say that you do not understand the idea of historical documentation. There is a clear qualitative difference between a historical manuscript and a modern work of fiction.

Any credible historian will tell you that it's not appearing in a book that makes it historically valid, but appearing in multiple independent eyewitness sources, then combining that with actual physical evidence.

This is the argument that the Bible is non-conclusive evidence (one or more set of accounts, for which many want other corroberating evidence before accepting as true), which is my position as well.

That means that there are parts of the Bible that are generally reliable and parts that are mythical. Just because you find evidence that a site referenced in the Bible was real doesn't mean that anything reported to have happened there ever really happened.

I never mentioned sites.
I'd also like to know which you consider to be mythical, and which historical. Most often, I find that people categorize as mythical anything that would contradict naturalism. I don't mind such categories, but, if this is the case, we can't use that as an argument to establish naturalism. This would be circular reasoning.

We have a great deal of evidence that unicorns don't exist, as we've gone searching for them without any success. The trouble with applying this same logic to God is that we are not talking about a physical thing, meaning that the same sort of tests are no longer relevant.

No, we have no evidence whatsoever that unicorns don't exist.

Searching for something where it is claimed to be and not finding it is evidence that it does not exist insofar as the search is thorough. We can say that we have strong evidence that there is no second moon, of equal size to the first, orbiting Earth. This is because we can check for that. The same is true of unicorns.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when there was absolutely no evidence whatsoever for atoms. We had no clue they existed. That doesn't mean they only leapt into existence once we found evidence.

Of course not, but I think you are mixing your statements here.
First, resonsidering an idea based on new evidence never means that reality changed, but our understanding of it. We often go from situations where evidence points one way, but such turns out to be wrong. I never made any claims about popping into existence.
More to your point, the lack of evidence for atoms centuries ago is not evidence for a lack of atoms because humans did not have methods to check for atoms. This would, therefore, not be analogous to our situation with the unicorn today.

There are lots of things that we don't know that doesn't change the fact that reality is reality whether or not we understand it or not. Our complete and utter lack of evidence for unicorns proves only that we have no evidence of unicorns, not that they do not exist.

Nothing can be proved absoulutely, I suppose. I also agree that reality doesn't change with our perceptions of it, but that is beside the point. I claimed that an inability to find something, when checking for it in the correct way, is evidence.

By this line of reasoning, it takes no faith to reject every statement ever made. We have no evidence whatsoever that the physical universe exists.

Except that we all interact with it every single day, you mean. Even if, in whatever ultimate reality that might possibly exist, the physical universe isn't real and we all live in the Matrix, the fact remains that we all must live our lives as if the physical universe is real and therefore, it doesn't much matter.

This is the statement that you don't personally care whether or not it exists, not evidence that it does. It seems analogous to Pascal's Wager - that we may as well assume that reality is here because that's easier/better than assuming it doesn't. That may be practical advice, but neither is a logical statement. As such, I'd say that my original claim stands.

Referencing your "solipsist" comment, the idea that the universe is real should be rejected on the same grounds if we are going to be consistent.

The problem with solipsism is that such a condition ought to be testable but people who believe it absolutely refuse to do so because they realize, at least on a subconscious level, that they're out of their gourds.

This seems to be the claim that, if something is not testable, we should simply believe what is easier for everyday living. The fact remains that such people, regardless of what you may believe about their subconscious motivations, are logically correct when they say that there is no evidence the the physical universe exists. To insist that they accept that claim on the grounds that we can't ever know who's right is not a logical response.

If you honestly believed that you were the only real person in the universe, even if you're a brain in a jar, and everyone else is a figment of your imagination, then what's the point of living life the way you live it? Why stop for stop signs? Mow down pedestrians, after all, they're not real. Why not go on a shooting rampage every other day? You're not really killing anyone, you're in the equivalent of a giant video game. Anyone who honestly was convinced that the world was an illusion ought to have no problem operating that way. Most absurdly, if you're the only person around, why do so many of these solipsists get on the Internet and type messages to people that don't exist? That's utterly ridiculous.

Again, this is the appeal to consequences fallacy that characterizes Pascal's Wager.

So they rationalize why they have to act as if the world was exactly as it appears, that they'll somehow get punished if they act in a manner not consistent with the illusory world in which they don't think they really live, but that's an absurd notion.

I don't claim to know what they do or don't rationalize, but am not really interested in it at the moment. I merely want to discuss the fact that the physical universe is completely unevidenced, and how that relates to the idea that we ought not accept unevidenced claims.

I think they should be examined by consistent standards, yes.

No you don't. You say you do but you don't really. The Qu'ran records that Mohammed flew off on the back of a winged horse. If you were really willing to examine all writings by a single consistent standard, then the existence of flying horses ought to be given credence by the claim in the Qu'ran. But I'm willing to bet you don't believe for a second that's true. We can go through hundreds of books with tons of supernatural claims that we both know you'd reject out of hand, just because they don't fit your particular worldview, yet you want us all to accept your religious book somehow gets special treatment, just because you believe it.

Let me outline my claims myself, please.
Regarding your comments, I consider the Qu'ran to be an historical document, and have no problem with a Muslim referring to it as non-conclusive evidence in a debate. At that point, we would probably discuss the relitive likelihood that it was written by eyewitnesses and a public document from it's earliest form, as well as other sigificant issues.
In our case, however, we aren't having that discussion. Rather, my questions have centered around the Bible verses more secular writings, such as historical writings about Julius Caesar, and whether you accept those as evidence. And, of course, why or why not?

I'm not arguing otherwise, and will entertain the argument of anyone defending the claims of any historical document, rather than dismissing it out of hand.

No one is dismissing anything out of hand, experts have been examining the Bible and other religious books for centuries, trying to find actual, demonstrable evidence to support the extraordinary claims therein and they have all come up entirely empty.

I'm not certain which experts or specific claims you mention, but I'd say that the concept of scientific evidence for the extrordinary is a contradiction in terms. If the supernatural existed, science couldn't comment, as it is defined in such a way as to remain silent on the issue. As such, it comes as no surprise to me that there is no scientific evidence of the supernatural. What there is, however, is historical records. This may not be conclusive evidence alone, but it is evidence, which is all I claimed.

In fact, every single solitary supernatural event in the Bible that we have been able to objectively examine has turned out to be entirely false. Creation? Nope. Flood? Never happened. Flat Earth? Completely wrong.

I don't want to get into the claims of Genesis, as I have some serious issue with the conservative approach to these myself. Can we at least agree, however, that it doesn't refer to the Earth as flat?

At best, you've had people who have tried desperately to rationalize their way around the evidence, but there just isn't one single supernatural claim in the Bible whatsoever that has survived even the most casual objective evaluation.

If you are defining "objective" as scientific, then the game is rigged from the start. If one sees that the structure of science only allows for secular explanations, then one will see that science neither supports or defends claims about the supernatural.

Nobody is dismissing it out of hand, we're not deciding it's untrue because we don't like the cover, it's been examined in great detail and, except for those people who exercise blind faith and ignore the facts, it's been found entirely lacking.

While I disagree witht the basic claim here, this does seem to be the claim that testing for something correctly, and not finding it is evidence of its non-existence. I do like that.

As for Harry Potter, there is a qualitative difference between modern fiction and historical reporting. Any who do not see the difference would consider novels and ancient documents commenting on the history of Rome to be equally valid historical information.

There's no evidence whatsoever that the Bible was ever intended as historical reporting.

It is written in a historical form, and parts directly claim to be as much. When commenting on the New Testament, one can argue that it is inaccurate reporting, but not that it was never intended to be as much.

We have thousands of writings over thousands of years, written long before man started evaluating claims critically and logically, that show man thought of all of it as stories, not facts.

Would you support the position that the Biblical authors (particularly the New Testament authors) did not think of their writing as factual?

I saw part of a BBC program from earlier in the year tonight, part of the "Time Team" series, where they discussed the ancient Romans going to ancient England and trying to match up their pantheon of gods with the gods of the Anglo-Saxons. They thought that if they took the gods that were the most similar and intermingled their details, they stood a better chance of the Anglo-Saxons worshipping their hybrid-gods. The Catholic Church was guilty of exactly the same thing in their expansion in the Middle Ages.

I don't see what any of this has to say about the authors of the New Testament. Yes, some have tried this. This doesn't lead me to conclude that all do as much, particularly when the examples you gave are centuries removed from the period in question.

Local gods, local customs and local celebrations were all mish-mashed into Catholicism in hopes that it would make pushing their religion on others easier. That's how religion has always operated up until very recently.

Again, please support that this has always been the case until recently.

Religions borrow traditions from surrounding and competing religions to give their beliefs an air of legitimacy.

I get your point, but let's be clear that borrowing traditions is a far cry from creating a hybrid religion with no regard for truth.

It happened in the Gospels, it happened in the Old Testament,

When and how, exactly? In particular, I'd like to hear about the claims of the New Testament.


Of course, you did write this:

the writers of the flood myth stole a story almost verbatim from the Hindus, the bit about the son of Noah finding his father naked and the giving of lands to the other brothers.

Is there evidence of this? This is a fairly small part. It is not out of the question to think that a few small things would be the same in independent writings. Particularly when "verbatum" is used loosely. I don't know quite what you mean by it, but these books are written in different languages.

That's not remotely original to the Hebrews. They took other stories and added their own spin and came up with a conglomeration religion.

Also, one story (even if it were borrowed) does not make a conglomeration religion. That is a small influence. One must establish a great deal more. Feel free to offer other explanations - I'm interested primarilly in the New Testament myself - but I would consider this argument, so far, to be very weak.

Uncertainty is neither an acceptance nor a rejection of a belief. One who is uncertain, by definition, does not support either side of an argument and has no solid belief. One who is relitively certain that a belief is untrue has at least a partial belief, that ought to be supported.

Uncertainty is life. If you're looking for certainty, you're probably out of luck or doing something wrong. I'm uncertain that the sun is going to come up tomorrow. I'm pretty confident, given my many years of experience with it doing just that and my understanding of the science behind how and why it happens, but I have no way of being absolutely, positively, completely sure it will happen for any given day in the future. For all I know, in three hours, a giant asteroid is going to strike the Earth and throw up a massive cloud of dust that will blot out the sun for years. Or a bigger asteroid which will entirely pulverize the planet. It's happened before (both cases), there's no reason why it cannot happen again. If you're going through life looking for absolute certainty, you're living in a dream world.

This seems to be in perfect agreement with everything I've claimed thus far: All positions are unproved, and everyone must have a little blind trust to beleive anything.

At best, we can evaluate the chances of particular things happening based on the objective evidence that we currently have at our disposal. For all we know, there could be a Mars-sized asteroid coming straight at us from behind the sun where we can't see it and once we see it, we all have a week to live. Until we actually have evidence that such is actually the case though, it's foolish to believe that such is actually going to happen, we can only weigh the odds and examine the evidence we have on hand.

While we may differ on ideas about what evidence is out there, I completely agree with this.

If you'd rather not use the word faith, and settle on "blind trust" or some other such term, I have no objections. The point is, however, that all positions require us to take guesses beyond what we know for sure.

Since none of us knows anything for sure, that's another pointless definition.

A definition is not pointless simply because it refers to all humanity. Often times, universal truths are the most pointed.

However, you're still wrong. There's no point in having "blind trust" or "faith", whatever word you prefer. Take chairs as an example. In my life, I've sat in thousands of chairs. I understand how chairs work, I know the principles behind them, I understand how they are built and I've even built quite a few of them myself. Just looking at the construction and condition of any given chair, I am able to judge approximately how much weight I think the chair can support and if I think it will support my weight if I sit down. I could be wrong, but I have a lifetime of experience that makes me fairly confident that I'll be correct if I choose to sit down in any given chair. If I fall, I learn a lesson and add it to my experience set. If I don't, that confirms my experiences. But in no sense do I have "blind faith" that the chair will support me, I don't need it.

This is not a claim that you have no blind faith in chairs, but that you have a combination of blind faith and experience. You use your experience as evidence, and use a little blind faith to move from an educated guess about the probability of the chair being good, to the willingness to behave as if it is. You may acknowledge that you could be wrong, but that does not mean that you aren't trusting the chair in that moment before you find out if you're wrong or not.

In fact, you will find that my definition is perfectly acceptable.

No, I will find that you found someone else who might agree with your definition, that doesn't make your definition acceptable, perfectly or otherwise.

It does if that "someone else" was the dictionary.

When you're engaging in a discussion or debate with someone, definitions must be agreed upon, you don't get to impose them on the group.

As we do not agree on the term "atheism", then, we should probably table it entirely. The definitions I've received on this site tend to be extremely vague, which is why I pulled a clear one from the dictionary.

Likewise, there are many dictionaries that demonstrate that your definition is far from universal. You have to remember that people who write dictionaries have their own personal biases as well. Definitions are rarely a one-size-fits-all affair.

I suppose so, but I don't think this allows you to insist upon your definition be used at all. At best, this is the argument that we abandon the word "atheism" altogether and use terms that we can agree upon.

Perhaps the best way to move forward, then, is to ask you for your own personal position on God's existence (true, untrue, likely, unlikely, impossible to know):
What do you believe to be the case regarding God's existence?/What position would you take in a debate on that subject?

Whatever your position, I'll simply refer to that as "your position" for the sake of clarity.

If you do not wish to be considered someone who believes that no gods exist, I suggest that you refer to yourself as a non-theist, rather than an atheist.

I can refer to myself as anything I damn well please and if you have even an ounce of integrity, you will respect that.

No offense intended. I believe thoroughly that we each should be allowed to describe our own positions.
Given that, you are free to take any position you like. I have never argued with that. What I was suggesting is that you use terms that communicate your position clearly. I'm not telling you which position you do or must take, I'm asking you to let me know what that position is as clearly as you can.

Discussing this issue further is not really in the scope of the thread. If, however, you consider it an unsupported claim, I am inclined to ask if you consider all historical documents to be unsupported claims. If not, how do you draw distinctions?

In fact, I do, as do most historians. Single source documents are rarely ever taken seriously as historical sources until they are supported by evidence or other independent eye-witness documents. That's how history works.

Please support this claim with some kind of reference. From which historian did you read this?
To support my position, Durham University gives a consise statement on the matter, and names written works as primary evidence of an historical event. In fact, most of what we know about history is through written records.

[Furrowed Brow]

How does one tell which stories are true history and which are false history? Is it not by checking them against what we know about the world?

Therein is the category mistake. Some stories were and are never about the world. Verification is not required.

A really good example would be Scientology. L Ron Hubbard was irony of ironies a science fiction writer who puts one of his flights of fancy forward as a reality and some people believed him and his stories about the Galactic Confederacy. We live in an age of reason, science and information and yet some people still believe. But we do not have to go looking for evidence of the Galactic Confederacy to know it is the product of Hubbard’s imagination.

The Bible isn't written in fictional narrative. C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

Says Lewis. FB says talking donkeys, walking on water, bodies raised from the dead are narrative devices exactly because they are a fantastic.

This seems to be the claim that you simply can't trust anything a human says.

Mostly yes. But most stuff is not worth challenging or it is socially beneficial not to challenge it so you let it go.

While we are fallible creatures, I am left wondering where you draw lines. Do you consider ancient reports of Julius Caesar's life to likewise be a spun narrative?

Yes I do. Seeing some large part of what we glean regarding his campaigns was written by him or for him. However I do believe there is an historical character called Julius Caser because we have coins and other artifacts etc. But the basic history as it is commonly understood is a narrative. How much is fiction I can’t say. Maybe JC was a dreadful general who relied on his underlings and stole their credit. I really dunno.

My position is that we tend to believe in the animals that have been found (living or dead), but not in those that have not.

This is true. However it misses the point that some beasties we have no expectation of finding because we know they are a story…because sometimes we are the ones telling the stories. When my son was around 4 we use to go for walks in the woods. One autumn he picked up an empty conker case and asked what it was. I told him it was a Pixie hat and that we needed to walk quietly if we wanted to find the pixie that had dropped it. The pixie hunt was kind of fun.

On what do you base the idea that people from eras in which belief in such things abounded would ridicule this statement?

All over the world once a year people still put out mince pies and a drink for father xmas. An alien looking on might see that as evidence that belief in Santa abounds. Belief in Pixies and elves originated from oral folklore. Some people even put out bowls of milk and so forth. But I see no evidence that people actually in all seriousness believed in pixies and elves anymore than WWII pilots believed in gremlins or people believe in santa.

We know there are no elves or pixies or hydras because these magical characters and beasts are a part of our story telling history. We do not reject them now because we know better, they were always tall tales to tell by the fireside.

Please support this position.

There is no evidence that people took the notion of pixies, elves, hydras etc any more seriously than more modern folk take the ideas of gremlins. To really try to turn these notions into problems of evidence and verification is to continue to make one major category mistake. It also fails to engage with the way humans are prone to invent magical and mysterious character and tell tall tales…..and quite honestly it fails to engage with some wry humor. So your insistence repeated insistence that this position be supported is a bit like someone asking for a joke to be explained.

I would say that both of us do as much when we make that claim. The fact that children tend to believe in fantastic things shows us that human nature allows for it. Simply claiming that ancient people never meant these things does not address the facts of the situation.

The facts? The fact are tall tales that work as tall tales and behave as tall tales. What other fact you got?

Your certainty aside, on what logical grounds should we base this conclusion?

Coz pixies, elves, Gremlins, Santa etc are made up stories. You know they are made up. I know they are made up. And the fact we know this has nothing to do with evidence or lack of evidence. I really do not see people of bygone age any less naïve in this respect.

think the term "false witnesses" would apply. In any case, I don't see how this fits in with the idea that they all knew that this was fantasy.

They knew it was fantasy in just the same way we know when we put mince pies out for Santa.

However I guess there is room for some people to really believe just as today some people really believe in Greys and alien abduction and claim to be abducted etc. These people give “witnesses� to an event they claim is true and maybe even some of them are utterly sincere. But sincerity does not turn fiction into fact and we do not have to corroborate or falsify these stories to see they are the product of the human mind like pixies.

Ok this is going around in circles but the effort is revealing. The difference between your position and mine…as far as I can tell is that I am saying that the human form of life and way of life contains stories and myths that are a part of that life and nothing to do with the fact of the matter. We entertain these ideas because we enjoy them, they are entertaining and fun or maybe sometimes a little frightening and we like to be frightened in a harmless way that does not hurt us. Sometimes they are the product of people with their own problems and are attention seeking. To begin to take these stories seriously is to miss the point. However we are not really talking about pixies. What this all circles around is the question of scripture…..(granting Lewis has his opinion) the point is that the tales in scripture look and sound and breathe just like all the other myths and tall tales human tell….except there are some people which take them way too seriously as factual truth.

I simply want to know on what grounds we're assuming which stories are factual and which are fantasy if not by basing it on observations of the world.

By basing it on the origin of the myth, who is telling it, in what context, what does the myth contain e.g. talking donkeys, pixies, crock of gold at then of the rainbow, miracles, greys etc. also is their a hero figure, is there some special knoweldge to be imparted and is their a moral to the tale i.e. does it offer an example some human frailty or hubris like pride or ego or greed.

Nevertheless, witness testimony is still considered evidence in court.

Usually to be a credible witness there has to be verification person x was at the right location at the right time and that indeed there was some event to observe. Witnesses of alien abduction do not stand up in court.

The lack of verification would be an outside check, such as I suggested. This makes perfect sense to me.

Only if an outside check is needed. You really need that for pixies, superman, talking donkeys and walking on water, greys?

We can't, however, reject all things that reference the supernatural as untrue on the grounds that they do as much if we are doing so to make the case that the supernatural does not exist. This is circular reasoning.

Again I think you are missing the major thrust of what I am saying. Allow me to rewrite what you say about what I say...

• We can't, however, reject all things that reference Pixies as untrue on the grounds that they do as much if we are doing so to make the case that Pixies do not exist.

It should be obvious that my argument is not that argument. I do not reject stories about pixies just because they mention pixies. I reject them because these stories belong to a long history of myth and story telling that stretch back as far as recorded human history. I do not invent magical metaphysics to support the story and give it credence I just look at the story and say yep that is a story because it contains all the elements of a story. For pixies read elves, gremlins, talking donkeys, walking on water, resurrection.

The fantastic doesn't exist. We cannot count reports of them as more than stories because those reports contain fantastic elements, which obviously means we shouldn't take them seriously. This proves that the fantastic doesn't exist.

You are doing it again. Is that really what you are reading in my answers? I’ll try again.

Stories of fantasy are fully a part of human culture and tradition. The fantastical elements of these stories are nothing to do with fact or reality but are an element of the narrative. Pixies, Santa, Gremlins, superman clearly demonstrate this. Sometimes people get confused regarding fantasy and fact. Greys and the burning of witches would be an example. The failure to distinguish fact from fantasy does not make fantasy anymore real. And fantasy clearly belongs only to the human mind. If however there are some stories that contain supernatural elements that some people want to put forward as fact and calim not to be fantasy, it is reasonable on the ground that humans tell tall tales and that these stories look to be more of the same to conclude they have made a mistake. It is down to the believer in the supernatural event to clearly demonstrate or at least give reasonable account as to why their story is not fantasy. It is not down to the unbeliever to hold off drawing a conclusion until verification is supplied. If this was the criteria for justifiedbelief then everyone would have to be agnostic regarding pixies, elves, Greys, superman, etc.

[Biker]

First of all, faith is still objective, and you admitted it. the effects of a changed state of mind are objective. Faith itself is subjective.

Personal faith is subjective, after all, people can and do believe a lot of complete nonsense and so long as they keep it to themselves and don't harm anyone with it, I doubt most of us really care. But as soon as you come to a debate forum like this and put your personal, subjective faith up as something valid, it becomes subject to objective evaluation. That's the point that many theists don't like, when "I feel" is no longer a convincing argument.

Sorry, that was actually a typo. I meant to say subjective.

Heh, doesn't really matter, the point still works, especially when you have theists who want everyone to accept faith as something worthwhile.

IMO, if you've got faith, you're doing something entirely wrong.

IMO, if you've got faith, you're doing something entirely wrong

Cephus, do you believe in the current (subject to change), somewhat (by no means universal) accepted theory (also classified as speculation), story of evolution?
If you do, then, you've got faith.
Are you doing something wrong?

Biker

[McCulloch]

Cephus, do you believe in the current (subject to change), somewhat (by no means universal) accepted theory (also classified as speculation), story of evolution?
If you do, then, you've got faith.
Are you doing something wrong?

You see the difference between the beliefs of the faithful and of science is just as you point out. I believe that the current theory of evolution by natural selection best explains the observed facts. My belief is necessarily provisional. Bring me evidence to the contrary, and I will revise my belief. Faith, on the other hand, believes stuff without (and sometimes in spite of) evidence.

[JoeyKnothead]

Cephus, do you believe in the current (subject to change), somewhat (by no means universal) accepted theory (also classified as speculation), story of evolution?
If you do, then, you've got faith.
Are you doing something wrong?

You see the difference between the beliefs of the faithful and of science is just as you point out. I believe that the current theory of evolution by natural selection best explains the observed facts. My belief is necessarily provisional. Bring me evidence to the contrary, and I will revise my belief. Faith, on the other hand, believes stuff without (and sometimes in spite of) evidence.

McCulloch - nothing but net.

Disregarding Jester's strong argument of atheism having faith, McCulloch points out that atheists tend to hold "provisional belief" in what can be explained by potentially fallible theory, as opposed to "religious faith" in tales that contradict what we know about the world around us, and for which little to no evidence can be proffered.

[Biker]

Let me explain it like this, faith can't be seen but the results of faith can. That was the whole purpose of the exercise. Faith brought about results seen by people.

Faith, that is believing in stuff without evidence, brings about demonstrable changes in people. I cannot argue against that. However, that, in itself does not provide any evidence that what you (or the Muslim or the Bahai) has faith in is really true.

I stopped doing thus and then did this. Not because of me, but because of Him doing something in me that came as the result of a simple faith. Get it?

This is where you are wrong. Yes, it may have been the result of faith, just as those who adopt various types of faith experience life changes. But it was the faith that changed you, not the thing you imagined that you have faith in.

Textual Critics call the modern translations of the Bible the modern manuscripts.

Oh, really? Please cite one or two.

Do you continue to misrepresent the big bang out of intellectual dishonesty? or ignorance?

Well I will admit I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But, I am of the opinion that atheists/skeptics in the scientific community are actually doing that job far better than me. I like the concept of the bang (the big one). It matters greatly though which side of the proverbial fence you are on as to how one interprets the data. I'm referring of course to the Genesis One fence. And how one wants to characterize the fence. You know atheists originally didn't like the bang and loved the steady state theory. Stephen Hawking explains why many scientists loved the steady state theory. "There were therefore a number of attempts to avoid the conclusion that there had been a big bang....Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention." A Brief History of Time pg. 49.
As to your dishonest quip.

This goes to the intellectual honesty of science. While many scientists would have preferred metaphysical implications of the steady state, the evidence overwhelmingly supports big bang. On the other hand, in spite of the evidence of a common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, creationists continue to believe in the special creation of humanity by God from dust.

Douglas Erwin, a paleobiologist, "One of the rules of science is, no miracles allowed...that's a fundamental presumption of what we do." Cited by Kenneth Chang, "In Explaining Lifes Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash," New York Times, Aug. 22,2005.

All Erwin is saying is that you cannot do science if you allow for miracles. If you allow for miracles, every difficulty, every unknown could be dismissed with, "It's a miracle." Scientific inquiry would grind to a stand still.

call the modern translations of the Bible the modern manuscripts

Oh, really? Please cite one...

Wayne Grudem, PhD. Professor of Bible and Systematic Theology, Bible Translator.
Served on the Oversight Committee of the Translation of the English Standard Version of the Bible.
Served as General Editor of the English Standard Version Study Bible. Author of 16 Books. Author of Systematic Theology. In his book Systematic Theology on page 96 for example he refers to our current modern printed translations as modern manuscripts 3 times. These specific references are in the context of his discussion as to why our modern manuscripts are exact copies of the originals to a percentile of over 99.5%. The remaining .5%, does not effect any understanding of the originals.
No other writings from antiquity even come close, none!
I suppose he would know having translated the ESV out of the original Hebrew/Chaldee/Aramaic/ Greek manuscripts himself, in concert with other experts.

All Erwin is saying is that you can not do science if you allow for miracles

No he didn't! I quoted the man verbatim! He said no miracles allowed. We (science) start with a priori, no miracles. We (science) start with a presumption, no miracles.
Then, science reaches conclusions that when taken on face are by their very nature miracles.
We have guys (atheists) in this very thread saying that the bang started from a singularity, but doesn't have the slightest idea what or why it is let alone how it would bang, as science does not know. Puts forth a claim, can't back it. Nor can they because it is outside the realm of their collective priori bias group think methodology, of the restrictive parameters set up by themselves in the first place.
We might as well say it was a brown hole and a gaseous vapor developed for some reason and went BRRRRRT, instead of bang. A huge Cosmic FART started the universe. It is just as likely. The singularity passed gas! The theory passed gas.
This is particularly bad in view of this intellectual hubris: "At the heart of science is...an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive." Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, pg 304.
So much for that nonsense.
Atheists, have a belief system that is counterintuitive, and it smells like gas.

Biker

[Biker]

Cephus, do you believe in the current (subject to change), somewhat (by no means universal) accepted theory (also classified as speculation), story of evolution?
If you do, then, you've got faith.
Are you doing something wrong?

You see the difference between the beliefs of the faithful and of science is just as you point out. I believe that the current theory of evolution by natural selection best explains the observed facts. My belief is necessarily provisional. Bring me evidence to the contrary, and I will revise my belief. Faith, on the other hand, believes stuff without (and sometimes in spite of) evidence.

So, McCulloch is actually saying the singularity is observed? So, McCulloch is actually saying the Bang (the big one) is observed? So, McCulloch is actually saying the "?roughly?" 4.5 Billion year old earth, is observed?
You, want to support that just a wee bit for ol Biker? I say they are actually faith statements.
In addition, I am getting a bit weary with atheists saying they have been given no evidence for God when I know I have for one, Goose has for two, Jester has for three. Your no evidence is actually questioned evidence, on your part. Just thought I'd clarify that.

Biker

[Cephus]

Thanks!

Sure, things happen. Just yesterday afternoon, a 20-foot branch fell out of a big avocado tree next to my house and snapped off a bunch of wires that were going through the tree. Luckily, the only ones that broke were things I don't need, our old copper phone line that's now unused and the old cable line that we don't use, but I spent the afternoon cutting up the branch and reattaching our FIOS cable to the side of the house, which is why I didn't respond yesterday when I was going to. Stuff happens.

My definition can be found in the dictionary, and has been widely used since long before I presented it.

Just as mine can. Playing musical dictionaries is not useful in a debate, nor is what you're doing, trying to accuse people who obviously don't fit your definition of atheism, of having to follow it because that's the only definition you'll allow for the word.

The reason why we have the term non-theist is for people to avoid being grouped into the definition I mentioned when refering to thier beliefs. As most people in the English speaking world seem to define the term as I do (I've only heard your definition from people claiming to be atheists), it would make more sense to refer to this minority definition by the new word.

I'm sure I could find an extremely unflattering definition for Christian and try pulling the same thing you are. Anyone who doesn't want to be tarred with that unflattering definition should change the word they choose to describe themselves!

I don't think for a second you'd like that either.

Regardless, I would argue that an atheist by either definition has not escaped the requirement of making a claim in order to enter a debate. If, in fact, atheism is not a belief or position on whether or not God exists, it is not relevant to such a discussion. It is merely an interesting tangent.

That's only true if the atheist makes a positive claim in the debate and at that point, it doesn't matter what word they use to describe themselves, it's the claim itself that requires support, not the label. However, as we both know, atheists rarely make positive claims in debates, they simply ask that theists support the claims that they make. Pointing out that you have no objective evidence for the factual existence of God no more requires me to prove God doesn't exist than pointing out that there is no objective evidence for the factual existence of Bigfoot requires me to prove Bigfoot isn't real.

What you're really trying to do is shift the burden of proof from yourself, who continually makes unsupported claims, to us, who simply demand that you support them. If you want people to stop demanding you back up your claims, stop making them. It's that simple. There's no requirement for us to prove you wrong when you've never provided a credible case that you're right to begin with.

This is not an answer to my question above, unless you are seeking me to understand that this is the position that God probably doesn't exist with the stipulation that you are willing to change your opinion given new information. If that is the case, then I would consider you a person who holds the belief that God probably doesn't exist (which fits my definition of atheist). If not, please explain your position on whether or not God exists.

You keep changing your definition. First, you claimed that your definition of atheist was someone who said for certain that God doesn't exist, now it's someone who says God probably doesn't exist. Make up your mind. Add to that the fact that I never used the word "probably" at all, you just pulled that out of thin air. The position is simple, no matter how hard you keep trying to twist it: Unless there is objective evidence that something is factually real, and this goes for gods, unicorns, fairies, sea monsters, etc., a rational person ought not believe that thing is real. There is no objective evidence that God is factually real, therefore I do not believe in God.

The claim of factual truth that I believe that you are making is that God probably does not exist.

I've never said anything of the sort, you don't seem to be able to tell the difference between a lack of belief and a belief in the non-existence of something.

Personally, I suspect that you are insisting on scientific evidence for a non-scientific entity, which would be a clear problem.

I'm insisting on any objective evidence. This is just more of the "God of the gaps" nonsense where believers keep moving God into harder and harder to test gaps because every time science has managed to test the gaps God was supposedly in, God turns out not to be there. If God isn't testable via any objective measure, then what's the difference between an entirely untestable God and a God that isn't there to begin with and how do you tell the difference?

Thus, I would suggest that many atheists have trust in the idea that, if God exists, there would be clear scientific evidence that would convince most skeptics, and I believe that this is a position that is not in line with the facts. It is, therefore, based on blind trust.

There's nothing blind about it. You're acting like this is a position that is taken only with your particular deity, it's a position that's taken with EVERYTHING. If there's no reason to think something is true, why should we think that it's true? That's a question that you and other theists entirely fail to answer because you have no answer to it. By that line of reasoning, you ought to believe in *ALL* gods and all mythical creatures as well. There's no evidence that they're real, but you can't prove they don't exist either, therefore, pick all or pick none, to do anything else is irrational.

If this is your argument, then I would say that you do not understand the idea of historical documentation. There is a clear qualitative difference between a historical manuscript and a modern work of fiction.

Not at all. You keep claiming that the Bible is a historical document and it's simply not. The Bible is no more a historical document than the Iliad or Odyssey. Just because we know that Homer has some historical elements in his books doesn't mean that the entirety of his books are historical in nature, any more than the Bible is. To say that the Bible is a primary source for the factual existence of God is like saying the Iliad is a primary source for the factual existence of Apollo, Mercury and Vulcan. You apply a very serious double-standard here that's logically indefensible.

This is the argument that the Bible is non-conclusive evidence (one or more set of accounts, for which many want other corroberating evidence before accepting as true), which is my position as well.

What is non-conclusive evidence? If it's something we can examine and evaluate, we can come to a conclusion. If it's not, then it's not evidence. At best, the Bible is a collection of claims. Can these claims be substantiated? For the most part, no and for the supernatural claims, entirely no. At best it tells us what a tribe of primitive Bronze-age humans believed, it tells us nothing whatsoever about the factual truth of those beliefs.

I'd also like to know which you consider to be mythical, and which historical. Most often, I find that people categorize as mythical anything that would contradict naturalism. I don't mind such categories, but, if this is the case, we can't use that as an argument to establish naturalism. This would be circular reasoning.

Naturalism is what we see, sorry. It is all we have any direct, demonstrable experience with. If you'd like to propose an alternate idea, it rests entirely on your shoulders to demonstrate that it's factually true and supported by the evidence. Unfortunately, as with "god-of-the-gapism", part of the definition is that no objective evidence of any kind can possibly exist. It's like the people who think we all live in the Matrix or we're all brains in a jar, they're welcome to believe anything they want to, but it's still their responsibility and their responsibility alone to prove it and if they can't or won't, then there's no reason to take their ideas seriously. If you want people to take the idea of a supernatural seriously, you need to figure out how to provide evidence that it's factually real, otherwise you're in the same boat as the solipsists, up the creek without arms to row the canoe.

Searching for something where it is claimed to be and not finding it is evidence that it does not exist insofar as the search is thorough. We can say that we have strong evidence that there is no second moon, of equal size to the first, orbiting Earth. This is because we can check for that. The same is true of unicorns.

Not really, but for the sake of argument, we can go with it. So does that mean that all the atheists who have followed the Ray Comfort route of "hitting your knees" and not receiving any sort or revelation have just proved that God isn't real? That's a pretty common claim, that if you do X, you will receive Y, but people like Ray Comfort come up with a whole slew of excuses why Y didn't happen. It all depends on how narrowly you define your proposition. In your moon example, we can indeed check it because you've specified a very narrow parameter for your claim. If we ask if there are any unicorns anywhere on Earth, that's a much harder claim to check out, there's no way you can be everyone on the planet at once to check it out. If we ask if there are any unicorns anywhere in the universe, that's a harder question still and one that really isn't open to rational evaluation. In those final two examples, the best we can do is acknowledge there is no evidence for the existence of those unicorns, we can never say we've found sufficient evidence to disprove them.

The problem is, many Christians specifically place God outside of any rational, reasonable ability to test for his existence. I don't think most of them do it on purpose, but I suspect that a percentage know that if you place God anywhere that he can be rationally evaluated, he'll be found to not exist, according to their parameters, and they'll have no support for claiming that this disproven God exists.

First, resonsidering an idea based on new evidence never means that reality changed, but our understanding of it. We often go from situations where evidence points one way, but such turns out to be wrong. I never made any claims about popping into existence.

We can only go by our current understanding of things, we cannot proactively decide that something *MIGHT* be true sometime in the future so we ought to believe it is today. I'll be the first one to say that before we had objective evidence for the existence of atoms, only an illogical man would have believed they existed. Science is a process by which we learn about the world around us, no one seriously think that everything we know today is entirely perfect, nor that we know all there is to know. The chances that we will ever know all there is to know are pretty much non-existent. That means we have to apply a consistent standard to all facets of knowlege though. There's evidence for atoms? We accept atoms. No evidence for God? We don't accept God. When there is evidence for God, come on back and we may change our minds. You don't get to make multiple standards for determining fact just because what you want to believe doesn't fit into the current model.

Nothing can be proved absoulutely, I suppose. I also agree that reality doesn't change with our perceptions of it, but that is beside the point. I claimed that an inability to find something, when checking for it in the correct way, is evidence.

Depends on what you're trying to prove. I can prove absolutely that there isn't a 400-lb tap-dancing gnome on my shoulder. We can prove absolutely that your second-moon theory is false, as you described earlier, but those are very narrow, very specific cases. I'd have more trouble finding out if I have an intangible, invisible, undetectable gnome on my shoulder and more trouble still finding out if such a creature existed anywhere in the universe.

Of course, this leads to other problems. How do you determine what the "correct" way of looking for something might be? Are there multiple "correct" ways of looking for things or only one? How do you determine which one to use in which situation? Is the method we'd use to look for a second moon the same as the method we'd use to look for a unicorn anywhere in the universe?

The fact is, we do only use one method, or at least a group of closely-related methods, to find out the factual truth about things. We look for objective evidence as support that things we're looking for actually are real. But you now want to introduce an entirely different method, one which has never proven once that it's effective or produces any demonstrable results, to find this entity that you want to think exists. I'm questioning the logic of throwing out a system, the only system we actually know works, in favor of something we don't.

This is the statement that you don't personally care whether or not it exists, not evidence that it does. It seems analogous to Pascal's Wager - that we may as well assume that reality is here because that's easier/better than assuming it doesn't. That may be practical advice, but neither is a logical statement. As such, I'd say that my original claim stands.

Pascal's Wager fails because it's not demonstrably better, it ignores demonstrably existing options and then makes a faulty probability claim based on a minuscule portion of the actual dataset. In this case, we're taking all demonstrably existing options into account, you're just insisting that there are more options that are not demonstrable that ought to be taken equally as seriously. That's like playing Dr. Seuss' Sneetches with invisible stars. You're just asserting that there's a star there (or a moon, clover or whatever other Lucky Charms shape you want) and that somehow makes a difference. With the Matrix or solipsism, you're piling unsubstantiated, unproven claims on top of demonstrable, substantiated reality. Regardless of whether or not those other things are true or not, this is what we all see and experience and this is where we all factually live. Therefore, as a basis for determining fact, this has to be our starting point because it's something we can all agree to.

This seems to be the claim that, if something is not testable, we should simply believe what is easier for everyday living.

Which is silly. Having a billion dollars in the bank would certainly make my everyday living easier and since I do not currently have the means to test it (I'm not on the bank's website nor at the bank), should I believe it? Being easy and being true are two entirely different things. The most comforting lie in the world is still a lie, the most uncomfortable truth is still the truth. Lying to yourself to make yourself feel better is foolish no matter how you slice it.

The fact remains that such people, regardless of what you may believe about their subconscious motivations, are logically correct when they say that there is no evidence the the physical universe exists. To insist that they accept that claim on the grounds that we can't ever know who's right is not a logical response.

They're still wrong and I'd be happy to pound them on the head with a rock until they admit a physical universe exists or they lose consciousness, whichever comes first.

Again, this is the appeal to consequences fallacy that characterizes Pascal's Wager.

I agree, but then again, it's the argument made *BY* solipsists.

I don't claim to know what they do or don't rationalize, but am not really interested in it at the moment. I merely want to discuss the fact that the physical universe is completely unevidenced, and how that relates to the idea that we ought not accept unevidenced claims.

Except it's not and anyone who thinks that it is, ought to try living as if it isn't real and see how long they last. The fact that they don't do that shows that, no matter what load of nonsense passes their lips, internally they don't buy it.

Regarding your comments, I consider the Qu'ran to be an historical document, and have no problem with a Muslim referring to it as non-conclusive evidence in a debate. At that point, we would probably discuss the relitive likelihood that it was written by eyewitnesses and a public document from it's earliest form, as well as other sigificant issues.

It would be, like the Bible, a book of mythology.

In our case, however, we aren't having that discussion. Rather, my questions have centered around the Bible verses more secular writings, such as historical writings about Julius Caesar, and whether you accept those as evidence. And, of course, why or why not?

There's a lot more evidence for Julius Caesar, but even if there weren't, even if there was no evidence whatsoever for Caesar, his existence makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to me. I have no emotional ties to Caesar's existence like you have to Jesus. I don't care if he existed or not, if we had no evidence for his existence, we can declare him non-existent right now and it wouldn't bother me one whit. Homer, for example, we only have very tenuous evidence for, there's some question whether his writings might have been the world of several authors. That's entirely fine with me, it doesn't change the writings no matter who you want to attribute them to, the Odyssey is still the Odyssey no matter whose name is on the cover.

But you can't do that with Jesus. Your religion demands that that particular individual be real, if Jesus becomes nothing more than a myth, Christianity as a religion goes straight out the window.

I'm not certain which experts or specific claims you mention, but I'd say that the concept of scientific evidence for the extrordinary is a contradiction in terms. If the supernatural existed, science couldn't comment, as it is defined in such a way as to remain silent on the issue. As such, it comes as no surprise to me that there is no scientific evidence of the supernatural. What there is, however, is historical records. This may not be conclusive evidence alone, but it is evidence, which is all I claimed.

Which is entirely untrue. You can only make that case if the supernatural, by definition, never leaves any sort of evidence and that, as we all know, makes the supernatural unworthy of belief. However, in the Bible, there are places where the supernatural most certainly ought to have left evidence, namely the creation and the flood, and in both cases, not only is all of the evidence firmly against the supernatural, but against the narratives in the Bible. What is recorded in the Bible simply never happened, or your deity purposely made it look like it didn't happen, I'm not sure which is worse for you: A faulty Bible or a lying God?

I don't want to get into the claims of Genesis, as I have some serious issue with the conservative approach to these myself. Can we at least agree, however, that it doesn't refer to the Earth as flat?

There are statements in the Bible which can only be taken that way, even in the New Testament. In the temptation of Jesus, when the devil takes Jesus to the top of the temple and shows him "all the nations of the earth", that's only possible with a flat earth, or with a distinctly faulty concept of planetary dynamics. So either the Holy Spirit was having an off-day, or the Bible teaches the Earth is flat, or the Bible is just plain wrong.

If you are defining "objective" as scientific, then the game is rigged from the start. If one sees that the structure of science only allows for secular explanations, then one will see that science neither supports or defends claims about the supernatural.

Objective means something open to anyone to examine regardless of their belief in the evidence. Whether or not I believe in evolution, I can go see the fossils, I can see the rocks, I can look at the DNA evidence, my examination of the evidence is not restricted to already accepting it's so. But in your way of thinking, the only people who ever get to see this "evidence" for the supernatural are people who already accept that the supernatural exists. If you believe in God, then you might "see God". Funny, if you believe in Allah, you see Allah, if you believe in Krishna, you see Krishna, etc. There's no way to tell the difference between any of them, you don't find evidence, you find validation of your pre-existing beliefs.

It is written in a historical form, and parts directly claim to be as much. When commenting on the New Testament, one can argue that it is inaccurate reporting, but not that it was never intended to be as much.

Then by that reasoning, all ancient books are "historical documents" even the ones that report other gods. Something tells me that you need to read some Joseph Campbell. These are myths, stories that were told to explain how they thought things happened. There was a real famine, they couldn't understand why so they made up stories that the gods were upset. It was the only way their primitive minds could comprehend the world. Hopefully, we're smarter than that today.

Would you support the position that the Biblical authors (particularly the New Testament authors) did not think of their writing as factual?

There's no way of knowing what they thought, it's clear that mythical writing in the ancient world wasn't held to the same standards as we hold modern writing. They were there to tell how and why things happened, it wasn't the Jerusalem Times out to tell "just the facts, ma'am." You're trying to hold the Bible to a standard that no one in the ancient world observed. Not the Greeks, not the Romans, not the Assyrians, not the Jews... no one, and not only then, but for at least a dozen centuries afterwards. I don't think they were purposely lying and saying things they knew were untrue, I think they wrote what they believed, even if what they believed was ultimately flawed and untrue.

Again, please support that this has always been the case until recently.

You need to read up on religion if you need that supported. Seriously.

I get your point, but let's be clear that borrowing traditions is a far cry from creating a hybrid religion with no regard for truth.

So apparently, you believe putting untrue things into your stories somehow is showing a regard for truth? Geez, maybe modern-day historians ought to "borrow" the myths of the birthers when writing the history of Obama? Might as well, after all.

Is there evidence of this? This is a fairly small part. It is not out of the question to think that a few small things would be the same in independent writings. Particularly when "verbatum" is used loosely. I don't know quite what you mean by it, but these books are written in different languages.

Here's the account, taken from the Hindu Matsuya Purana (Fish Chronicle):

To Satyavarman, that sovereign of the whole earth, were born three sons: the eldest Shem; then Sham; and thirdly, Jyapeti by name.

They were all men of good morals, excellent invirtue and virtuous deeds, skilled in the use of weapons to strike with, or to be thrown; brave men, eager for victory in battle.

But Satyavarman, being continually delighted with devout meditation, and seeing his sons fit for dominuion, laid upon them the burdens of government.

Whilst he remained honouring and satisfying the gods, and priests, and kine, one day, by the act of destiny, the king, having drunk mead

Became senseless and lay asleep naked. Then, was he seen by Sham, and by him were his two brothers called:

To whom he said, "What now has befallen? In what state is this our sire?" By these two he was hidden with clothes, and called to his senses again and again.

Having recovered his intellect, and perfectly knowing what had passed, he cursed Sham, saying, "Thou shalt be the servant of servants."

And since thou wast a laugher in their presence, from laughter thou shalt acquire a name. Then he gave Sham the wide domain on the south of the snowy mountains.

And to Jyapeti he gave all on the north of the snowy mountains; but he, by the power of religious contemplation, attained supreme bliss.

Of course, you'll recognize the names of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japhet in their original form. Read this alongside Genesis 9:18-27.

Also, one story (even if it were borrowed) does not make a conglomeration religion. That is a small influence. One must establish a great deal more. Feel free to offer other explanations - I'm interested primarilly in the New Testament myself - but I would consider this argument, so far, to be very weak.

Of course it's not just one story, that was but a single example. If you want to go into detail, it's outside the purvue of this particular thread, please feel free to start another. Virtually every major supernatural story in the OT and NT has borrowed elements from other mythologies.

This seems to be in perfect agreement with everything I've claimed thus far: All positions are unproved, and everyone must have a little blind trust to beleive anything.

Unproved or unsupported? Certainly the factual existence of any god is entirely unsupported. To accept something in the face of it's utter lack of any supporting evidence is irrational.

This is not a claim that you have no blind faith in chairs, but that you have a combination of blind faith and experience. You use your experience as evidence, and use a little blind faith to move from an educated guess about the probability of the chair being good, to the willingness to behave as if it is. You may acknowledge that you could be wrong, but that does not mean that you aren't trusting the chair in that moment before you find out if you're wrong or not.

You're just inserting "blind faith" into things irrationally. I'm exercising *NO* faith unless you want to neuter the word to the point that it has virtually no meaning whatsoever. What you're trying to pull is like claiming that you must have faith to cross the street because an invisible car might hit you. This is getting positively absurd.

What do you believe to be the case regarding God's existence?/What position would you take in a debate on that subject?

That it's an unsupported claim and therefore, I don't accept it. If I'm ever presented with objective support, I'll reconsider my position.

To support my position, Durham University gives a consise statement on the matter, and names written works as primary evidence of an historical event. In fact, most of what we know about history is through written records.

If you go in and look, they don't list books of mythology among their "primary sources", they list official documents, personal papers and diaries, inventories, newspapers and maps.

[McCulloch]

So, McCulloch is actually saying the singularity is observed? So, McCulloch is actually saying the Bang (the big one) is observed? So, McCulloch is actually saying the "?roughly?" 4.5 Billion year old earth, is observed?
You, want to support that just a wee bit for ol Biker? I say they are actually faith statements.
In addition, I am getting a bit weary with atheists saying they have been given no evidence for God when I know I have for one, Goose has for two, Jester has for three. Your no evidence is actually questioned evidence, on your part. Just thought I'd clarify that.

Did I claim that the big bang was observed? Someone else must be posting under my name! My claim is that the (somewhat misnamed) big bang is a theory (not a speculation but a theory) that best explains the evidence. It involves no faith. It differs from faith in two ways. Firstly, it is a conclusion based on the available evidence rather than a conclusion looking for evidence. Secondly, those who believe it, are willing to entertain other theories if there is evidence to support them.

By evidence did you mean, "My life changed and it must have been God!" kind of evidence? or did you have something else. How about you point me to some of the evidence that Goose or Jester has provided of the existence of God. I must have missed it.

[Cephus]

My claim is that the (somewhat misnamed) big bang is a theory (not a speculation but a theory) that best explains the evidence. It involves no faith. It differs from faith in two ways. Firstly, it is a conclusion based on the available evidence rather than a conclusion looking for evidence. Secondly, those who believe it, are willing to entertain other theories if there is evidence to support them.

Not only was the Big Bang based on evidence, but it made predictions of what evidence we ought to find in the future should the theory be valid. Many, if not most of those predictions have actually come to pass, we did find the background "echo" of the Big Bang, long after it was proposed that such a thing ought to exist. Because the universe is testable and predictable, scientific theories continue to produce new results and new verifications long after they were initially proposed. That's a lot more than you can say for religion.

By evidence did you mean, "My life changed and it must have been God!" kind of evidence? or did you have something else. How about you point me to some of the evidence that Goose or Jester has provided of the existence of God. I must have missed it.

That's because it's never been presented. All any of them have been able to do is point to subjective personal experiences that don't prove anything to anyone but the individual having the experience and texts which are inherently untestable and unverifiable. You often see theists, not those two in particular, but in general, proposing a "how it could have been" story and then demanding that said story must be how it actually was without a shred of factual evidence to back it up.

And they wonder why we're still asking for evidence.