Falsifying God? (Agnosticism)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, December 24, 2014, 14:44 (3622 days ago) @ dhw
edited by Balance_Maintained, Wednesday, December 24, 2014, 14:51

TONY: When I said it can not be proven, perhaps I should have added the word “yet”.
> 
> As you can see, you did add it, and this by coincidence puts you in the same position as Dawkins, who hopes and I'm sure also believes that eventually we shall understand and “embrace...within the natural” “phenomena that we don't yet understand”. (The God Delusion, p. 14) The little word “yet” clearly implies that it will happen, and it gives you both an indefinite period to prove your point. You both have a similar faith in a future that will confirm your beliefs.-Unlike Dawkins, I am not saying it lightly. Historically, people have questioned the bibles legitimacy concerning historical events and it has repeated been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be true, and verified independently by third party sources no less. Even the event in dispute here is partially verified. It is only one small detail that has, of yet, been verified. Given the overall veracity of the Bible's historical record and the fact that there is supporting evidence already to the account, I do not find it unreasonable to think that one detail will be verified at some point. Even if it is not, we KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that the event did occur, which is more than Dawkins can claim.--> The problem is that atheists and Jews and Christians and Muslims and Hindus all claim that their theory provides the best evidence. But belief in the Judeo-Christian God does not have to depend on the literal truth of every word in the Bible. Many Jews and Christians, for instance, regard the story of Adam and Eve as just that - a symbolic piece of fiction. And if a prophecy were to fail (unlikely unless it actually specifies a date), I really can't believe all Christians would turn round and say that in that case they don't believe in God or Jesus. 
> -And each of those theories can be tested empirically. Also, regarding Adam and Eve, there is compelling evidence that they were real, and that their son Cain did in fact build a city named Enoch. First, that became the word for "City" so much so that there no marker in the language to distinguish it from a person of the same name, which was unusual in Hebrew. Secondly, the site of the city is still known to this day, and still bears the same name. -
> TONY: The bible, as a whole, is either the divine word of God, or it isn't.
> 
> One might say of all religions and of atheism: either they are true or they are not. 
> You believe that the prophecies in the bible prove that every word in it is the literal truth, and that all the authors and the people who selected their texts were directly inspired by the God in whom the authors and the selectors believed. As you point out under “Different in degree or kind”, “that is certainly your right as a human with free will.”. Perhaps we should leave it at that.
> -Literal? I've never claimed that the entire bible is literal. However, the parts where it is figurative are generally pretty clear. -> A few weeks ago, I was accosted in the street by two charming young Mormon ladies who were pleasantly surprised that I had some knowledge of Joseph Smith. They were thus able to skip the preliminaries and go straight for the jugular: either he was a fraud, a madman, or he was telling the truth. Which did I think was correct? Bearing in mind the circumstances of his “revelation”, I'd be interested to know how you would have answered.-He was a fraud, on several levels, not the least of which is that tenets of the Mormon faith directly contradict the bible that they claim to support, first and foremost that there aren't any more prophets. (Luke 16:16, Hebrew 1:1-2) Additionally, he violated several other biblical mandates, such as remaining free from politics (john 6:5, 17:16), and adultry, or more specifically coveting his neighbors wife. Even if the argument for polygamy could be made, no argument can be made for marrying another man's wife. He was also convicted on two different occasions of fraud, one of which was bank fraud, and was a self-proclaimed fraud(that was actually his defense on the lesser of the two charges). So, no, I do not think he was a prophet. I think he was a fraud that told people what they wanted to hear, and made it so that it was beneficial and fun for them to listen to him. There are a lot of economic and political benefits to being connected with the Mormons.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.