In the case against religious theism, what is so damning...

[No_Foolin'?]

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There is no argument against it, because there is no argument for it. Faith is not logic-based any more than beauty or love are logic-based.

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OP:
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...is not that the universe is so easily explained without invoking a god (it isn't), it is that the existence (and proliferation) of these theistic religions is so easily explained without invoking a god.

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Absolutely: You don't need logic to explain how a person can understand or appreciate beauty. Nor do you need logic to explain how a person can love. Nor do you need a god.

Neither do you need a god to explain how a person could believe in gods/God. Indeed, as the OP intimates, evidence abounds regarding human beings' propensity to deify all kinds of things.

[Lestat]

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Almost to a person, this is one area of their lives where theists think it's ok to suspend logic. They may be logical when it comes to most everything else, but when it comes to sky gods and religion, they put that in a seperate category.

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Splendour, Brad1970: Any response?

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I dont accept it is impossible to maintain a rational belief in God, although I concede it is more effort and often not one actually undertaken. I dont suspend logic in this area of my life - I've discovered I believe in something and am examining the consequences of that. If I find the concept of god to be logically untenable, I highly doubt the belief will endure.

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Bunny,

Haven't you said that there are aspects to your belief in God that you cannot justify logically?

Perhaps not all aspects, since I think you feel a rational belief based on an experience you've had, which you consider evidence for yourself. But certainly some aspects. For instance, why you're a Christian and not simply a deist for example. Do I have this right?

[Splendour]

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So many problems...

(1) Though I can't pull scripture out of thin air, I'm fairly certain that Jesus didn't negate the Old Testament.


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It's called the New Covenant. Look it up.

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Also- Brad... since you seem to think Splendour is on to something, are you suggesting that the New Covenant is saying everything in the Old Testament is wrong? For instance, if you read the Old Testament and by reading came to the logical conclusion that the earth is 6000 years old, are you suggesting that the New Covenant says this is wrong?


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I didn't read this whole thread, so I really don't know who said what but.........

In the OT, man had sin offerings to God for the attonement of sins. Usually this consisted of sacrificing a cow, goat, sheep, etc. from their herds....usually one of the best of the herd not some old dying, crippled bull or something. This was the Old Covenant. When Christ was crucified, he took the place of the animal sacrifices. You've probably heard the phrase "sacrificial lamb" or "by the blood of the lamb"...that's Jesus....metaphorically stated I guess. This is the New Covenant. That's why we don't observe Passover.

The New Covenant doesn't replace the OT, it replaces the Old Covenant. Christians do not believe that the OT is negated. It's still good. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] But since our faith hinges on Jesus, we tend to spend the bulk of our time in the NT.

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Here's a copy of a link with a very detailed description of the better covenant of the New Testament that replaced the Old Testament's.

What was the purpose of the bloody sacrificial ritual of the Old Testament?

According to Scripture, sacrifice was instituted and approved by God. But when worship of the true God was abandoned, blood sacrifice was transformed into a way to magically appease, manipulate, and avert the anger of imaginary gods. The apostle Paul wrote:

Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen (Romans 1:21-25).


And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting (Romans 1:28).

(See "Why did ancient pagans practice blood sacrifices?" )

Faithful sacrifice in worship of the true God was reinstated at the time of the Flood ( Genesis 8:20-21 ) and confirmed when God established a special covenant with a man of faith named Abraham.

Now the Lord had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:1-3).

Faith in God's goodness and grace became the bridge between sinful creatures and a holy God ( Hebrews 11:6-19 ). Abraham demonstrated his genuine faith by his radical obedience. He was willing to offer his long-awaited, precious son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to God ( Genesis 22:1-3 ). God didn't dispute or deny human unworthiness, or imply that death wasn't the necessary price for atonement. It was necessary, after all, for Abraham to be willing to bring Isaac as a sacrifice. But God didn't require Isaac to die. God Himself provided a sacrifice -- a ram ( Genesis 22:12-13 ) -- to die in his place.

On the mountain top in Moriah (traditionally identified as the temple mount in Jerusalem), God revealed His grace and mercy in a way that -- for Abraham and his descendents -- clearly ended the practice of human sacrifice. In the Old Testament law, God clearly forbad that man shed human blood in sacrifice (Deuteronomy 18:9-12).

Since God was now known as both holy and merciful (see "Are Christians just engaging in wishful thinking when they teach that God is a truthful, reliable heavenly Father?" ), sacrifice was no longer to be motivated by superstitious fear. It was to be the expression of conscious acknowledgment of guilt, 1 of belonging to God, and of desiring to be restored to fellowship with Him. 2

The Old Testament law ( Leviticus 16 ) introduced the ritual of atonement, in which the life of a goat was accepted by God as a symbolic substitution for the lives of a corrupt people who were individually and corporately worthy of death. But Old Testament sacrifices were not in themselves sufficient to atone for sin. They were sufficient only to point forward to the coming of the Messiah who would die in atonement for the sins of the world. Hebrews 10:4 declares,

It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Further, Hebrews 10:10-14 tells us that "by one offering He (Christ) has perfected for all time those who are sanctified."

One of the main purposes of Old Testament law was to make the people of Israel conscious of the great gap between their own weakness and corruption and the expectations of a Holy God ( Romans 5:12-20 ). Old Testament sacrifices accustomed the Jews to acknowledge their guilt and their need for divine grace and forgiveness. But it was only through Christ's perfect life and death that actual and permanent atonement was made for the sins of an evil world. By entering His own created universe and assuming the penalty for its sin, His infinite suffering has atoned for the natural and moral evils that resulted from His creatures' freedom to sin ( Luke 22:20 ; John 6:53 ; Romans 3:25 ; 1 Corinthians 10:16 ; Ephesians 2:13 ; Hebrews 9:14 ; 1 Peter 1:18-19 ). Jesus Christ was a human sacrifice, but not a sacrifice offered up by fallen mankind to God. He offered Himself up freely as a sacrifice by God to God for mankind 3 ( John 3:16 ; 11:27-33 ; Romans 8:32 ; 1 John 4:9 ).

1. Unlike the sacrifices of the pagans, Old Testament sacrifices had to be offered in a spirit of humility and repentance ( Numbers 15:22-31 ; Isaiah 66:1-4 ; Amos 5:21-24 ). It wasn't enough that they simply be performed as magical means of appeasement.



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2. "The object of the sacrifice is to establish a moral relation between the man as a personal being and God the absolute Spirit, to heal the separation between God and man that had been caused by sin. Now, as free personality is the soil out of which sin has sprung, so must the atonement be a work rooted in free personality as well. Being outside the sphere of moral freedom, the animal may be regarded as innocent and sinless; but for the same reason it cannot possess innocence in the true sense of the word and thus have a righteousness that could form an adequate satisfaction for the sin and guilt of man" (New Unger's Bible Dictionary, p.1100).



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3. "Who makes the propitiation? In a pagan context, it is always human beings who seek to avert the divine anger either by the meticulous performance of rituals, or by the recitation of magic formulae, or by the offering of sacrifices (vegetable, animal, or even human). Such practices are thought to placate the offended deity. But the gospel begins with the outspoken assertion that nothing we can do, say, offer, or even contribute can compensate for our sins or turn away God's anger. There is no possibility of persuading, cajoling, or bribing God to forgive us, for we deserve nothing at His hands but judgment. Nor, as we have seen, has Christ by His sacrifice prevailed upon God to pardon us. No, the initiative has been taken by God Himself, in His sheer mercy and grace" (John Stott, The Atonement).

Dan Vander Lugt

[bunny]

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Bunny,

Haven't you said that there are aspects to your belief in God that you cannot justify logically?

Perhaps not all aspects, since I think you feel a rational belief based on an experience you've had, which you consider evidence for yourself. But certainly some aspects. For instance, why you're a Christian and not simply a deist for example. Do I have this right?

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You have it right. I dont accept that it is illogical to do so (since I dont make a free choice amongst any old religion - I consider a literalist christianity inconsistent with the facts of science, for example. So logic plays a significant part even if my choice of religion is not logically derived - it's still logically constrained).

I dont think in order to be rational, one must adopt all positions through a process of logical deduction - this is too high a bar, in my opinion as I dont think anyone does this. However, I do think that in order to be rational your position must be logically consistent.

[CallMeIshmael]

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Sceintists themselves can't decide about evolution and intelligent design (Darwin vs. Newton)

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The Darwin vs Newton part is particularily awesome

[foal]

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So many problems...

(1) Though I can't pull scripture out of thin air, I'm fairly certain that Jesus didn't negate the Old Testament.


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It's called the New Covenant. Look it up.

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Also- Brad... since you seem to think Splendour is on to something, are you suggesting that the New Covenant is saying everything in the Old Testament is wrong? For instance, if you read the Old Testament and by reading came to the logical conclusion that the earth is 6000 years old, are you suggesting that the New Covenant says this is wrong?


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I didn't read this whole thread, so I really don't know who said what but.........

In the OT, man had sin offerings to God for the attonement of sins. Usually this consisted of sacrificing a cow, goat, sheep, etc. from their herds....usually one of the best of the herd not some old dying, crippled bull or something. This was the Old Covenant. When Christ was crucified, he took the place of the animal sacrifices. You've probably heard the phrase "sacrificial lamb" or "by the blood of the lamb"...that's Jesus....metaphorically stated I guess. This is the New Covenant. That's why we don't observe Passover.

The New Covenant doesn't replace the OT, it replaces the Old Covenant. Christians do not believe that the OT is negated. It's still good. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] But since our faith hinges on Jesus, we tend to spend the bulk of our time in the NT.

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Splendour said something like "we don't base our faith on the old testament" as a defense of its implications that the earth is ridiculously young. What you were responding to had nothing to do with covenants.

[David Sklansky]

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There is no longer a "case against religious theism", it is over. The people believing in religion/god are either choosing to ignore the arguments against it…

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There is not argument against it, because there is no argument for it. Faith is not logic based any more than beauty or love are logic based.

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A long time ago BluffThis wrote that Catholics can accept the idea that an objective examination of the evidence is maybe not enough to lead someone who is an impartial, expert evidence evaluator, to come to the conclusion that the Catholic God is highly likely to be the true one.

But many other Christians on this forum disagree with that stance. They maintain that a logical examination of the evidence is by itself enough to lead a rational person to the conclusion that there is not only God, but that it is a fairly specific type of Christian God. It is easy for Catholics to disagree with them because Catholics allow for the possibility for non Christians to go to heaven. But when you don't allow for that possibility you are pretty muched forced to reject the notion that objective evaluation of the evidence leads you to smaller than 50-50 chance of the truth of Christianity. Because that would mean that God would be condemning objective truth seekers with no ulterior motives.

The bottom line is that people like txaq, Not Ready, and Splendour, do in fact think there beliefs are quite logical.

[No_Foolin'?]

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The bottom line is that people like txaq, Not Ready, and Splendour, do in fact think their beliefs are quite logical.

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I would tend to agree, but notice what Splendour says above:

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You're suppose to be able to take a leap of faith based on the Gospel (the Good News).

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I don't want to speak for anyone, but it seems as though Splendour may not ultimately believe his faith to be based on logical foundations. But this is what is so irksome about trying to dialog with Splendour, et al: You never will find out exactly what they believe or why because they refuse to participate in reasoned discussion for any length of time or with any appreciable depth.

It becomes wasteful to even attempt to engage them.

[Splendour]

Maybe these 2 definitions will clarify a leap of faith No_Foolin'.

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual is convinced of the truth or validity of a proposition or premise (argument). Belief does not necessarily confer the ability to adequately prove one's main contention to other people, who may disagree.


A leap of faith, in its most commonly used meaning, is the act of believing in something without, or in spite of, available empirical evidence. It is an act commonly associated with religious belief as many religions consider faith to be an essential element of piety.

A believer reads scripture then believes its truth. Since you're saved through Jesus and are under a better covenant you get him through reading the Gospels. Jesus himself tells his disciples how people are to approach him to be saved. He's the living word and uses the disciples' eyewitness accounts to relay his message.

A covenant is a contract. God is the one who drew up the terms of the contract. A contract is an exchange of promises and is only valid when both sides perform the terms of the contract in good faith. He's offered us a contract, whether or not we will understand it, accept it and live up to it is up to us. We have freewill after all.

This is how I understand it, but most people need to pick up a bible and understand it for themselves and move amongst other people that are trying to live it. We're humans so we definitely affect each other for good or for bad but if you focus on God you just might balance and walk the tightrope through this world to the other better side.

Poker players ought to be able to get this. You play a balancing act everyday on the poker table through the extreme polarities of the game of poker. So go tight when you have to go tight and go loose when you have to go loose.
We're humans we adjust for changing conditions while maintaining our focus.

[luckyme]

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Belief does not necessarily confer the ability to adequately prove one's main contention to other people, who may disagree.


A leap of faith, in its most commonly used meaning, is the act of believing in something without, or in spite of, available empirical evidence.

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Ok, DS is down to hoping txag and NotReady think their evidence is sufficient proof to a good handicapper.

luckyme