Greetings ,I'm back. Mythicism

[Glen DParticipant]

G’day from South Australia.

I’m back after an hiatus.

My basic position remains unchanged.   Still an agnostic atheist.  To me, that means I do not believe in god(s) due to a lack of evidence.  I do not claim, to know.

My position about the historicity of Jesus is changing. it was my position that at best: There may have been a wondering rabbi with a name something  like Yeshua./Yoshua bar Yusuf in first century Judea. This was not uncommon in that place and time. He may have founded a small Jewish sect, say like the Ebionites.   He may  have been  crucified by the Romans for sedition. A not uncommon fate for a Jew in that place and time.

 

My position is changing. This is because of some biblical historians I’ve recently discovered, especially  Richard Carrier on the Historicity Of Jesus. I find Dr Carrier’s claims compelling. I’m still working though his ideas. He is a mythicist.

My understanding of Carrier’s position (so far) so far is that there was no historical Jesus.   That Jesus and Christianity  are a synthesis of Judaism and the Greek Mystery Religions.

The only criticism I’m willing to make at present is that Dr Carrier  seems  to conflate correlation and causation. The two are not the same; similarities suggest a causal connection but do not in themselves prove  such a thing, imo.

Will need to do a lot more reading to be able to come to an informed opinion)

I’m not able to argue this position yet, but welcome comments and opinions, as long a they are supported by evidence. .(Please,do not quote  the popular documentary ‘Zeitgeist’)

[UnseenParticipant]

I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that I KNOW there is no God. Prove me wrong. LOL

I know God doesn’t exist for the same reason I know a round square (a round object which is simultaneously square) is mythological. God as described has incompatible properties. He’s claimed to be simultaneously all knowing and all powerful. It’s pick one and call me back in the morning. Imagine you are God: If you’re all knowing, then the future already exists and you are powerless to change it. Bye-bye omnipotency.

If a being exists which is both all knowing and all powerful, contradictory and incompatible properties, then I’m not just wrong, I’m crazy.

I don’t think I’m crazy and until someone convinces me that I am, I know there is no God and my belief that there is no God is based on logic. That God doesn’t exist is just as knowable as the expression “A and not A” can never express a true statement.

Anyone who can’t reach the same conclusion does so in defiance of pure logic.

We need to stop playing coy. God simply does not exist and it’s knowable and provable.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by  Unseen.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by  Unseen.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unseen i approve of the way you put the onus back where it belongs-on the Balhoonians.

[DavisModerator]

Unseen that’s just uber-arrogance. You don’t have absolute knowledge. We cannot answer the question whether God does or doesn’t exist until we achieve omniscience. Are you omniscient? Do you have proof you aren’t in a simulation created by God, a brain in a vat created by God? Under an incredible delusion in an environment where God could exist. It’s one thing to say you are virtually certain there is no God or that we may as well act as there is no God, but it’s pure arrogance to say you know for a fact X isn’t the case when you have limited access to all the facts. I don’t know a single philosopher who would ever make that claim. You don’t know there is no God any more you can be absolutely certain there isn’t a planet out there filled with dancing Giraffes. It would be ridiculous to say you know it exists or even claim it likely exists. But it is intellectually even more ludicrous to say you are certain, as a puny finite being with limited brain capacity stuck on a tiny planet with a microscopic access to all knowledge….that any thing doesn’t exist for certain.

If you cannot insert the I’m 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999% sure and absolutely must jump to 100% then you are just impatient, over confident and full of yourself.

The onus is on the person to prove their claim is true. It is not on us to prove it is not true. We don’t even need to claim certainly x doesn’t exist, just give good reason to not take it seriously. The difference isn’t important in every day terms, it is extremely important in philosophical terms and I’m dismayed you don’t get that.

[UnseenParticipant]

Davis, what we can do is logically conclude that the God as described by Christianity (Judaism and Islam as well…the one called Yahweh or Jehovah) simply can’t exist. And we can know that through very mortal reasoning, relying on perfectly obvious and irrefutable logic.

You seem to want to make the case that contradictions can exist in reality. Make your case, then.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by  Unseen.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

Imagine you are God: If you’re all knowing, then the future already exists and you are powerless to change it. Bye-bye omnipotency.

I don’t see the logical contradiction.  If the future already exists, as a 4-d spacetime shape, then God would be free to mould it as He wishes, with His full knowledge.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Unseen wrote:

We need to stop playing coy. God simply does not exist and it’s knowable and provable.

Hmm, how is that’s scientifically provable? Similar to the burden of proof being on the person declaring a fact would be proving that pink unicorns don’t exist. These things are not scientifically testable, much less provable.

I’m not “playing coy”, either. I’m just trying to uphold intellectual integrity.

 

[jakelafortParticipant]

It is the first time i have heard an atheist with a line like a theist. Theists have their saving possibility in you can not prove it does not exist. Unseen flipped the script and says I am certain you are mistaken. Prove i am wrong. I like it.

But the problem with using contradictions to assert impossibility is that we may not have a handle on physics.

[DavisModerator]

These things are not scientifically testable, much less provable.

Indeed. I would say that just as people believing in magic and stating their fantasies are true with any degree of certainty is the result of evolutionary processes gone utterly haywire in the age of reason, so it is to want to claim certainty about that which we cannot…in the age of reason. Intellectually it is much worse on the part of the rationalist who is making brazen irrational claims because they cannot tolerate uncertainty. It is a bad circuit in the brain that demands or claims special access to certainty where it is impossible. I defy you to demonstrate how a negative metaphysical claim is falsifiable or even testable.

[DavisModerator]

It is the first time i have heard an atheist with a line like a theist.

There is nothing admirable emulating theologians.

[DavisModerator]

I don’t see the logical contradiction.  If the future already exists, as a 4-d spacetime shape, then God would be free to mould it as He wishes, with His full knowledge.

Indeed Unseen is not batting well today. God could exist outside of time and space if he really had these miraculous qualities so I don’t see why he couldn’t conceive of everything in all of time and space at once and create it so. You need not go any further in critiquing the claim that God can do anything then quoting the classical retort: “could God create a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it”. That is a fatal challenge. But that he would be unable to control the future…no.

[DavisModerator]

Yes unseen, if you are saying that a God could not have all the qualities Christians say that he does…I agree. It is impossible. He cannot be all Good and all powerful because pointless evil and pointless suffering wouldn’t exist if he had both those qualities. There are many examples. That doesn’t prove that there is no God, or even a similar God that lacks a few of those incompatible qualities. All of this is moot though. We need only go as far as say: “I have no reason to take any of this seriously”. We are under no obligation to make broad claims of certainly metaphysical claims or entities don’t exist. Not claiming with certainty there is no God is not being coy. It is recognizing the fact that are are not omniscient and we lack the tools and access to information to have that kind of certainty.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:

Imagine you are God: If you’re all knowing, then the future already exists and you are powerless to change it. Bye-bye omnipotency.

I don’t see the logical contradiction. If the future already exists, as a 4-d spacetime shape, then God would be free to mould it as He wishes, with His full knowledge.

If he already knows what he will do in the future, then it’s predestined. Done already. Can’t be undone. If if can be undone, then his “knowledge” isn’t knowledge at all, is it?

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

It is the first time i have heard an atheist with a line like a theist. Theists have their saving possibility in you can not prove it does not exist. Unseen flipped the script and says I am certain you are mistaken. Prove i am wrong. I like it. But the problem with using contradictions to assert impossibility is that we may not have a handle on physics.

God is magical. What does physics have to do with anything? The creation of the universe is a magical thing, unexplainable by ordinary physics, even quantum physics. You either accept that it’s unknowable, a boundary on our knowledge, or you make it magical with “God did it!” God the cosmic sorcerer.

[UnseenParticipant]

Davis wrote:

I defy you to demonstrate how a negative metaphysical claim is falsifiable or even testable.

I’m making a logical claim, not a metaphysical one. Even metaphysicians don’t want to touch a contradiction because they’d be fools to do so.

[Author]

Posts