Ways to prove God is imaginary

[GraceAbounds]

Science need not come into play when reading history.
People attack the Bible, yet it is still alive and pumping.
If people question history books the way they questioned the Bible, our history books would not survive.
Yet the Word of God is surviving and thriving whether folks want to admit to it or not.
There is a reason why it is surviving too.

500 tokens for the person that can find the correct Bible verse which provides the answer.

 

[Peter Parka]

If people question history books the way they questioned the Bible, our history books would not survive.

Nope, only the inaccurate ones. I myself am right into history and because of this and studying it have learnt to tell the good history books from the crap ones.

 

[GraceAbounds]

And how have you done that? Were you there? Who's writing do you know to trust? How do you know they weren't biased? How was the information past on? Etc. etc. etc. Point is, it is no different.

 

[Andre]

There is a reason why it is surviving too.

500 tokens for the person that can find the correct Bible verse which provides the answer.

Is this the verse you are referring to Gracie? I am not sure:

"But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail." (Luke 16:17) NASB

I think that provides an answer to people who accept the Bible as truth, but there could be many other reasons for the continued existence of scripture obviously.



Incidentally Jesus clearly stated that Noah's flood was an historical fact if this account of his words is true (seeing as the flood has become an issue of debate):

"For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the Ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." (Matthew 24:37-39) NASB

 

[Peter Parka]

And how have you done that? Were you there? Who's writing do you know to trust? How do you know they weren't biased? How was the information past on? Etc. etc. etc. Point is, it is no different.

You trace things back to origanal sources while also bearing in mind the writers agenda ect. For instance there is a lot of negative stuff written about William II but you have to bear in mind that it was written by the monks who obviously hated him because he basically raped the church for his own greed so a lot of that can be taken with a pinch of salt. Like the Bible though there are still disagreements among historians, there are even a group of them who don't think Richard II was such a bad guy and it's true that fiction from Shakespeare has a lot to do with his bad image. First hand accounts describe him as a very handsome man, not a cripple as Shakespeare would have it. I myself have studied it and despite there being no evidence that he personally murdered the princes in the tower, he most likely was ultimately responsible as he was the only one with a motive. There are many factors like this which come into deciphering it, social history is a strong interest of mine, it helps learning the whys? as well as what happened.
Another key factor you have to remember too is that History is written by the winners.
Anyway, sorry to ramble on and get a bit offtopic, as you can see I'm really interested in this kind of stuff!

 

[Tim]

Science need not come into play when reading history.
People attack the Bible, yet it is still alive and pumping.
If people question history books the way they questioned the Bible, our history books would not survive.
Yet the Word of God is surviving and thriving whether folks want to admit to it or not.
There is a reason why it is surviving too.

500 tokens for the person that can find the correct Bible verse which provides the answer.

It has survived for one reason, fear. The belief in God and the bible was spread world wide due to a VERY active campaign to indoctrinate the world. It was presented as the one and only true religion for many years by the people who were spreading the word. People have been scared into believing since they did not want to burn in hell for ALL of eternity. It's classic brainwashing by a cult/group... They go to a poor underdeveloped country, love them, feed them and tell them the story of Jesus. Once they are hooked, they tell them how Jesus is the only way to heaven and the alternative is burning in hell.
How do you expect them not to believe? It's a very convincing story that gives hope to these third world people. This is how the bible has survived, by the masses of people promoting it to everyone they come in contact with. If the Mormons had the head start, they would be the big dog on the block....

 

[Peter Parka]

Sorry, just realised how much I rambled though but to basically answer your question, the good Historians are the ones who stick to the facts. They may fill in the details with advanced guesswork but they dont present that as fact, give their reasons why they think that and even better give the other theories, the evidence for them and why they also dont think that as well. The bad ones are the ones who present theories as fac tand usually stick to the common ones without providing any proof why. Unfortunately, a lot of basic school books today are like that which pisses me off!:mad It's often only after high school you start getting to the truth.

 

[Minor Axis]

It has survived for one reason, fear. The belief in God and the bible was spread world wide due to a VERY active campaign to indoctrinate the world. It was presented as the one and only true religion for many years by the people who were spreading the word. People have been scared into believing since they did not want to burn in hell for ALL of eternity. It's classic brainwashing by a cult/group... They go to a poor underdeveloped country, love them, feed them and tell them the story of Jesus. Once they are hooked, they tell them how Jesus is the only way to heaven and the alternative is burning in hell.
How do you expect them not to believe? It's a very convincing story that gives hope to these third world people. This is how the bible has survived, by the masses of people promoting it to everyone they come in contact with. If the Mormons had the head start, they would be the big dog on the block....

I agree!

 

[Godsloveapples]

GOD ISN't IMAGINARY! HE EXISTS!

 

[Tim]

GOD ISN't IMAGINARY! HE EXISTS!

OK, and I respect your views on that...

 

[Godsloveapples]

lol okay thanks.

 

[Peter Parka]

Well that's me convinced!:surrender

 

[Andre]

An interesting alternative to consider in this kind of debate is the Gnostic concept of God.

Gnosticism existed around the same time as early Christianity and is making a small resurgence recently. It is a system which retains Jesus Christ as the saviour but makes a very clear distinction between what WE generally think of as God (the Abrahamic God) and the actual highest powers.

In Gnosticism "Jehovah" is fundamentally flawed, inferior to God, and either evil or insane, or both. The true God is neither male nor female, has no element of personality we can conceptualise, and has no interest in human affairs period. Humans in this religion are prisoners in matter.

A god who works against us actively is more logically coherent from some angles so I thought I'd bring it up as a counter-argument to the patently illogical concept of the "omni-everything" god which does not necessarily disprove his existence, just a possible flaw in our concept of god.

Gnostic concepts are prevalent in The Matrix films, but are not implemented very accurately. The premise of the films bears some superficial resemblence to Gnostic concepts, with Neo as Christ and The Architect as Jehovah.

NB - A lot of Gnostics consider themsleves Christians and I do not purport to know the true name of God when I mention Jehovah - it is just the most common name ascribed to him in the Gnostic systems when relating him to non-Gnostics.

 

[Obdurate]

You trace things back to origanal sources while also bearing in mind the writers agenda ect. For instance there is a lot of negative stuff written about William II but you have to bear in mind that it was written by the monks who obviously hated him because he basically raped the church for his own greed so a lot of that can be taken with a pinch of salt. Like the Bible though there are still disagreements among historians, there are even a group of them who don't think Richard II was such a bad guy and it's true that fiction from Shakespeare has a lot to do with his bad image. First hand accounts describe him as a very handsome man, not a cripple as Shakespeare would have it. I myself have studied it and despite there being no evidence that he personally murdered the princes in the tower, he most likely was ultimately responsible as he was the only one with a motive. There are many factors like this which come into deciphering it, social history is a strong interest of mine, it helps learning the whys? as well as what happened.
Another key factor you have to remember too is that History is written by the winners.
Anyway, sorry to ramble on and get a bit offtopic, as you can see I'm really interested in this kind of stuff!

It was interesting to ME! I like history but I'm not real knowledgeable on it so anytime you just want to ramble about it is cool.

If you know anything about Mongolian history, especially I've always loved Mongolia for some reason.

 

[Peter Parka]

I believe the name Jehovah is the literal translation of god's name as mentioned in some versions of the Bible as Yahweh. Something I learnt out of my time with the JWs!

 

[Andre]

I believe the name Jehovah is the literal translation of god's name as mentioned in some versions of the Bible as Yahweh. Something I learnt out of my time with the JWs!

It's certainly possible. I don't have much knowledge of the subject but I imagine it stems from trying to fill in the missing vowels from the tetragrammaton.

YHWH - YaHWeH
YHVH - YeHoVaH
JHVH - JeHoVaH etc etc

But there are so many grammatically correct alternatives, such as Yahvah for instance.

Out of interest, if you read my one and only mention of Gnosticism, that particular religion refers to Jehovah NOT as God but as "the demiurge".

His true name according to them is Yaldabaoth Saklas Samael.

And YES - Gnosticism is basically the exact opposite of agnosticism - a belief that salvation comes through exact knowledge of God. For this reason it has often been described throughtout history as the "elite religion".

 

[Peter Parka]

And YES - Gnosticism is basically the exact opposite of agnosticism - a belief that salvation comes through exact knowledge of God. For this reason it has often been described throughtout history as the "elite religion".

Probably the complete opposite end of the spectrum from what I'm inclined to now then. I believe in a god but it's very vague and is purely through the wonders of the earth seeming like they have a creator to me. I don't hold with the god of any religious books, more one that expresses themself through creation. I am still open minded though and realise there isn't proof either way. That's why I get fed up when people make blanket statements that god is fact or evolution is fact, I think I'm still pretty open minded about this even if I dont appear to be sometimes, got to admit even in my time on this forum, my belief has quite radically changed.

 

[wednesday]

I did A level philosophy and this question still eludes me! We use to have debates for and against...at the end of the day its un-answerable! Like....if a tree fell in a forest with nobody around to hear it...would it still make a noise??? hmmmm

 

[Andre]

Probably the complete opposite end of the spectrum from what I'm inclined to now then. I believe in a god but it's very vague and is purely through the wonders of the earth seeming like they have a creator to me. I don't hold with the god of any religious books, more one that expresses themself through creation. I am still open minded though and realise there isn't proof either way. That's why I get fed up when people make blanket statements that god is fact or evolution is fact, I think I'm still pretty open minded about this even if I dont appear to be sometimes, got to admit even in my time on this forum, my belief has quite radically changed.

I hear what you're saying. I actually got a lot of flak recently on another forum for REFUSING to take a definite position in a debate like this, and had to make an extremely rude exit.

I guess I just realise that I am not smart enough to stop a god from existing with my own rationality - if he or she exists - but basically I live life as though God did not exist - from a moral standpoint anyway. I certainly have no fear of God. If push came to shove I don't think that there is a reason that God MUST exist, but I am far too stupid know that for certain. It is just like you say - there isn't a great proof either way.

After being raised a Christian I will never be free of religious concepts, but thankfully I find theology fascinating anyway - so for interests' sake I spend quite a lot of my time studying religious ideas.

I did A level philosophy and this question still eludes me! We use to have debates for and against...at the end of the day its un-answerable!

That's how I feel. I can't answer this personally - I don't have the "cognitive capacity" (to borrow a term from Tenacious D).

 

[Peter Parka]

I hear ya mate! I find it very hard to not be hostile toward religion because of my fucked up religious upbringing and the damage it did but I think I'm getting more reasonable about it. I think it's important to remember that god isn't necessarily a part of organised religion. The old saying "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" is very applicable.

I guess I get in the firing line a lot in these debates because of it and I argue to some extent both sides when I feel one is being overwhelmed, typical British attitude, back the plucky loser!:surrender