Why believe in god?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So your argument for god is, there is no "ironclad" argument the reality exists, and therefore one can't get around hard solipsism, therefor god. Yet you wonder whey there is lack of debate when you admittedly deny reality to support your god claim.

We're still waiting for you to prove reality. TIA!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So your argument for god is, there is no "ironclad" argument the reality exists, and therefore one can't get around hard solipsism, therefor god. Yet you wonder whey there is lack of debate when you admittedly deny reality to support your god claim.

We do not deny our reality and we do not deny God. We say there is no ironclad proof of either, but we have faith that both God and we exist.

You deny God because you say there is no proof. But you embrace our reality despite the lack of proof. Sounds like picking and choosing to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So your argument for god is, there is no "ironclad" argument the reality exists, and therefore one can't get around hard solipsism, therefor god. Yet you wonder whey there is lack of debate when you admittedly deny reality to support your god claim.

We're still waiting for you to prove reality. TIA!

Exactly, the person who puts the burden of proof on proving reality, also thinks that it somehow bolsters their argument for a god. The last argument of creationists / religiosity is to deny reality. That is all they have. There argument is, "You can't prove that reality is real, therefor god exists."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We do not deny our reality and we do not deny God. We say there is no ironclad proof of either, but we have faith that both God and we exist.

You deny God because you say there is no proof. But you embrace our reality despite the lack of proof. Sounds like picking and choosing to me.

Nice, so you know how dishonest a position faith is. Faith is the excuse to believe something without evidence. Yet you try to say that reality is also only based on "faith." That the god you worship created this reality, and both are on equal playing fields so everyone has faith. Even if my reality is only real to me (hard solipsism) there is absolutely no evidence that is NOT THE SAME REALITY, as you. To say otherwise is faith. Again, another dishonest position to have only to prove our initial presuppositions. That is called circular reasoning. My belief in god is based on faith and reality is based on faith because god created reality. lol

[Anonymous]

We have our scriptures - that's evidence enough for many. In fact, your posts about Horus and December 25th were a (failed, because yawn) effort to debunk this evidence.

Others have experienced miracles, and that's evidence to them.

But you just want to argue.

Whatever.

[Anonymous]

Or some people have high standards for what qualifies as evidence because they actually care what they believe in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or some people have high standards for what qualifies as evidence because they actually care what they believe in.

If you think, as you stated above, that there's "no" evidence, then why are you so obsessed with proving things like December 25th wrong? Makes no sense. It's like saying, "I don't believe in Santa but I think he needs to lose weight."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or some people have high standards for what qualifies as evidence because they actually care what they believe in.

If you think, as you stated above, that there's "no" evidence, then why are you so obsessed with proving things like December 25th wrong? Makes no sense. It's like saying, "I don't believe in Santa but I think he needs to lose weight."

+1!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have our scriptures - that's evidence enough for many. In fact, your posts about Horus and December 25th were a (failed, because yawn) effort to debunk this evidence.

Others have experienced miracles, and that's evidence to them.

But you just want to argue.

Whatever.

That part about Horus and December 25th really got to you, didn't it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or some people have high standards for what qualifies as evidence because they actually care what they believe in.

If you think, as you stated above, that there's "no" evidence, then why are you so obsessed with proving things like December 25th wrong? Makes no sense. It's like saying, "I don't believe in Santa but I think he needs to lose weight."

How about, "I don't celebrate Yuletide, but at December's end I'll feast, gather with friends, burn a few logs, decorate a tree inside the home, give a gift and tell my kids about a man flying through the sky with reindeer (not on horseback like Odin, though-- that would be sacrilegious!")

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have our scriptures - that's evidence enough for many. In fact, your posts about Horus and December 25th were a (failed, because yawn) effort to debunk this evidence.

Others have experienced miracles, and that's evidence to them.

But you just want to argue.

Whatever.

That part about Horus and December 25th really got to you, didn't it?

Really struck a nerve, huh, huh? (As a previous PP has said of your earlier witty ripostes.)

Okay, so I actually bothered to do some digging around.

The ancient Egyptians did not celebrate Horus's birth on December 25.

The beginning of the Egyptian year was at the end of June with the heliacal rising of Sirius. This was an extremely important event in ancient Egypt because the rising of Sirius signaled the flooding of the Nile, on which all life in Egypt depended, beginning in upper Egypt in Aswan and progressing northward over the next two months. Like most ancient peoples, the Egyptians had a lunar calendar, but tried to keep it consistent with the solar calendar by adding five days. These were inserted at the beginning of the year in late June, and were celebrated as days on which the various deities were born. One of these was Horus.

The idea of Horus being born on December 25, appears to have been propagated late last century, early this century by various conspiracy thinkers, who maintain that Christianity was actually developed two millenia ago by a group who put together all the various elements of Paganism practiced in the Roman Empire at the time to come up with a neo-Pagan mythology. I am largely inferring here from the short bits I read, so some of the particulars may not be right. In any case, a movie called Zeitgeist was made around 2003 that laid out this neo-Pagan Christian conspiracy.

One of the starring statements in the movie is the assertion that Horus was born on December 25 from a virgin (though Isis copulating with the golden phallus of Osiris hardly seems that), etc to more parallels with Jesus's life. The assertions made in the movie and some writings that formed the basis for the movie, which can be found on the internet, do not hold up to scholarly scrutiny at all. You will find ample critiques on the internet.

It seems atheist OP demands all sorts of proof from Christianity and yet gullibly swallows whole websites that are as laden with spurious scholarship as Zeitgeist.

Here's another example: A central thesis of Zeitgeist and the neo-Pagan Christian conspiracy theorists is that Son of God=Sun of God. Get it? The story of Jesus is actually a mythology of a Sun god. But only in English, in which son and sun are hononyms, do these words look at all alike. In none of the ancient languages spoken at the time Christianity arose (and that emphatically does not include Old English), do the words for son and sun bear any relationship with each other. The Son of God=Sun of God reflects a child-like understanding of language, as well of mythology, religion, and theology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have our scriptures - that's evidence enough for many. In fact, your posts about Horus and December 25th were a (failed, because yawn) effort to debunk this evidence.

Others have experienced miracles, and that's evidence to them.

But you just want to argue.

Whatever.

who has experienced a miracle? please provide evidence of one

[Anonymous]

I experienced a miracle !

I was born into a existance of order, gravity , love and matter!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have our scriptures - that's evidence enough for many. In fact, your posts about Horus and December 25th were a (failed, because yawn) effort to debunk this evidence.

Others have experienced miracles, and that's evidence to them.

But you just want to argue.

Whatever.

That part about Horus and December 25th really got to you, didn't it?

Really struck a nerve, huh, huh? (As a previous PP has said of your earlier witty ripostes.)

Okay, so I actually bothered to do some digging around.

The ancient Egyptians did not celebrate Horus's birth on December 25.

The beginning of the Egyptian year was at the end of June with the heliacal rising of Sirius. This was an extremely important event in ancient Egypt because the rising of Sirius signaled the flooding of the Nile, on which all life in Egypt depended, beginning in upper Egypt in Aswan and progressing northward over the next two months. Like most ancient peoples, the Egyptians had a lunar calendar, but tried to keep it consistent with the solar calendar by adding five days. These were inserted at the beginning of the year in late June, and were celebrated as days on which the various deities were born. One of these was Horus.

The idea of Horus being born on December 25, appears to have been propagated late last century, early this century by various conspiracy thinkers, who maintain that Christianity was actually developed two millenia ago by a group who put together all the various elements of Paganism practiced in the Roman Empire at the time to come up with a neo-Pagan mythology. I am largely inferring here from the short bits I read, so some of the particulars may not be right. In any case, a movie called Zeitgeist was made around 2003 that laid out this neo-Pagan Christian conspiracy.

One of the starring statements in the movie is the assertion that Horus was born on December 25 from a virgin (though Isis copulating with the golden phallus of Osiris hardly seems that), etc to more parallels with Jesus's life. The assertions made in the movie and some writings that formed the basis for the movie, which can be found on the internet, do not hold up to scholarly scrutiny at all. You will find ample critiques on the internet.

It seems atheist OP demands all sorts of proof from Christianity and yet gullibly swallows whole websites that are as laden with spurious scholarship as Zeitgeist.

Here's another example: A central thesis of Zeitgeist and the neo-Pagan Christian conspiracy theorists is that Son of God=Sun of God. Get it? The story of Jesus is actually a mythology of a Sun god. But only in English, in which son and sun are hononyms, do these words look at all alike. In none of the ancient languages spoken at the time Christianity arose (and that emphatically does not include Old English), do the words for son and sun bear any relationship with each other. The Son of God=Sun of God reflects a child-like understanding of language, as well of mythology, religion, and theology.

That's the best you can do? What about Mithras the Persian god born on Dec 25? and Osiris, who rose from the death?

As for sun/son, what about red/reed -- some say Moses actually crossed the very shallow Reed sea and people confused it with Red, but that would only work in English -- but even English takes us back a few centuries, when some of the myths could have been generated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have our scriptures - that's evidence enough for many. In fact, your posts about Horus and December 25th were a (failed, because yawn) effort to debunk this evidence.

Others have experienced miracles, and that's evidence to them.

But you just want to argue.

Whatever.

That part about Horus and December 25th really got to you, didn't it?

Really struck a nerve, huh, huh? (As a previous PP has said of your earlier witty ripostes.)

Okay, so I actually bothered to do some digging around.

The ancient Egyptians did not celebrate Horus's birth on December 25.

The beginning of the Egyptian year was at the end of June with the heliacal rising of Sirius. This was an extremely important event in ancient Egypt because the rising of Sirius signaled the flooding of the Nile, on which all life in Egypt depended, beginning in upper Egypt in Aswan and progressing northward over the next two months. Like most ancient peoples, the Egyptians had a lunar calendar, but tried to keep it consistent with the solar calendar by adding five days. These were inserted at the beginning of the year in late June, and were celebrated as days on which the various deities were born. One of these was Horus.

The idea of Horus being born on December 25, appears to have been propagated late last century, early this century by various conspiracy thinkers, who maintain that Christianity was actually developed two millenia ago by a group who put together all the various elements of Paganism practiced in the Roman Empire at the time to come up with a neo-Pagan mythology. I am largely inferring here from the short bits I read, so some of the particulars may not be right. In any case, a movie called Zeitgeist was made around 2003 that laid out this neo-Pagan Christian conspiracy.

One of the starring statements in the movie is the assertion that Horus was born on December 25 from a virgin (though Isis copulating with the golden phallus of Osiris hardly seems that), etc to more parallels with Jesus's life. The assertions made in the movie and some writings that formed the basis for the movie, which can be found on the internet, do not hold up to scholarly scrutiny at all. You will find ample critiques on the internet.

It seems atheist OP demands all sorts of proof from Christianity and yet gullibly swallows whole websites that are as laden with spurious scholarship as Zeitgeist.

Here's another example: A central thesis of Zeitgeist and the neo-Pagan Christian conspiracy theorists is that Son of God=Sun of God. Get it? The story of Jesus is actually a mythology of a Sun god. But only in English, in which son and sun are hononyms, do these words look at all alike. In none of the ancient languages spoken at the time Christianity arose (and that emphatically does not include Old English), do the words for son and sun bear any relationship with each other. The Son of God=Sun of God reflects a child-like understanding of language, as well of mythology, religion, and theology.

That's the best you can do? What about Mithras the Persian god born on Dec 25? and Osiris, who rose from the death?

As for sun/son, what about red/reed -- some say Moses actually crossed the very shallow Reed sea and people confused it with Red, but that would only work in English -- but even English takes us back a few centuries, when some of the myths could have been generated.

Roger Beck, a classics professor for some 30 years at the University of Toronto, who has written volumes on Mithraism, calls the claimed December 25 birthday of Mithras "that hoariest of 'facts." See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithras_in_comparison_with_other_belief_systems

You can also find on liner reviews of Beck's learned works on line.

Osiris was torn apart and Isis collected the pieces, putting them together, substituting a golden phallus for the real thing that was swallowed by a river creature. The parallels with Jesus's resurrection elude me on that one.

Your desperate claim that somehow the whole myth of Jesus could have happened somewhere in England when Old English was spoken (so Son of God=Sun of God could have arisen) is your most ludicrous to date.

As far as I can discern, the Red Sea vs. Reed Sea debate has nothing to do with the similarity of the English words, but rather to disputes over the meaning of yam suph in Hebrew and ancient views of the geography of the watery body between Egypt and Sinai.