Searching for GOD...

[ProfessorDavey]

Atheism is basically materialistic. Nothing except the physical can exist.

No it isn't - atheism is simply a lack of belief that god or god exists.

Spiritual is about acknowledging the existence of the non physical and accepting its connection with ones inner self.....existence of an after life etc.

Well that's your definition, but as I've pointed out there is no universally accepted definition and the term 'spiritual' and 'spiritualism' is used in all sorts of ways.

[Outrider]

Atheism is basically materialistic. Nothing except the physical can exist.

A fair section of the 'atheist community' probably are materialists to all practical purposes, but it's not necessarily the case. There are a number of Buddhists, for instance, who classify themselves as atheists, but they are undoubtedly spiritual and have a belief in a spiritual element to humanity's nature.

Spiritual is about acknowledging the existence of the non physical and accepting its connection with ones inner self.....existence of an after life etc.

It's not about 'acknowledging the existence', as thought would require that existence to be a demonstrable fact. It's about accepting the claim of a non-material element to existence in the absence of any strong evidence.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Atheism is basically materialistic.

No it isn’t. Atheism is just the absence of belief in gods.

Nothing except the physical can exist.

That’s not atheism. Nor is it materialism. It’s actually something called physicalism, which is a cousin of scientism. Vlad is fond of accusing people here of both, even though no-one argues for either.   

Spiritual is about acknowledging the existence of the non physical…

That’s called the fallacy of begging the question. You can’t “acknowledge” something you’re unable to define or demonstrate in the first place. I may as well justify leprechaunism by telling you it’s the acknowledgement of leprechauns for all the use it has.   

…and accepting its connection with ones inner self.....existence of an after life etc.

As above – and you can’t accept “the existence of an afterlife” when there are no sound reasons for thinking it to exist at all. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No it isn't - atheism is simply a lack of belief that god or god exists.

A definition forged after centuries of unsuccessful defence of a positive atheism. I recommend John Gray's Seven types of atheism.

[Maeght]

A definition forged after centuries of unsuccessful defence of a positive atheism. I recommend John Gray's Seven types of atheism.

Seven types of a lack of belief in God or gods. In current usage that's what atheism means and don't think the historic usage is particularly important or interesting.

[Nearly Sane]

A definition forged after centuries of unsuccessful defence of a positive atheism. I recommend John Gray's Seven types of atheism.

As always with Gray, it's good writing but muddled thinking. It's a pity you only follow him in one of those attributes.

More seriously, it's unimportant to a discussion based on Sriram suggesting that all atheists are materialists. Indeed, it argues against that.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

As always with Gray, it's good writing but muddled thinking. It's a pity you only follow him in one of those attributes.

More seriously, it's unimportant to a discussion based on Sriram suggesting that all atheists are materialists. Indeed, it argues against that.

Really? I’d like to see him on a message board fielding multiple angry atheist interlocutors.

[Nearly Sane]

Really? I’d like to see him on a message board fielding multiple angry atheist interlocutors.

Have you missed some stuff out of your post? It doesn't seem to make any sense as a reply.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

A definition forged after centuries of unsuccessful defence of a positive atheism.

No it isn’t – there’s no particular history of any such “defence”.

I recommend John Gray's Seven types of atheism.

Why? I don’t claim to be overly familiar with him but long ago on this mb (or maybe the BBC one before it) someone (possible you?) recommended a youtube talk by him, which I then critiqued at some length for its various errors and mis-steps. Is this book any more cogent than the talk?   

Really? I’d like to see him on a message board fielding multiple angry atheist interlocutors.

Then he’d have to look elsewhere as I’ve not seen “angry atheists” here. Notwithstanding, I’d like to see him here too if only to see whether his arguments now are as straightforward to dismantle as they were hitherto. 

[Outrider]

A definition forged after centuries of unsuccessful defence of a positive atheism.

You mean updating your philosophy based upon arguments presented! What a shocking concept...

O.

[jeremyp]

Anyone watched any of the Centre Place lectures on YouTube. Very good.

I've watched a few of them. They are very good. I particularly liked the one about the book of Daniel.

[jeremyp]

A definition forged after centuries of unsuccessful defence of a positive atheism. I recommend John Gray's Seven types of atheism.

What do you mean by "unsuccessful"? You theists haven't put a scratch on it.

[Dicky Underpants]

Why? I don’t claim to be overly familiar with him but long ago on this mb (or maybe the BBC one before it) someone (possible you?) recommended a youtube talk by him, which I then critiqued at some length for its various errors and mis-steps. Is this book any more cogent than the talk?   
 

Gray is hardly a fully paid-up theist. His one recurrent theme seems to be the bankruptcy of the ideal of human progress through science, with its implication that our moral stature might grow along with medicine's ability to do heart transplants and scientific technology's ability to send people into outer space. I have to say, I'm much in agreement here, though if I needed a heart transplant and the possibility were available, I don't think I'd be checking out the surgeon's 'moral' credentials, so long as he/she had the ability to do the job.
Supposing we agree that, morally, humankind has not progressed  very much over millennia, the next question is - then what? I think Gray for some time considered eastern philosophies like Taoism and Zen Buddhism might have something to offer. Not sure quite where he stands now, despite having read a few volumes of his.
I like his take on Joseph Conrad. Humanity bleak and hopelessly flawed, and no hope of any Redeemers showing up. He could have written a bit more on Schopenhauer; that guy was always in a weird class of his own, and I would suggest his is a different type of atheism.

[Alan Burns]

So, you are admitting, then, instead of accepting, you went looking for reasons to reject. So you do exaclty what you accuse atheists of.  You have double standards.

I cannot accept the teachings of the Koran if there is no evidence to back them up other that the claims of Mohammed.

I am able to accept the teachings of the Christian bible because of the wealth of evidence which has been presented on this forum but has been rejected, ridiculed or ignored by the atheist posters who appear to deliberately seek reasons to do so rather than seek the truth behind their existence.   And I can see nothing in scientific or materialist arguments which are incompatible with my Christian faith.

[Maeght]

I cannot accept the teachings of the Koran if there is no evidence to back them up other that the claims of Mohammed.

I am able to accept the teachings of the Christian bible because of the wealth of evidence which has been presented on this forum but has been rejected, ridiculed or ignored by the atheist posters who appear to deliberately seek reasons to do so rather than seek the truth behind their existence.   And I can see nothing in scientific or materialist arguments which are incompatible with my Christian faith.

You have never engaged in a discussion about the evidence you present. Give it a try with an open mind. Have you watched any of the Centre Place lectures?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Dicky,

Gray is hardly a fully paid-up theist. His one recurrent theme seems to be the bankruptcy of the ideal of human progress through science, with its implication that our moral stature might grow along with medicine's ability to do heart transplants and scientific technology's ability to send people into outer space. I have to say, I'm much in agreement here, though if I needed a heart transplant and the possibility were available, I don't think I'd be checking out the surgeon's 'moral' credentials, so long as he/she had the ability to do the job.
Supposing we agree that, morally, humankind has not progressed  very much over millennia, the next question is - then what? I think Gray for some time considered eastern philosophies like Taoism and Zen Buddhism might have something to offer. Not sure quite where he stands now, despite having read a few volumes of his.
I like his take on Joseph Conrad. Humanity bleak and hopelessly flawed, and no hope of any Redeemers showing up. He could have written a bit more on Schopenhauer; that guy was always in a weird class of his own, and I would suggest his is a different type of atheism.

Well, my recollection is only of a talk of his where he seemed to me to make some fairly blatant mis-steps, but more generally just “science” is too narrowly drawn I think for the terms of reference, but reason (of which science is but one sub-set) will do instead perhaps.

The problem with “moral stature” though begins with defining it – if as I do you think morality to be a facet of aesthetics there’s no objective benchmark for moral good, moral bad etc any more than there is for artistically good/bad music or painting. Indeed I’m not sure whose morality should be paramount in any case – after all, maybe the wellbeing of the planet should have primacy over our concerns and so the morally good thing would be for our species to go extinct by tomorrow morning.

Sam Harris had a good stab at aligning human knowledge with moral values (The Moral Landscape) and I have a lot of sympathy with the idea of reasoning being a better guide to desirable moral values than faith, but it’s still shifting sands. It was only generation or two ago after all that heterosexual only marriage, racial discrimination, even smoking in public were all considered morally normative so who can say what the equivalent changes in moral certainties will be a generation or two hence?             

[Stranger]

I am able to accept the teachings of the Christian bible because of the wealth of evidence which has been presented on this forum...

Where? I've see exactly zero evidence.

...but has been rejected, ridiculed or ignored by the atheist posters...

What you've claimed as evidence has been comically absurd for reasons that have been explained to you and which you totally refuse consider or to engage with at all.

...who appear to deliberately seek reasons to do so...

Nobody needs to seek anything here. Your claims have been laughable.

And I can see nothing in scientific or materialist arguments which are incompatible with my Christian faith.

Argument from ignorance fallacy (dimwitted mistake in logic).

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I cannot accept the teachings of the Koran if there is no evidence to back them up other that the claims of Mohammed.

And yet to do accept the claims of Christianity on the same evidence-free basis.

I am able to accept the teachings of the Christian bible because of the wealth of evidence which has been presented on this forum but has been rejected, ridiculed or ignored by the atheist posters who appear to deliberately seek reasons to do so rather than seek the truth behind their existence.   And I can see nothing in scientific or materialist arguments which are incompatible with my Christian faith.

That’s just dishonest. What you claim to be evidence for your beliefs hasn’t been “rejected, ridiculed or ignored by the atheist posters” – instead it’s been falsified by rationalists here identifying and showing you the failures in the justifications that you attempt for them. Instead of addressing those falsifications though all you do is endlessly to repeat the same, failed arguments as if in some way they will self-legitimise. Trouble is though, they won’t.

Also by the way if you just want to assert into being “the truth behind their existence” then you need to find some arguments that aren’t flat wrong to justify what you think that truth to be.

In short you’re not going to persuade thinking people that you’re right with only unqualified assertions and wrong arguments. You need to reconsider your tactics here.     

[ProfessorDavey]

I cannot accept the teachings of the Koran if there is no evidence to back them up other that the claims of Mohammed.

I am able to accept the teachings of the Christian bible because of the wealth of evidence which has been presented on this forum but has been rejected, ridiculed or ignored by the atheist posters who appear to deliberately seek reasons to do so rather than seek the truth behind their existence.   And I can see nothing in scientific or materialist arguments which are incompatible with my Christian faith.

But there is no more credible evidence for the claims in the bible than for the claims in the koran. Indeed the quran stands up rather better to some of the standard tests for the historical credibility of ancient texts. Specifically that we have extant copies of quaranic text from very close to when they were written, which was pretty well contemporaneous with the life of Mohammed. There are extant quranic text fragments from just a few years after his death while the earliest known extant NT fragments are from at least a century after Jesus' death.

This means that the early text we have from the quran must have been written close to the time of Mohammed - that isn't the case for the bible. Moreover having very early versions reduces the likelihood that the version we have are multigenerational copies subject to multiple editing, alteration etc.

[torridon]

I cannot accept the teachings of the Koran if there is no evidence to back them up other that the claims of Mohammed.

I am able to accept the teachings of the Christian bible because of the wealth of evidence which has been presented on this forum but has been rejected, ridiculed or ignored by the atheist posters who appear to deliberately seek reasons to do so rather than seek the truth behind their existence.   And I can see nothing in scientific or materialist arguments which are incompatible with my Christian faith.

As to 'wealth of evidence', well, I think that is just your perception, not an objective fact. 

If there really were a wealth of evidence supporting Biblical faith claims, then these narratives would be in history books.  The fact that they aren't in history books reflects the fact that there isn't actually any evidence that would stand the level of scrutiny that we would expect for something to be considered historical fact.

Likewise, there is no scientific evidence supporting the claim of a creator god.  If there were any such evidence, then we would have 'God Theory' in Cosmology, it woud be covered not just in church, but in cosmology classes and we'd have peer review papers documenting the latest findings from God research.

And as to "I can see nothing in scientific or materialist arguments which are incompatible with my Christian faith" well clearly you haven't been paying attention to the science and logic presented on this forum that demolishes the claim of free will.

[jeremyp]

I cannot accept the teachings of the Koran if there is no evidence to back them up other that the claims of Mohammed.

I am able to accept the teachings of the Christian bible because of the wealth of evidence which has been presented on this forum but has been rejected, ridiculed or ignored by the atheist posters who appear to deliberately seek reasons to do so rather than seek the truth behind their existence.   And I can see nothing in scientific or materialist arguments which are incompatible with my Christian faith.

Stories about Jesus written decades after he lived really aren't very good evidence  when your claim is that he is God and he rose from the dead.

The evidence for Islam's claims is pretty much exactly as good as the evidence for Christianity's claims, which is why I don't believe any of them.

[Alan Burns]

But there is no more credible evidence for the claims in the bible than for the claims in the koran. Indeed the quran stands up rather better to some of the standard tests for the historical credibility of ancient texts. Specifically that we have extant copies of quaranic text from very close to when they were written, which was pretty well contemporaneous with the life of Mohammed. There are extant quranic text fragments from just a few years after his death while the earliest known extant NT fragments are from at least a century after Jesus' death.

This means that the early text we have from the quran must have been written close to the time of Mohammed - that isn't the case for the bible. Moreover having very early versions reduces the likelihood that the version we have are multigenerational copies subject to multiple editing, alteration etc.

I was not disputing the historical evidence about the origins of the Koran.
My contention is the lack of evidence that it was divinely inspired.

To elaborate on why it is not divinely inspired, here is an extract from "Voice for Justice":

"The Prophet said, 'The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause . . . and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His Apostles, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr)'."  Sahih al-Bukhari, 1:2:35.  Similarly, Sura 9:5 says, “Slay the infidels wherever you find them ... and lie in wait for them ... and establish every stratagem (of war against them).” While, in the same vein, Sura 47:4-9 promises paradise to whomever cuts off the head of an infidel.  Altogether, in fact, there are 123 what are called ‘war texts’ in the Koran, calling for death for the infidel, which includes anyone who disagrees with the statement, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.”
 
Such obvious hatred and glorification of violence does not indicate a loving God.  And if Islam’s heaven truly does reserve a special place of honour for those who, in the course of fighting, indiscriminately rape, torture and kill those who are powerless to defend themselves, then is that final destination really heaven?  Or is it hell?

[jeremyp]

I was not disputing the historical evidence about the origins of the Koran.
My contention is the lack of evidence that it was divinely inspired.

To elaborate on why it is not divinely inspired, here is an extract from "Voice for Justice":

"The Prophet said, 'The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause . . . and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His Apostles, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr)'."  Sahih al-Bukhari, 1:2:35.  Similarly, Sura 9:5 says, “Slay the infidels wherever you find them ... and lie in wait for them ... and establish every stratagem (of war against them).” While, in the same vein, Sura 47:4-9 promises paradise to whomever cuts off the head of an infidel.  Altogether, in fact, there are 123 what are called ‘war texts’ in the Koran, calling for death for the infidel, which includes anyone who disagrees with the statement, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.” 
 
Such obvious hatred and glorification of violence does not indicate a loving God.  And if Islam’s heaven truly does reserve a special place of honour for those who, in the course of fighting, indiscriminately rape, torture and kill those who are powerless to defend themselves, then is that final destination really heaven?  Or is it hell?

And the evidence for the existence of Free Will lies within you and me, not in the laws of science and material behaviour.

Have you ever read the Christian Bible? The god of the Christian Bible once wiped out almost all life on Earth. He also once deliberately interfered with Pharaoh's free will so he had an excuse to kill every first born male in Egypt. On several occasions, He advised his followers to commit genocide and helped them along the way.

If the idea of God being a genocidal maniac is evidence that the Koran is false, it's evidence that the Bible is false too.

Honestly, you need to get some self awareness.

[Alan Burns]

And as to "I can see nothing in scientific or materialist arguments which are incompatible with my Christian faith" well clearly you haven't been paying attention to the science and logic presented on this forum that demolishes the claim of free will.

the evidence for the existence of Free Will lies within you and me, not in the laws of science and material behaviour.

[Alan Burns]

If the idea of God being a genocidal maniac is evidence that the Koran is false, it's evidence that the Bible is false too.

Jesus said:
But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  Luke 26-28