petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance

[pe7erpark3r]

Since you didn't answer anything further on the topic of miracles (which don't just happen in Lourdes btw. but in many places all around the globe, though I personally haven't checked many of them) lets procede to the next piece of evidence: Things that seem to be created by the divine. An important one is Image of the Holy Virgin at Guadalupe.

In Guadalupe the virgin Mary supposedly appeared to a farmer named Juan Diego. When the poor guy brought some flowers that the virgin had said to collect to the bishop, an image of the Holy Virgin had become visible on his cloak. The interesting thing about this cloak is, that the image seems to be burned in in a way that no one was able to reproduce, and the other interesting thing is that it is made of a fabric, that should have rot away in a very short time. Now don't claim the catholic church in 1531 had a bunch of scientific geniuses who know how to preserve this specific material, on which the image had suddenly appeared.

Another important part of the story, the part which gives the miracle credibility in the sense that it is divine and not develish are the fruits that the appearance had.

Everybody who reads this should know that the spanish Conquistadores and the portugese crown had come to south america and forced the indio population to accept the christian faith. They also tricked them in countless trades to give up the land and the gold they had. It becomes clearly visible that this is not the work of good christians by the fact that they did not just kill the indios who resisted them but also the christian jesuite patres who helped the indios. This was of course very unchristian and they certainly deserve to rot in hell for doing all this in Christ's name. However they were not successful. Most of the indios kept their native faith in secret.

But the appearance of the virgin Mary produced a wave of conversions among the native population. This is the real reason why south america became catholic. Now tell me, why would an aparition of the virgin mary bring indios to conversion in the millions? Didn't they already have an irrational faith? Is the christian faith somehow better or more credible? And if so, why didn't they accept it before?

[ScruffyMutt]

@petrapark3r said in petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance:

If there really were no miracles happening, then that would invalidate my faith. My faith would be irrational, if I continued to believe in a God who acts, once presented with clear evidence that He never does. So I do expect miracles to happen.

This is the root of why you believe.
You believe miracles - not simply things that have not been explained yet or unlikely odds occuring but actual miracles from god- because with no miracles then there would be no "evidence of God".

These "Miracles" are actually just the desperate need by other fellow people whom need a "sign of God's exsistence". These "Miracles" are also the "Rational Proof" the believers use to reinforce their own confidence in their rationality.

The universe is over 93 BILLION light years across with over 200 Billion galaxies each containing an average of 100 Billion stars for an estimated
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 star systems. Just our planet has about 7,500,000,000 people.

Yet for some reason, despite all the cosmic collisions, car crashes, unsolved murders, global warming, crazy politicians, viral outbreaks, super novas, American idol, North Korean people starving, Russian power grabbing, child rapes, kidnappings, upset stomachs, wrong way freeway drivers, police brutalities, credit card hacks, world's being sucked onto black holes, China rounding up Chinese Muslims into concentration camps, imigrant children being separated from their parents, Mexican Cartel mafia killings, Rwanda genocide, and so on....

Despite all of this, these "Rational Believers" have faith that they are part of a master plan by a loving and forgiving supreme being that takes special interest in their lives because because they are somehow so important. The alternative terrifies them.

And all of this will roll off the believers' shoulders as they find a new way to rationalize it into fitting their chosen narrative.

This was never a rational debate, Mr./Ms. Parker, because a rational debate requires "rational" thinking, not "rationalized" thinking.

So I end my side of the debate with a consideration about how significant any individual is no matter how devout:

(You likely only skim my posts anyway)

[pe7erpark3r]

@ScruffyMutt said in petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance:

@petrapark3r said in petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance:

If there really were no miracles happening, then that would invalidate my faith. My faith would be irrational, if I continued to believe in a God who acts, once presented with clear evidence that He never does. So I do expect miracles to happen.

This is the root of why you believe.

The root of my believe are God's continuous actions (little miracles, none of them of any significance if it standing alone) in my own life.

You believe miracles - not simply things that have not been explained yet or unlikely odds occuring but actual miracles from god- because with no miracles then there would be no "evidence of God".

Indeed, because they are evidence of God. Any single miracle might not be, like any piece of evidence might be false. But the question is wether they are all false. You say yes, because of your own conviction, that there can be no such thing as God. I say no, because of my own conviction that God is.

These "Miracles" are actually just the desperate need by other fellow people whom need a "sign of God's exsistence". These "Miracles" are also the "Rational Proof" the believers use to reinforce their own confidence in their rationality.

There is no such thing as proof of a miracle or proof of faith. Requiring something like that would be irrational. The only thing I said was that if there really was nothing happening (which clearly is not the case) then continueing to believe would be irrational.

And you started this discussion with the statement, that there was not a shred of evidence. What did you expect? Of course I'd go and list all of the evidence of God's actions in the world. Is it definitive proof? Of course not. But it is evidence, and it is real.

The universe is over 93 BILLION light years across with over 200 Billion galaxies each containing an average of 100 Billion stars for an estimated
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 star systems. Just our planet has about 7,500,000,000 people.

Yet for some reason, despite all the cosmic collisions, car crashes, unsolved murders, global warming, crazy politicians, viral outbreaks, super novas, American idol, North Korean people starving, Russian power grabbing, child rapes, kidnappings, upset stomachs, wrong way freeway drivers, police brutalities, credit card hacks, world's being sucked onto black holes, China rounding up Chinese Muslims into concentration camps, imigrant children being separated from their parents, Mexican Cartel mafia killings, Rwanda genocide, and so on....

Despite all of this, these "Rational Believers" have faith that they are part of a master plan by a loving and forgiving supreme being that takes special interest in their lives because because they are somehow so important. The alternative terrifies them.

And all of this will roll off the believers' shoulders as they find a new way to rationalize it into fitting their chosen narrative.

This was never a rational debate, Mr./Ms. Parker, because a rational debate requires "rational" thinking, not "rationalized" thinking.

Faith is not rational in the sense that God is not rationally understandable or scientifically measurable. Faith is trust, in someone. And I'm not a "rational believer". I am both a believer and a rational thinker, very much capable of separating those two worlds and even highlighting where they touch. And you had a good chance to see that. That instead you go ahead now and deny me that I am a rational thinker seems very irrational to me, especially since you are the one who brought many claims into this debate, that you did not verify (which a rational thinker has an obligation to do) and that have been proven wrong by me without much difficulty.

So I end my side of the debate with a consideration about how significant any individual is no matter how devout:

You really think that size is what defines significance? That seems rather irrational to me. Is a dead rock or a burning ball of gas really more significant than a conscious, feeling, thinking, experiencing individual?

I say clearly not. Because the only thing that gives any significance to anything is consciousness. We conscious beings are the only things in the universe, to whom anything can even matter. We are – this should be clearly visible to any conscious and rational thinker – the only thing, that actually matters in this universe, no matter how small we are for we give all other things meaning.

Of course this is true for any conscious being, if there are others like us, not just humans.

(You likely only skim my posts anyway)

I have answered lengthily to all your posts, and every argument in it. I often disagree, but that does not mean, that I don't take it seriously. This is almost an insult.

However I must apologize. My reply to your claim that the spring at Lourdes was not real, was also quite insulting. So please forgive me.

I am sad that you want to end this debate now, because I have not arrived at the end of my list of evidence of God's actions in the world.

[pe7erpark3r]

@ScruffyMutt said in petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance:

Yet for some reason, despite all the cosmic collisions,

I don't see how cosmic collisions, super novas or world's being sucked into black holes would speak against God's existence. I cannot even see why that might be called a bad thing, for as far as we know they are long dead.

crazy politicians, American idol, upset stomachs,

Lets exclude a few things (these ↑ things) from your list please, which nobody could consider a strong argument.

China rounding up Chinese Muslims into concentration camps

Let me add to the strength of this argument, that there are no muslim-only concentration camps: The most persecuted religion in china (just like in most places) is christianity.

However in this is also hidden another piece of evidence for God being real. Christianity is the only religion that gains followers through conversion in our day and age (excepting the occasional oddball of course). Buddhists are born. Hinduists are born. Muslims have in the past mostly gained followers through conquest, and now they grow through reproduction. Shinto followers are also born. Jews are also born. Christians have always gained followers through conversion (sadly also through conquest, many of which however were ineffectual as seen in south america).

And this is even more astonishing as Christianity grows the fastest were it is persecutest the heaviest. There are tens of thousands of babtisms everyday in china. Today we have the heaviest persecution of christians ever in human history (in total numbers), and yet it has never grown so fast.

This might be the strongest evidence for God's action in the world that there is. Since people convert despite the fact that they are told quite an unbelievable story about a guy killed on a cross by his own people, resurrected in the flesh, gone to heaven, being the Son of God even... and for believing this they gain a high chance of loosing everything they have, including their life!

[pe7erpark3r]

@ScruffyMutt said in petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance:

Yet for some reason, despite all the cosmic collisions, car crashes, unsolved murders, global warming, crazy politicians, viral outbreaks, super novas, American idol, North Korean people starving, Russian power grabbing, child rapes, kidnappings, upset stomachs, wrong way freeway drivers, police brutalities, credit card hacks, world's being sucked onto black holes, China rounding up Chinese Muslims into concentration camps, imigrant children being separated from their parents, Mexican Cartel mafia killings, Rwanda genocide, and so on....

This is a good piece of evidence against the existence of God. I was wondering when you would add it into the discussion. Of course I acknowledge the facts, and I'll even give you this: there is no rational answer to the question of why God lets bad things happen.

I will give you a theological answer, but, in the context of this discussion, this cannot be called a rational argument ofc. Therefore I'll begin with a

Disclaimer: The following is not a rational argument so don't take it as such.

Here goes:

Despite all of this, these "Rational Believers" have faith that they are part of a master plan by a loving and forgiving supreme being that takes special interest in their lives because because they are somehow so important. The alternative terrifies them.
And all of this will roll off the believers' shoulders as they find a new way to rationalize it into fitting their chosen narrative.

Christ is the prime victim.

And he is the victim of all our evil doings. He is the victim of

unsolved murders, global warming [petra: if caused by humans], North Korean people starving, Russian power grabbing, child rapes, kidnappings, police brutalities, credit card hacks, imigrant children being separated from their parents, Mexican Cartel mafia killings, Rwanda genocide, and so on....

He is the one carrying all those sins on His back. And they are our sins. They happen because people do evil.

And we, the members of christianity (and those who live in God through their loving actions), can share in His sacrifice. Our pain is not in vain. For the meaning of existence is love, and there is no such thing as love without sacrifice. Thus the fact that there is so much suffering in the world means that we can love God and each other through atoning for our sins and the sins of our neighbors. We can help people reach heaven, through our suffering. This is what being christian is about: Take up your cross, help your neigbour carry theirs, and follow Christ on the stony way to heaven.

Disclaimer: This reply contains the heart of christian theology and is not a rational argument!

[wet teri]

We will never be able to understand the reasoning of God because we are human. Therefore lacking knowledge of the infinite aspects of God.
There really isn't a good comparison but compare the life of a human to that of a star or even that of the earth.
Such is our knowledge and understanding of God.
Hence faith.
Nice debate sort of. It's definitely good reading

[pe7erpark3r]

@wet-teri said in petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance:

We will never be able to understand the reasoning of God because we are human. Therefore lacking knowledge of the infinite aspects of God.
There really isn't a good comparison but compare the life of a human to that of a star or even that of the earth.
Such is our knowledge and understanding of God.
Hence faith.

This makes a lot of sense...

Nice debate sort of. It's definitely good reading

Thanks bud :blush:

[pe7erpark3r]

Sadly @ScruffyMutt left the debate prematurely, after mistaking my personal faith (and my personal experiences) for an argument (my fault though for not pointing that out properly). Of course my feelings, my personal believe, my trust in God are not an argument, and they are also not the reason for why I call certain things evidence. My personal believe is only relevant for this discussion as it gives me reason to assume that God's action in the world might be indeed in the realm of the possible.

So for everyone who found this discussion interesting I'll continue with my list of evidence. You can tune out scruffy, I won't blame you.

[pe7erpark3r]

Another interesting type of miracle are the eucharistic miracles. They even give us something that might be called forensic evidence of God's actions in the world. They happened hundreds of times in the history of the church. Specifically I'm talking about all the instances where during holy mass the bread turned supposedly into real flesh and the wine into real blood. Whenever this (supposedly) happened, people would put them into some kind of glass container, and display them in the church where they happened.

So, as of today, we have many of pieces of flesh and pieces of clotted blood in churches all around the globe. This is a fact. Even the current pope, when he was still a bishop in argentina, had to examine one of those that had recently happened.

Now you might think, that this is an instance of desparate priests trying to get people into their churches or – since they were full anyways in the past centuries – to get some money into town. I would also suspect that. In fact I too do suspect that some of those "miracles" were actually that. Many of those false miracles were certainly excluded when the church examined them. But now you'll ask me, why I don't believe that they are all just because of a clerical conspiracy. Here is why:

First of all they don't rot. They are centuries old and a bit dry, but they don't seem to rot away. But maybe the church has a secret of how to preserve flesh and blood for centuries? Its possible.

Second of all, those that have been forensically examined – at least those I know of – have the following in common:

The flesh:

• is human heart fiber
• was taken from a heart that was still alive
• appears to be from a man who was dying
• appears to have been taken from that heart a short time ago (like a few hours, not decades or even centuries!)

The blood

• always has the same bloodtype: AB negative (the rarest bloodtype there is, only 0.6 percent of people have it)

Incidently this is also the bloodtype of the blood found on the shroud of turin and the cloth of manopello. We can talk about the shroud of turin later, its another interesting piece of forensic history (since it was dated not into Jesus time).

So, even if this was some kind of crazy conspiracy of the church's genius elite, they did a pretty good job of using only the blood of AB negative people before anybody had ever even heard the word "bloodtype", don't you think?

@ scruffy in case you read this: This isn't just some unexplicable healing that occured for unknown reasons. This is evidence for one thing and one thing only: Jesus being quite literal about: "this is My Flesh" and "this is My Blood". (as long as it isn't false evidence ofc)

[pe7erpark3r]

Another piece of evidence are predictions of the future. The problem with those however is that they are scarce and often cryptical and hard to interpret.

Especially the predictions in the bible tend to be very cryptic. Lets take the following:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,
through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,
who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. (1 Timothy 4:1)

You could say, we are living in this time right now. People are no longer believing. Those who where christians in the west are now following many esoteric believes (New Age) and other things, or even science which some people revere like a religion (I also think science allows us to find the truth about the natural world, but like any truly rational thinker I know its limits) and not to mention genderism. There is an immense fight going on in the whole world against traditional values such as marriage between men and women, and vegans want us to stop eating meat alltogether.

But the problem with all this, is that there are many other ways in which this could be interpreted. Hong Xiuquan for example who was a cruel warlord that almost subjugated all of china in the 1800rds and who believed to be the second son of God forbid sex between married people.

So how about we go to some less cryptic prophecies: Lets take the secrets of Fatima for example.

The second secret of fatima was written down in 1941 and has supposedly been given in 1917 by the Virgin Mary. This is it:

You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pope Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.

So, world war II had already started when the profecy was written, but it wasn't clear yet, that it would be a worse war than the first world war. The pope did indeed consecrate russia to the Immaculate heart and an unbelievable five years later the Soviet Union was no more and since then we've had a time of relative peace, at least no world war level conflict happened. Also the pope who did the consecration, John Paul II was shot, so he did indeed suffer a lot until he died.

But is this enough? It would have been better if Lucia had written this down before the second world war began, but still that is a set of things that could indeed be called the fullfillment of the profecy. But: it isn't fully conclusive.

Lets look at another prediction. The private revelation "True Life in God" (TLIG) predicts the fall of the world trade center: http://tlig.org/en/messages/654/ . I have a printed version of this from 1993 in german, so please don't say it was written after the fact. I am sure, that if you want to verify this you'll be able to find an old copy in a language you know.

Is it conclusive however?

It was written on September 11th 1991, exactly 10 years before the tragedy of the world trade center to the day. It says "evil built into Towers will collapse into a heap of rubble and be buried in the dust of sin!". There is no other message in TLIG that fits what happened so closely and I mean the date is very very peculiar.

I think we can call this evidence by the crimial definition of the term. However we cannot give it an 8 or a 9 on the convincing scale.

[pe7erpark3r]

As promised lets talk about the shroud of turin. Actually I think I don't have to write much. I'll do a short summary and simply refer you to the (english) wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating_of_the_Shroud_of_Turin), which goes into detail about everything.

The shroud of turin is supposedly the shroud in which Jesus' dead body lay in the grave when he resurrected.

It appears, that the image is a negative (as in non-digital photography) and seemingly was burned into the shroud by an immensly strong light (said in layman terms). Nobody was able to reproduce this, since the energy required for a modern laser far surpasses what any reasonable lab would be able to use. And the results are far from what the shroud is.

There was a big media hype around 1986 when the shroud was carbon dated for the first time to around the year 1350. However afterwards the scientific debate continued because the samples taken do not actually allow for a conclusive dating since they are from the outer range of the shroud which was propably repaired in the middle ages... So basically everything (most of the other forensic results) except the carbon dating in 1986 speaks for the shroud being indeed old enough to be the very shroud Jesus was buried in.

And lets not forget that the blood type of the stains on the shroud was also found on the cloth of Manopello and in many of the eucharistic miracles (and is the rarest bloodtype there is: AB. No resus factor could be tested.)

So, it can definitely count as evidence. For further reading I simply refer you to wikipedia.

[pe7erpark3r]

Now we'll come to a rather tricky piece of evidence: the fact that the body of some saints didn't rot away. It is tricky, because its not conclusive at all. Here's why: Not only the bodies of saints have been found to not rot sometimes, Also John and Jane Does, and Mr. Smith of course (e.g. normal people). I heard that in china there is even such a dead guy who is revered as a God. It seems to happen a lot more often with saints though...

So, you might ask me: then why do you even mention it?

There are 2 very curious cases I know of, that actually seem more conclusive.

St. Nepomuk was – according to legend – the priest to whom the queen went to confess. He was killed by the king, supposedly because he did not tell the king about the contents his wife's confession. When he was exhumed in 1719, 300 years after his death, all of his body had rotted away. Except for his tongue. And this is definitely not something that just happens naturally. However the only thing we have are the exhuming party's accounts. Can we trust them?

With St. Anthony of Padua again the tongue did not rot in 30 years until he was exhumed. But this too was before scientific times. However what was found when his grave was opened for the second time in 1981, suggests that the accounts of the first opening might indeed be true.

So, even though one can call this evidence, it is certainly weak. And as such it is not part of the evidence that the church uses to beatify people. It is curious. But should not be overrated.

[pe7erpark3r]

Throughout history quite a few people (for example Saint Pio of Pietrelcina) have had stigmata, which are wounds on the body, that inexplicably appear in one or all of the following places: The hands, the feet, on the upper body around the height of the heart, and sometimes little wounds on the head. They are commonly associated with Christ's crucifixion, e.g. the wounds of the nails and of the crown of thorns.

These wounds tend to stay open for many years. In the case of Saint Pio they closed a few hours before his death. Most of them also have visions, but as we have seen, visions in and of themselves do not qualify as evidence.

Skeptics say, that they might associate so strongly with Christ that it shows on their bodies. But then again: do people who believe they are bulls grow horns?

But it gets even more curious with these people. Some of them, for example Therese Neumann, seem to be able to live without eating or drinking anything other than one piece of the eucharist each day for years! Well that is what they say. However it is really fun to read the accounts of debunkers who go to live with them, observe what they do for months, and then finally give up after realizing, that they cannot find any evidence of them eating.

What could be the natural cause of something like this? Did these people develop the ability to photosynthesize? :joy:

[wet teri]

@pe7erpark3r said in petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance:

What could be the natural cause of something like this? Did these people develop the ability to photosynthesize? :joy:

Now you have me humming Simon and Garfunkel's Kodachrome.
"Mama don't take my Kodachrome away-ay"

[pe7erpark3r]

@wet-teri said in petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance:

@pe7erpark3r said in petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance:

What could be the natural cause of something like this? Did these people develop the ability to photosynthesize? :joy:

Now you have me humming Simon and Garfunkel's Kodachrome.
"Mama don't take my Kodachrome away-ay"

Just listening to this track the first time! Beautiful music :heart_eyes:

[pe7erpark3r]

@ ScruffyMutt said in petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance:

because with no miracles then there would be no "evidence of God".

What other things would a supernatural entity do but miracles?

As shown there are different kinds of miracles, some with forensic properties, but of course all things that God does are supernatural, duh...

[wet teri]

@pe7erpark3r I don't think I would have called that particular song beautiful myself. However they do harmonize with each other really well. As for beautiful I would suggest the sound of silence and Scarborough fair.

[unholyshrine]

Me, as a human, which couldn't know what is happening on the transcedental realm, i just better to assume that God or "other highest entities that believed to be exist by the believers" is totally unknown and unknowable. I respect the believers, i love bible, bc there is lot of simple lifehacks, but i still in a state of agnostic, just appreciating people what believes.

[unholyshrine]

We are a human, it is better to just accept that we have an unbreakable absolute limit of knowing the total universe. (unless if you are an entity that could be transcedent and immanent paradoxically in the same time, therefore you are more than human, or maybe you aren't human). sorry 4 bad grammar,

[pe7erpark3r]

@wet-teri said in petrapark3r and ScruffyMutt debate God's existance:

@pe7erpark3r I don't think I would have called that particular song beautiful myself. However they do harmonize with each other really well. As for beautiful I would suggest the sound of silence and Scarborough fair.

Yeah, well those are definitely beautiful :smile: