Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sy Borg]

If there is a god, why doesn't he prove that he exists? Why does he leave us without any compelling evidence of his existence?

What kind of proof would you accept? That he should appear to you in person?

He tried that 2,000 years ago and the skeptics still were not convinced.

Ten points for a strong start, zero points for maintenance.

We can see where delegating the message ended up - with corruption, politicisation and mass molestation of children by church officials. If you plant a garden, you need to maintain it or it will be overrun with weeds. A skilful and knowledgeable gardener knows the right plants to put in what places and carefully prepares the soil so that weeds cannot dominate. God's efforts are more like my attempts to grow plants. Bog ordinary.

Whatever, if Jesus existed, he was just a teacher. No virgin birth, miracles and magic tricks, no resurrection. In this, Judaism is correct in that regard.

Of course God proves itself all the time, in the minds of believers. That is where deities exists, subjectively within minds. If you asked every believer to define God without being able to refer to others' answers, you would end up with thousands, maybe millions, of definitions. That's why God is indefinable. Each believer's invisible friend has its own qualities.

[Charlemagne]

If there is a god, why doesn't he prove that he exists? Why does he leave us without any compelling evidence of his existence?

What kind of proof would you accept? That he should appear to you in person?

He tried that 2,000 years ago and the skeptics still were not convinced.

Ten points for a strong start, zero points for maintenance.

We can see where delegating the message ended up - with corruption, politicisation and mass molestation of children by church officials. If you plant a garden, you need to maintain it or it will be overrun with weeds. A skilful and knowledgeable gardener knows the right plants to put in what places and carefully prepares the soil so that weeds cannot dominate. God's efforts are more like my attempts to grow plants. Bog ordinary.

Whatever, if Jesus existed, he was just a teacher. No virgin birth, miracles and magic tricks, no resurrection. In this, Judaism is correct in that regard.

Of course God proves itself all the time, in the minds of believers. That is where deities exists, subjectively within minds. If you asked every believer to define God without being able to refer to others' answers, you would end up with thousands, maybe millions, of definitions. That's why God is indefinable. Each believer's invisible friend has its own qualities.

What do you mean by "If Jesus existed"? This shows not only your snootiness but also your lack of education.

[Charlemagne]

Still waiting for an atheist to answer the questions. Rambling evasions will not do.

[LuckyR]

If there is a god, why doesn't he prove that he exists? Why does he leave us without any compelling evidence of his existence?

What kind of proof would you accept? That he should appear to you in person?

He tried that 2,000 years ago and the skeptics still were not convinced.

Depends what you mean by "god". If you mean a being significantly more intelligent and powerful than a human, probably solving some common human problems such as cancer and climate change would be fine. If you mean a spirit that is everywhere and has a hand in everything, like nature or Gaia, I'm not sure there is a way since nature is not a physical entity. OTOH if you mean a cloud fairy who created the universe, since universe creation lies outside of my (and everyone else's) ability to comprehend, let alone evaluate, that part is going to have to be unproven. But bringing a shotgun headshot victim back from the dead would be a decent start.

[Sy Borg]

If there is a god, why doesn't he prove that he exists? Why does he leave us without any compelling evidence of his existence?

What kind of proof would you accept? That he should appear to you in person?

He tried that 2,000 years ago and the skeptics still were not convinced.

Ten points for a strong start, zero points for maintenance.

We can see where delegating the message ended up - with corruption, politicisation and mass molestation of children by church officials. If you plant a garden, you need to maintain it or it will be overrun with weeds. A skilful and knowledgeable gardener knows the right plants to put in what places and carefully prepares the soil so that weeds cannot dominate. God's efforts are more like my attempts to grow plants. Bog ordinary.

Whatever, if Jesus existed, he was just a teacher. No virgin birth, miracles and magic tricks, no resurrection. In this, Judaism is correct in that regard.

Of course God proves itself all the time, in the minds of believers. That is where deities exists, subjectively within minds. If you asked every believer to define God without being able to refer to others' answers, you would end up with thousands, maybe millions, of definitions. That's why God is indefinable. Each believer's invisible friend has its own qualities.

What do you mean by "If Jesus existed"? This shows not only your snootiness but also your lack of education.

Your ad hominem attack suggests insecurity in your position. Further, you did not to my comment, focusing on my reasonable philosophical caution. Did I claim JC didn't exist? No, I simply distrust the accuracy of Biblical history.

Given the similarities of Jesus's and deities in surrounding cultures, there's a chance that his story is factional, meant to be inspirational, as were other myths.

https://www.atheists.org/activism/resou ... sus-exist/

Let's examine Mark's account to check the accuracy of Bible history:

One further evidence of the inauthenticity of Mark is the fact that in chapter 7, where Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees, Jesus is made to quote the Greek Septuagint version of Isaiah in order to score his debate point. Unfortunately, the Hebrew version says something different from the Greek. Isaiah 29:13, in the Hebrew reads “their fear of me is a commandment of men learned by rote,” whereas the Greek version – and the gospel of Mark – reads “in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” [Revised Standard Version). Wells observes dryly [p. 13], “That a Palestinian Jesus should floor Orthodox Jews with an argument based on a mistranslation of their scriptures is very unlikely.” Indeed!

Another powerful argument against the idea that Mark could have been an eye-witness of the existence of Jesus is based upon the observation that the author of Mark displays a profound lack of familiarity with Palestinian geography. If he had actually lived in Palestine, he would not have made the blunders to be found in his gospel. If he never lived in Palestine, he could not have been an eye-witness of Jesus. You get the point.

The most absurd geographical error Mark commits is when he tells the tall tale about Jesus crossing over the Sea of Galilee and casting demons out of a man (two men in Matthew’s revised version) and making them go into about 2,000 pigs which, as the King James version puts it, “ran violently down a steep place into the sea… and they were choked in the sea.”

Apart from the cruelty to animals displayed by the lovable, gentle Jesus, and his disregard for the property of others, what’s wrong with this story? If your only source of information is the King James Bible, you might not ever know. The King James says this marvel occurred in the land of the Gadarenes, whereas the oldest Greek manuscripts say this miracle took place in the land of the Gerasenes. Luke, who also knew no Palestinian geography, also passes on this bit of absurdity. But Matthew, who had some knowledge of Palestine, changed the name to Gadarene in his new, improved version; but this is further improved to Gergesenes in the King James version.

By now the reader must be dizzy with all the distinctions between Gerasenes, Gadarenes, and Gergesenes. What difference does it make? A lot of difference, as we shall see.

Gerasa, the place mentioned in the oldest manuscripts of Mark, is located about 31 miles from the shore of the Sea of Galilee! Those poor pigs had to run a course five miles longer than a marathon in order to find a place to drown! Not even lemmings have to go that far. Moreover, if one considers a “steep” slope to be at least 45 degrees, that would make the elevation of Gerasa at least six times higher than Mt. Everest!

When the author of Matthew read Mark’s version, he saw the impossibility of Jesus and the gang disembarking at Gerasa (which, by the way, was also in a different country, the so-called Decapolis). Since the only town in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee that he knew of that started with G was Gadara, he changed Gerasa to Gadara. But even Gadara was five miles from the shore – and in a different country. Later copyists of the Greek manuscripts of all three pig-drowning gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) improved Gadara further to Gergesa, a region now thought to have actually formed part of the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. So much for the trustworthiness of the biblical tradition.

Another example of Mark’s abysmal ignorance of Palestinian geography is found in the story he made up about Jesus traveling from Tyre on the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, 30 miles inland. According to Mark 7:31, Jesus and the boys went by way of Sidon, 20 miles north of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast! Since to Sidon and back would be 40 miles, this means that the wisest of all men walked 70 miles when he could have walked only 30. Of course, one would never know all this from the King James version which – apparently completely ignoring a perfectly clear Greek text – says “Departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the Sea of Galilee…” Apparently the translators of the King James version also knew their geography. At least they knew more than did the author of Mark!

[Charlemagne]

What kind of proof would you accept? That he should appear to you in person?

He tried that 2,000 years ago and the skeptics still were not convinced.

Ten points for a strong start, zero points for maintenance.

We can see where delegating the message ended up - with corruption, politicisation and mass molestation of children by church officials. If you plant a garden, you need to maintain it or it will be overrun with weeds. A skilful and knowledgeable gardener knows the right plants to put in what places and carefully prepares the soil so that weeds cannot dominate. God's efforts are more like my attempts to grow plants. Bog ordinary.

Whatever, if Jesus existed, he was just a teacher. No virgin birth, miracles and magic tricks, no resurrection. In this, Judaism is correct in that regard.

Of course God proves itself all the time, in the minds of believers. That is where deities exists, subjectively within minds. If you asked every believer to define God without being able to refer to others' answers, you would end up with thousands, maybe millions, of definitions. That's why God is indefinable. Each believer's invisible friend has its own qualities.

What do you mean by "If Jesus existed"? This shows not only your snootiness but also your lack of education.

Your ad hominem attack suggests insecurity in your position. Further, you did not to my comment, focusing on my reasonable philosophical caution. Did I claim JC didn't exist? No, I simply distrust the accuracy of Biblical history.

Given the similarities of Jesus's and deities in surrounding cultures, there's a chance that his story is factional, meant to be inspirational, as were other myths.

https://www.atheists.org/activism/resou ... sus-exist/

Let's examine Mark's account to check the accuracy of Bible history:

One further evidence of the inauthenticity of Mark is the fact that in chapter 7, where Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees, Jesus is made to quote the Greek Septuagint version of Isaiah in order to score his debate point. Unfortunately, the Hebrew version says something different from the Greek. Isaiah 29:13, in the Hebrew reads “their fear of me is a commandment of men learned by rote,” whereas the Greek version – and the gospel of Mark – reads “in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” [Revised Standard Version). Wells observes dryly [p. 13], “That a Palestinian Jesus should floor Orthodox Jews with an argument based on a mistranslation of their scriptures is very unlikely.” Indeed!

Another powerful argument against the idea that Mark could have been an eye-witness of the existence of Jesus is based upon the observation that the author of Mark displays a profound lack of familiarity with Palestinian geography. If he had actually lived in Palestine, he would not have made the blunders to be found in his gospel. If he never lived in Palestine, he could not have been an eye-witness of Jesus. You get the point.

The most absurd geographical error Mark commits is when he tells the tall tale about Jesus crossing over the Sea of Galilee and casting demons out of a man (two men in Matthew’s revised version) and making them go into about 2,000 pigs which, as the King James version puts it, “ran violently down a steep place into the sea… and they were choked in the sea.”

Apart from the cruelty to animals displayed by the lovable, gentle Jesus, and his disregard for the property of others, what’s wrong with this story? If your only source of information is the King James Bible, you might not ever know. The King James says this marvel occurred in the land of the Gadarenes, whereas the oldest Greek manuscripts say this miracle took place in the land of the Gerasenes. Luke, who also knew no Palestinian geography, also passes on this bit of absurdity. But Matthew, who had some knowledge of Palestine, changed the name to Gadarene in his new, improved version; but this is further improved to Gergesenes in the King James version.

By now the reader must be dizzy with all the distinctions between Gerasenes, Gadarenes, and Gergesenes. What difference does it make? A lot of difference, as we shall see.

Gerasa, the place mentioned in the oldest manuscripts of Mark, is located about 31 miles from the shore of the Sea of Galilee! Those poor pigs had to run a course five miles longer than a marathon in order to find a place to drown! Not even lemmings have to go that far. Moreover, if one considers a “steep” slope to be at least 45 degrees, that would make the elevation of Gerasa at least six times higher than Mt. Everest!

When the author of Matthew read Mark’s version, he saw the impossibility of Jesus and the gang disembarking at Gerasa (which, by the way, was also in a different country, the so-called Decapolis). Since the only town in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee that he knew of that started with G was Gadara, he changed Gerasa to Gadara. But even Gadara was five miles from the shore – and in a different country. Later copyists of the Greek manuscripts of all three pig-drowning gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) improved Gadara further to Gergesa, a region now thought to have actually formed part of the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. So much for the trustworthiness of the biblical tradition.

Another example of Mark’s abysmal ignorance of Palestinian geography is found in the story he made up about Jesus traveling from Tyre on the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, 30 miles inland. According to Mark 7:31, Jesus and the boys went by way of Sidon, 20 miles north of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast! Since to Sidon and back would be 40 miles, this means that the wisest of all men walked 70 miles when he could have walked only 30. Of course, one would never know all this from the King James version which – apparently completely ignoring a perfectly clear Greek text – says “Departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the Sea of Galilee…” Apparently the translators of the King James version also knew their geography. At least they knew more than did the author of Mark!

You seem to me truly lost in the woods. I prefer not to get lost there with you.

[Sy Borg]

I accept your concession that you are out of your depth.

[Charlemagne]

It could be possible that God exists, but doesn't necessarily care about people that much to prove himself (or herself, itself, etc.).

What kind of proof would you need, assuming God is not material and therefore cannot be seen?