… this video would end all theism and turn everyone to rationality instantly and irreversibly. I call upon every theist to say SOMETHING about these arguments, and especially about the nature of your ostensible knowledge of that which has either vague or specific but illogical and unprovable properties.
Honestly, guys, give it your best shot. Watch it all the way through, and take notes on your way through and see if he didn’t already address what you were going to say by the end of it. (Though I could already guess what someone like Zdenny would say — that the narrator was “dishonest”, and that “his heart longs to know Christ” or to “know God’s mind” or to “be God himself” or some such nonsense, completely missing the point.)
I honestly feel like there’s nothing more that can be said about religion after watching this, and that it should serve as the final word. And yet, there’s so much need for foot-soldiers to provide the counter-arguments to the vocal theists that, sadly, we’ll all keep arguing indefinitely. Oh well. At least I love what I do. It’s a good thing, too, I’ve got another post in the works at the moment that’s about religion in a general sense.
You honestly do make me laugh sometimes, Zdenny. I’m sorry, but your definition of empirical evidence is drastically flawed. Here’s what you have: a book. That book says several people saw Jesus rise from the dead. That’s not empirical evidence, because I could write a book stating that two dozen girls have independently confirmed that I have a penis the size of your forearm as easily as I could write a book saying two dozen people saw Christ’s resurrection. The only evidence we’re ignoring is, like the video says, your book, which is not empirically derived evidence. It’s an assertion that there were lots of witnesses, and that’s it.
As well, this assertion was written at the bare minimum 100 years after the supposed event, and contains four different accounts of the resurrection — one where two girls found the tomb to be open and empty then ran away; one where two girls met a guy (possibly a Roman guard) who told them the open and empty tomb was due to Christ’s bodily ascension; one where the two girls met two guys who said he was risen from the open and empty tomb; and one where an angel was sitting on top of the rock and rolled it away for the girls to see it was empty. Was the tomb open or closed? Was the tomb guarded or unguarded? Were there no, one, or two people meeting them? Were these people just people, were they Roman guards, or were they angels? And how is an empty tomb empirical evidence of anything except an empty tomb which could be empty because of grave robbers? Why are the stories of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, apostles all, so different? And why do you handwave these differences away so easily?
Atheists only have “blind belief” and Christians only have “informed belief” if not only one of these four stories happens to be true, but also that you correctly pick which one is true. Is there some kind of secret decoder ring that Jesus sends you when you accept his hypothesized existence?
Christianity is based on the empirically confirmed fact that Christ rose from the dead. The argument made by the Cube is invalid.
The real question is whether or not you believe in the resurrection of the dead. An Atheist believe that there is no resurrection. A Christian argues that we have direct empirical evidence that Christ rose from the dead.
As a result, an atheist has to ignore the evidence in order to remain in a state of non-belief. In fact, an atheist has to believe in dogma like life comes from non-life.
The real question is why do Atheist ignore the overwhelming evidence for the Christian faith and accept dogmatic beliefs which they cannot proven.
At least Christians have evidence, the dogmatic beliefs of atheist remain unproven and form the foundation for the beliefs about the world. I guess you could say that Atheist have a blind belief and Christian have informed beliefs.
I think that is the difference…