So realists don't have to prove what they say...they can just spout and criticize people who don't agree with them just becaue they don't agree with them.....excellent! They can tell people that their faith is an excuse for ignorance and not have to back up that statement...because they know everything....must feel great to be so superior.
FAITH, the biggest excuse for IGNORANCE.
by nicolaou 111 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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ProdigalSon
To "House" fans, House is just as real as Jesus is to Christians. If a person is real in someone's consciousness, that's as good as reality, because we each create our own reality. If most people on earth believed today that Jesus was real, then in human consciousness, Jesus was real. With metaphysics properly understood, thoughts become reality.
As far as proving Jesus wasn't real, at least the version of him that's found in the Bible, that's easy too. He was never mentioned by one single historian of the era. That would be like someone writing a novel about how World War III and Armageddon came in 1988, fulfilling a multitude of prophecies and changing the world completely, but 2,000 years from now, this novel is the only written record of it and it completely escapes the notice of every news program, newspaper, Internet blog or discussion board, etc. of our era. Do you see the problem here? If Jesus performed miracles in front of crowds of people, no one noticed except the Bible writers. And the Bible's track record for truthfulness and accuracy is not very good. So either Jesus was real and much more obscure, doing his work in the shadows, or he didn't exist at all. Personally, I believe the former, because I have seen more than enough evidence for my own satisfaction that this man, whatever his name was, walked the earth and had a tremendous impact on people. But I don't rule out the possibility that the Christ was a group consciousness and there were quite a few Jesus's around, ascended masters born with an awakened consciousness and enough past life memory to know exactly why they were here and what their life purpose was. I've seen far too many historical references that he lived among the Essenes. The Bible repeats many times that the expected Messiah would be a Nazarene and that Jesus was a Nazarene. The only problem is that Nazareth was not a real place at the time, it was a group of gnostics!
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jgnat
still thinking, you asked the realist to prove a negative. They don't need to. The burden is on you, and you can't. Which means belief in Jesus is firmly in the realm of faith.
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wobble
I would want a good definition of "faith" before I could agree with the thread title.
Some use their religion as an excuse not to really educate themselves, I was guilty of just that when I was a Jehovah's Witness. I was abysmally ignorant in many areas. That religious cult likes to keep you that way.
Since leaving I have grasped at any knowledge coming my way, and have filled in so many gaps, and discarded so much that was total error, that I feel I am now a different person to that JW.
I do not think it is right to show any direspect to people who "believe", there is nothing wrong with believing in the concept of God, after all, it is a concept that is provable, admittedly we will have to wait until after we die to prove the truth of God's existence or not, but it is a concept that is potentially provable.
Just as the concept of life elsewhere in the Universe is potentialy provable.
That is not to say that I have any time for any anthropomorphic god that man has created, not the YHWH of early semitic myth, or any tribal god, not the Norse Gods or the Gods of Greek myth, or the god of the christians, they are fiction pure and simple.
Whatever "God" is , perhaps something like the Ein Sof of late Judaic thought, the religions of today do not represent "Him" or have any knowledge of "Him".
Condemn Religion all you like.
But don't knock believers, theirs is a perfectly acceptable philosophical position.
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jgnat
Without going in to your reasons in detail, wobble, I generally agree with you. I don't think that "faith" is necessarily bad. It provides comfort and a framework to to many people.
The problem is when fundamentalists mix reason with faith, in order to "prove" that their position is "true". If it's faith, it can't be proven. They should then back off and not insist that everyone who has not come to the same conclusion as they have, "by faith", is false. It's a critical lack of intellectual honesty.
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EntirelyPossible
You enjoy these websites you can have a look at the breakdown of the programme itself
All you have done is proven that there IS a show starring hugh laurie called "House". You haven't proven that "House" isn't real.
If you like, I am sure you could track him down and ask him yourself....since Hugh Laurie is still alive.
I am sure I could, but 1)that would be me doing something. YOU claimed you could prove that House isn't real. You need to do the work here and 2)Hugh Laurie being alive proves that Hugh Laurie is alive. It doesn't prove House isn't real.
Man that was boring!
Not at all. I am still waiting for you to prove House isn't real, not that Hugh Laurie is a live or that there is a show called House.
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PSacramento
Nic,
We've had our share of debates, have I ever struck you as ignorant or that I my faith is based on ignorance or that my faith leads me to be ignorant?
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EntirelyPossible
So realists don't have to prove what they say
Sure they do. Why would you think they don't?
...they can just spout and criticize people who don't agree with them just becaue they don't agree with them.....excellent!
Not at all. Of course, in THIS specific case, you made a claim about what you can prove. When in the realm of proof and claims, skepticism is the first thing required. If I asked you to accept that there was a firebreathing dragon in my garage, would you agree just on my say so? Why not? Would you ask me to prove it? If so, why?
They can tell people that their faith is an excuse for ignorance and not have to back up that statement...because they know everything....must feel great to be so superior.
Now don't get your feelings all hurt. Faith IS an excuse for ignorance. If you want evidence.... faith healers, pyramidology, prayer, good luck charms, belief in ESP, alien abductions, satanic cult sacrifices in america...the list goes on and on of things that people had absolute faith but which crumble under skepticism and and search for evidence.
And no one says they know everything, not at all. Of course we don't. We simply make the best use of the tools we have to move knowledge and the quality of life of humanity forward.
Now, can you prove House isn't real?
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JonathanH
I feel the need to clarify my statement that was misrepresented above by stillthinking.
I never claimed that making an assumption is stupid and one should never assume anything, I said that equating faith to being a mere assumption makes faith meaningless in any religious sense. I doubt many christians would say that the core of Jesus message was to just assume he would save you, or that god wants you to just make the assumption that he's real and the bible is his word. Equating faith with assumption takes out a considerable amount of power and majesty from such commands.
My saying that was in response to someone who had been making the claim that we have faith in alot of things, but in doing so he was equating faith to being defined as an assumption based on induction. At no point did I imply that one should never assume things.
Further more on proving Jesus isn't real, the poster "Jeff" is correct in saying realists don't need to prove negatives. Not because they are special, but because proving negatives is a logical fallacy. It's possible to demonstrate that there is an orange ball in my house, but in the absence of an orange ball it will be nearly impossible to demonstrate that there isn't an orange ball in my house. The reason for that being there will always be some possibility that I missed it, or that the size of the ball was not specified, maybe it's smaller than you thought it was, or what do you mean by "orange" or "ball"? The question can remain murky indefinitely if the person posing the question wishes it to be so. Satisfying the query to the point that there exists zero possibility that the ball is still somewhere in my house is a gargantuan task. So instead of proving a negative, the negative is assumed until the positive is shown. We assume that there is no orange ball in the house unless you can demonstrate that there IS an orange ball in the house. We assume there are no leprechauns until a leprechaun is shown, we don't assume leprechauns are real until somebody shows conclusively that they aren't real, because no such evidence can realistically be put forth.
Proving that 2000 years ago there was no man named Jesus that taught people and performed miracles is a nigh impossible task, just like proving there is no teapot orbitting Venus is a nigh impossible task. So it can be safely assumed that such a man did not exist until it can be shown conclusively that he did. Just like we assume that Odin is not real, and that Ragnarok is not imminent unless ample evidence is shown that there is an Odin and that we are screwed. Notice I say "ample" because with extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence is required. If I claim I saw a cat, a simple photograph would suffice to convince people that is true. If I say I saw a singing flying cat made out of a poptart with rainbows flowing majestically out of him whilst he flew through space, a mere youtube video would not be seen as conclusive evidence of the truth of my claim.