> God continues to act in this world by truthfully instructing His followers. Now, if one person who I trust is His follower says "God told me X", and then X is wrong, the theory would be disproved

That would disprove if that particular person received words from God. It would not disprove if God talks to his followers.

> Amusingly, your counter-explanation of ghosts and white noise is not falsifiable

That's what it was: an example of a falsifiable theory. You told me that I couldn't say that someone's experience isn't falsifiable, I came back saying that their nutty explanation isn't falsifiable.

> God is more interested in advancing His goals than impressing people.

He sure has a lot of big homes and statues for someone who doesn't want to impress people. Isn't it an even bigger ego trip to make people believe based on his word alone than to provide some sort of proof?

> That all there is to it. Your assertion that they are unclear simply demonstrates that you're unfamiliar with the material you're trying to criticize.

So tell me then, who is authorized to practice it? Do you believe that Pastor Popoff, or anyone else on this planet are able to perform this feat? If you do they could get an easy million dollars from those suckers over at JREF. I say that they are unclear because there is such a great amount of disagreement over the things I listed.

> Living a life that hasn't been transformed by Christ disqualifies a person from being Christian.

I would argue that the lives of the members of the WBC have indeed been perverted by Christ although not with the attributes you have listed. While that tale of human sacrifice always makes me scratch my head, I understand that you believe this process results in the followers living better lives. I have also heard it put that the act of killing Jesus resulted in us being forgiven for our sins rather than unshackled from our innately sinful nature. Anyway following the core of Christianity, even if all Christians did believe in the same core beliefs, doesn't mean that you agree on what parts of scripture trumps other parts of scripture.

(Note--To avoid confusion about sock puppetry, I am Lotharbot's wife; we've been discussing your ongoing conversation a bit, and I wanted to say some things, too.)

> > God continues to act in this world by truthfully instructing His followers. Now, if one person who I trust is His follower says "God told me X", and then X is wrong, the theory would be disproved

> That would disprove if that particular person received words from God. It would not disprove if God talks to his followers.

Actually, it kind of would. I mean, if I judged what was the word of God by what was reliable and true, you'd be right -- that would be circular and immune to any sort of experiment. It would be saying "things that come true come true." And when I was first learning to pray, I did exactly that; I wrote things down, I tested them, I compared them with what I knew and checked them out.

But look, after years of this, I know what the voice of God sounds like. It's pretty common for experienced Christians to say the same. So if someone I knew to be experienced in such matters (or I myself) heard something that turned out to be false or worthless, I wouldn't just say, "Well, I guess that wasn't God." I would have to rewrite major chunks of my worldview.

You have to understand, this experience is so real and constant for me (and for many Christians), that books have been written about what its absence is like.

But I want to be perfectly clear that this is a bit off the beaten path. I think most Christians I have talked to have, once or twice in life, personally observed something that I think is empirically, clearly a miracle: being told specific information they couldn't know, gaining the temporary (or permanent) ability to speak or understand a language they don't know, experiencing very specific shared visions. But let me be clear: This isn't one of the "important things." Faith doesn't revolve around miracles, and isn't built on private revelation. In fact, such things are so far from the center of our faith there is a debate in theology as to whether they occur at all(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessationism_versus_Continuatio...)! Life as a Christian is about faithfulness to Jesus, not divine intervention.

I mean, such experiences generally aren't even used in apologetics -- they're too unverifiable, and too sacred anyway; you want to keep them private. I do mention them when people ask if my faith has any current, rational foundation. But when one seriously wants to talk about the intellectual foundations of Christianity, we go to big, well-documented miracles, like Jesus' resurrection.

>> God is more interested in advancing His goals than impressing people.

> He sure has a lot of big homes and statues for someone who doesn't want to impress people.

A rather tame display for someone who can cause supernovas without breaking a sweat, don't you think? And anyway, I doubt he actually commissioned all of those. They seem to me pretty inconsistent with God's commands to devote our wealth to taking care of the poor.

But perhaps it would be better said that God impresses, but he isn't upset by people who aren't impressed.

Let me give you an example. When Jesus was alive, he did a lot of miracles. (I know you don't agree with that, but roll with it for a second -- I'm trying to show you, based on the story, how he feels about proving himself to people.) Anyway, Jesus did a lot of miracles. He raised people from the dead. He healed incurable disease. He restored birth defects. He walked on water in a storm. At one point, he fed 4,000 people on a few loaves of bread. Right after he finished that, some folks came up to him and said, "When will you give us a sign that you are really from God?"

And he said, "Look, if you don't think what I've done so far counts, then you aren't going to get one."

(Mt. 15:29 - 16:4)

It's like . . . if you've ever argued with a troll, you know there's no such thing as absolute proof. People can explain away anything. There were people who watched Jesus do miracles and didn't follow him.

So what do you do? Well . . . you do pretty much what I'm doing right now with you. You put the information out there. And if they want to explain it away rather than thinking about it, that's on them.

I think God takes that approach, too. There is no shortage of evidence that he is real and acts in history. The content and history of the Bible, the historical fact of Jesus' resurrection, the experience of the modern church, and the origin of the universe -- those are the big ones. But if you're determined not to believe in him, there's no such thing as proof. People say, with Ebeneezer Scrooge, "You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato (or a space alien!)". They prefer to believe they are hallucinating over believing that God is speaking to them.

And that's their prerogative.

At the end of the day, I think such resistence isn't based on reason. It's based on emotion. If someone desperately doesn't want God to exist, nothing will prove it to them. And even if God went so far out of his way as to make belief really unavoidable, what would that accomplish? It's not like they'd hate him any less knowing for sure he was real.

> If someone desperately doesn't want God to exist, nothing will prove it to them.

Proof that God exists: everyone in the world wakes up with a plate of cheesecake next to them and a note saying "I'm sorry for all the stuff that's messed up. I'm trying my best. -Yahweh" Done. Just an example. I'm sure an omnipotent omniscient omni-something omni-somethingelse person could figure out something equally convincing if he/she didn't want to do that. The best part is that it would actually be appropriate now that we have video recording and a huge communications network so that future generations won't have to rely on "copies of copies of translations of copies by anonymous authors of which we have no originals" (quote taken from this video youtu.be/DAuFJKQh83Y#t=6m , I really like the show... sometimes).

> There is no shortage of evidence that he is real and acts in history.

None of those things prove the existence God. If you pick a different book the first two could prove that Hogwarts exists. What experience of the modern church? Aren't they the ones having trouble keeping cops away from pedophiles? Lastly, what makes you think that we are going to find out that the origin of the universe (which is not yet known) has been caused by something unnatural/supernatural unlike everything else we have ever discovered?

> I think most Christians I have talked to have, once or twice in life, personally observed something

Personal experience is kind of a strange thing. I don't really know how it relates to proof or evidence. However, I do know that there are people you can go and talk to who will explain how they were abducted by aliens and had children by them. It's not hard to believe that they experienced something, but it is hard to believe their story. I sometimes wonder if the same might happen to me, then I would be one of those crazy people. Anyway, right now I am of the opinion that you need something independently verifiable for it to be considered evidence.

> I know what the voice of God sounds like.

> heard something that turned out to be false or worthless, I wouldn't just say, "Well, I guess that wasn't God."

And you are certain that it isn't from another agent like the devil? People have been communing with the Gods for a long time. I kind of wonder how you evaluate someone else as having that ability. You don't accept that the Oracle of Delphi was legitimate right? Anyway, I think you are right that your claim is closer to out of body experience claims than other unfalsifiable ones. Still though if your claim proves to be false, that doesn't mean that God doesn't talk to humans. That claim is still unfalsifiable. I also have to ask if people can communicate with God then why don't people use that to finally solve all of the differences between the different denominations? Is Jesus really against minimum wage?

Lastly, I didn't want to be a huge bother to anyone. I'm really not trained in any of this so do take my words as someone who is just that. If I say anything sophomoric or otherwise annoying, I'm sorry. If you point it out I will try to explain why I said it and/or apologize again.

> Lastly, I didn't want to be a huge bother to anyone. I'm really not trained in any of this so do take my words as someone who is just that. If I say anything sophomoric or otherwise annoying, I'm sorry. If you point it out I will try to explain why I said it and/or apologize again.

You're not a bother. I believe it's important and worthwhile to talk to people who believe differently than you -- they have different ideas, and can expose weaknesses in your own thinking that you wouldn't expect.

That's why I'm telling you what I actually think, and why I actually think it, even if it sounds dumb. A hostile reader such as yourself provides me a type of critique I can't get from friendly ones.

I've talked to atheists a lot over the years, and I've found the experience enriching. And while I still think you're wrong, I wish the church would listen to you a lot more. Because you're damn right about some of the stuff we do wrong.

If you care, I have responded here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2996708 Sorry that it has been so long..

It's probably going to take me a little while to reply to all of this.. Sorry.

> Proof that God exists: everyone in the world wakes up with a plate of cheesecake next to them and a note saying "I'm sorry for all the stuff that's messed up. I'm trying my best. -Yahweh" Done. Just an example.

You think that would work? I don't think it would. It'd be the talked-about event of the century for sure, but I don't think it would make any difference whatsoever in which people believed in God.

Think seriously about it. What would it be like if that actually happened? That and nothing else. If the church still had all the problems it does today. The Bible still had all the problems you perceive. The philosophical arguments against God's existence still apply. He still didn't save your mother/dog/goldfish back in 1998. Just . . . everyone has cheesecake and a note.

You'd credit God with having done that?

Instead of, say . . . - Some really organized followers of his

     - Someone who invented a new, let's say, matter/energy
       conversion technology and wanted to play a prank on 
       the world 

     - Aliens approximately as advanced as Star Trek

     - Mass delusion (everyone made their own cheesecakes
       and notes -- maybe it's something in the water?) 

     - Some extradimensional powerful being that 
       nonetheless isn't Yahweh.  More like Loki. 

     - Mass hallucination (mind control?) -- it didn't
       happen but we all think it did.

     - Proof positive that you are, in fact, a brain
       in a vat. 

     - Some unexplained phenomenon that, whatever it might 
       be, sure as heck ain't God because of all the 
       problems with that

I mean, weren't you the one earlier in this thread telling lotharbot his mystical experiences could be explained by ghosts?

You know who would interpret it as evidence for God's existence? People who already believe in him. Miracles are like that. They are just another class of evidence; if the other classes aren't persuasive to you, they won't even rock your boat.

There is no such thing as proof in reality. No such thing at all. Philosophers will tell you that you can't prove your mother exists, and they're right.

Proof is too high a standard for real things. In the real world, all we have is evidence.

> You know who would interpret it as evidence for God's existence? People who already believe in him.

And actually, that's probably not even true. If what you described literally happened, I wouldn't entertain for a minute that it was God's work, it being so profoundly unlike him on so many levels.

> There is no shortage of evidence that he is real and acts in history.

I think it's clear from your response that you're not familiar with the broad apologetics topics I'm referring to. Tell you what, let me expand a bit, so you can see what some of the arguments are. These are the things I personally find persuasive.

The content and history of the Bible

    - The Bible is completely unique among works of literature in its origin.  
      It was written over the course of 1500 years, by many different authors,
      in three languages, on three continents, in times of war, peace, 
      famine, plenty, persecution, and exile.  It was written by soldiers, 
      shepherds, statesmen, scholars, fishermen, kings, statesmen, 
      religious leaders, social outcasts, prisoners, and wealthy men.  It 
      was compiled independently by several separate communities centuries
      removed from the authors. 

      - It nonetheless tells a consistent, coherent story, and its message
        develops consistently throughout.  It is a serial, not an 
        anthology.  That strikes me as pretty darn amazing.  You try
        to construct a serial out of famous works across multiple millenia, 
        continents, cultures, and walks of life. 

      - No one author or organization has ever even remotely controlled it.
        The only one who could have written it is God. 

      - It is unique among works of scripture in being able to make 
        these claims.  Other scriptures are the work of one author,
        one culture, one time.  

      - In short, the Bible has credentials appropriate for supernatural
        origin.  If God *did* write a book, the Bible is a reasonable 
        candidate.


    - The Bible is an ancient book, the most modern parts being about as
      old as Aristotle.   If you go back and read stuff from the era,
      it sounds pretty foolish.  I mean, you can see some interesting
      early ideas, but we've learned a lot since then.  What they say
      seems silly and outdated.   *But we're still talking about the
      Bible.*  Whoever wrote it had such an insight into humanity that
      still find it relevant and insightful after two millenia.  
      Even with all the changes in culture and knowledge in between.  
      That seems like a feat worthy of God. 

    - The Bible contains well-known prophecies that can be validated
      by history.  Specific old testament prophecy about Jesus 
      preceded his appearance by several hundred years.  (Even
      if you assume the dead sea scrolls are the originals, they 
      still precede him by centuries).   The book of Daniel
      contains prophecies about later political events in Greece
      that are so accurate that some scholars resort to 
      assuming they are backfilled from the time of Greece (but
      this is inconsistent with any other dating for Daniel). 
      The formation of modern Israel as a state (in 1948) fulfills
      old testament prophecy.  The destruction of the temple in
      70 AD fulfills Jesus' prophecy.  

    - The message of the new testament, the Gospel, is remarkable
      in its effectiveness and adaptability to human circumstance.
      Literally the same message that is effective for a 
      herdsman in Africa is satisfying to a scholar at Oxford.  
      Criminals, saints, retarded people, healthy people, smart
      people, illiterate people, any people anywhere.  Writing
      such an egalitarian yet relevant plan of salvation is
      an amazing feat.  It is accessible to everyone, yet
      no one is overqualified.  It is comprehensible to 
      everyone, yet no one finds it trite or obvious. 

    - The Bible is remarkable in its historical accuracy, in 
      terms of the described geography, the times and founding
      of nations, the names of kings, etc.  In fact, the 
      historical elements are so accurate that they have been
      used as a guide to locate dig sites in archeology.  Yet
      it goes from secular history to miraculous accounts
      in one breath, the two being integrated in the stories
      and hard to separate.  It is hard to account for such
      a mixture of highly accurate history with fantasy. 

The historical fact of Jesus' resurrection

    - The resurrection of Jesus is claimed to have taken place
      well within the lifetimes of the gospel writers, yet 
      even hostile witnesses of the era write accounts
      consistent with its occurance.  This would have been an 
      immensely difficult message to propogate at the time, 
      akin to claiming now that John F. Kennedy had risen from
      the dead.  Moreover, the claimed support for the fact 
      does not take an authoriarian form, but references
      local witnesses.  (e.g., not "Paul says so", but 
      "Ask around, lots of people saw him." )

    - The founding of Christianity took place in the midst of
      powerful forces wishing to discredit it.  As the 
      resurrection of Jesus was the central fact on which it
      rested, it must not have been possible to disprove,
      either by the Jewish (religious) authority or by the
      Roman (state) authority.  The heavily persecuted
      church was in no position to perpetrate a fraud. 

    - The psychological activity of the early church is 
      consistent with people who believed Jesus had risen from
      the dead, and is completely at odds with their own 
      recorded behavior after his death.  They literally
      went from scattered and demoralized to boldly inviting
      death. 

    - The choice of Sunday as a day of worship is completely 
      unexpected for people of a Jewish background, and is
      evidence of a major theological event occuring on
      a Sunday. 

    - Eleven of the twelve apostles (founders of Christianity)
      were killed for their faith.  The twelfth served life 
      in prison.  All of them went to their graves still
      claiming the resurrection was a reality. 

The experience of the modern church

    - Christianity as a religion was explosive at its founding
      and is today practiced worldwide.  Only two other religions
      can make such a claim, both of which are closely related
      to Christianity.  Something happened  thousands of years 
      ago, and everyone is *still* talking about it and reacting 
      to it.   If God ever did act in history, that scale of
      result is appropriate. 

    - The modern church is filled with people who will say
      an encounter with Jesus changed their lives.  Not just
      spiritually; practically: reformed criminals, selfish
      people who have become generous, crazy people who
      have become sane, etc.  Whatever else you can say
      about the gospel, it clearly *works*.  This sort of
      impact is appropriate for God's central message.

    - The modern chuch still experiences miracles and divine
      intervention. (Controversial -- I reference my own
      experience here.) 

    - Many famous heroes of history reference Christianity as
      the source of their ideas.  For example, church organizations
      were central in the abolition of slavery.  

    - Many famous Christian apologists began as atheists who 
      became convinced of the truth of Christianity through
      (initially hostile) study.  G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis,
      Lee Strobel, to begin with.  In fact, I would say this
      is more the rule than the exception.  This flow of 
      immigration is appropriate for an intellectually sound
      message.

The Origin of the Universe

    - The more distantly one goes back in cosmic history,
      the more remarkable are the coincidences that that make
      human life possible.  If this universe wasn't designed
      for us, then there must be a HELL of a lot of other, 
      barren universes out there. 

    - "First Law" -- As natural laws are simply descriptions
      of regularities in nature, they cannot indefinitely
      explain themselves.  The moon orbits because of gravity,
      gravity is caused by something else, etc., but it cannot
      be turtles all the way down.  

    - The laws of the universe are awfully beautiful, certainly
      beyond anything we could write.  If the universe was
      designed, it certainly is the work of a superintelligence
      of God's calibur.

That's just off the top of my head; apologetics is a big field.

Of course, all of these and more warrant a lot of study and consideration, and if you go somewhere like infidels.org, you will find answers for all of them (of varying quality). As I say, there is no such thing as proof. But there can be compelling evidence.

I think the most forceful thing to me is really the comprehensive case. Almost across the board, I think the Christian worldview is significantly more intellectually satisfying than the atheist one. Literally, better explanations. The universe looks like God created it, and happily that's what I believe. The atheist explanation has a lot of unverifiable stuff about parallel universes and a lot of "I don't know, I don't have to explain everything." The Bible looks like God wrote it, and happily that's what I believe. I haven't read an atheist explanation for it yet that sounds like the author has actually read the basic history. The Church looks like God runs it, and happily that's what I believe. The atheist explanation makes it pretty clear they have no idea what church even is. My mystical experience looks like communication with God, and happily that's what I believe. The atheist explanation involves waffling and ghosts. Or sometimes aliens.

If it was just one thing, I might say it was a fluke. If those cases that I say look like God's work were vacuous explanations (in the sense that God can do anything), it would be dumb. But look, if you get into the evidence, the Christian worldview is just . . . better. Intellectually, it's way better.

The only advantage to atheism is that you get to look like you're superior to everyone else. If you're a Christian, a lot of people think you're crazy, dumb, or both. I honestly think atheism is sold on pride. And maybe hatred for God, the church, and Christians, at least to judge from the rhetoric. It sure as heck ain't the evidence. If you follow reason wherever it leads, and don't care who ridicules you, you wind up as a Christian. Lots of folks have done just that.

[Sorry for entering this far-too-long thread; your message popped up in "comments" and looked interesting; I'm just making a side comment.]

Your criticism that many atheists don't really "get" Christianity is, I think, correct. Certainly, something like Dawkin's "The God Delusion" is a wonderful rallying cry, but hardly an earnest and respectful attempt to convince the other side.

Nonetheless, your own characterization of the atheist side is not entirely fair either. People like Dawkins and the late James Randi are passionate, but passionate scientists - Randi really would have paid his prize for a repeat of many of the miracles described in the gospels, and Dawkins does (did?) try to fairly weigh the evidence, as a scientist should. In fact, an unambiguous miracle in Randi's labs, replicated a few times, would convert a significant fraction of today's atheists: they aren't committed to hating God, they've just drawn a negative conclusion after earnestly considering the evidence.

The level of debate from either side tends to be low, but remember that a prepared and intelligent person winning a debate with an idiot doesn't really prove the truth of the debated position either way. No matter what you believe, there are (some) intelligent, truth-loving and earnestly convinced people on the other side of the divide[1]; it's good to have some idea about how these people can be so wrong.

[I'm a first-generation atheist and consider studying religion(s) to be a bit of a hobby.]

[1] (Actually, don't forget about the Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc; there are more than two parties in this debate.)

Well said.

I am aware that much of the venom projected at Christians by atheists is a result of the worldview, not the cause. By some accounts, our willful ignorance is endangering civilization. I'd be mad, too.

And I think some of it is just. A lot of secular critiques of the church as being mindless and anti-science . . . are right. And there are religious scholars making the same argument.

My take that atheism is about pride and hatred -- that's a personal judgement based on experience. It seems to me that most of the folks I talk to are atheists because of emotional issues they have, not because of evidence. But I certainly acknowledge that such a generalization is not a rule.

And it certainly, certainly is the case that the universe is a big and mysterious enough place that smart, honest people can disagree.

And honestly, I wish we'd talk more. I think our worldviews would be richer for it.

> > I know what the voice of God sounds like.

> And you are certain that it isn't from another agent like the devil?

Yeah, pretty sure. Experience. When your mother talks to you, are you sure it's her?

> I kind of wonder how you evaluate someone else as having that ability

They describe a similar experience. It's not all that different from determing that you and someone else know the same person.

> You don't accept that the Oracle of Delphi was legitimate right?

No, of course not. Just because I think there were legitmate prophets, and are people God chooses to speak to today, that doesn't mean I think all such claims are legitimate. In fact, most are bogus. A lot of the Christian ones, even, are bogus.

The existence of pseudoscience in no way leads me to doubt real science, and the existence of pseudoreligion has nothing to do with the reliability of real religion.

> Anyway, I think you are right that your claim is closer to out of body experience claims than other unfalsifiable ones.

Indeed. That's why I don't usually bring it up in apologetics. Sometimes I do, as it gives you an interesting dilemma -- I'm lying, confused, or . . . maybe telepathic space aliens? It's actually a tougher dilemma than it looks like. But I agree, it isn't really accessible evidence to other people. That's not what it's for, anyway.

> Still though if your claim proves to be false, that doesn't mean that God doesn't talk to humans. That claim is still unfalsifiable.

Well, it would mean that God doesn't talk to humans in the way I thought he did. It doesn't falsify the idea that he could sometime, somewhere, I suppose, but it does reduce it to zero evidence. I would have to change my answer from "of course" to "I don't know" plus a reasonable level of skepticism. Practically, I think that's about as good.

> I also have to ask if people can communicate with God then why don't people use that to finally solve all of the differences between the different denominations?

It doesn't work like that. God chooses when, where, and how to speak to us, and what he's going to say. We don't control him; he's the soverign one in the relationship.

Remember what I said earlier, about how faith doesn't revolve around miracles and personal revelation? It doesn't. We are intended to work things out, to work with evidence and history and reason. This is an age of scripture and faith, not prophets and temples. What God does supernaturally in people's lives . . . believe or not, that's at the fringe of modern Christian experience. It's not the core. And that's by his choice.

> Is Jesus really against minimum wage?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. I never claimed to know. You mean, would I ask him for you? No. It doesn't work that way.

The current subthread was touched off by your statement about "unreasonable" Christians relying on "experience" that you consider inadequate. So I ask, how would a reasonable person in my position weigh this evidence:

I, and many of my friends, have stated that during prayer they were given specific commands or information, which they followed. The details were often surprising, often things we had no way of knowing, and always accurate or impressive in some way. Two friends were given GPS-style directions to places they'd never been before or even heard of. Several friends were told to give certain items to certain people; those people consistently reported dire need for those exact items. Several friends have been the recipients of such gifts -- for example, a guy none of us knew showed up at our church with hand-painted blue figurines from a particular Warhammer faction saying God told him to give them to a church; this was the exact set of figurines a friend had asked for as a Christmas gift, in the right color, which his family could not even remotely afford.

Certainly, in order to convince you or some other outsider I'd need independently verifiable evidence. Otherwise you can argue we're lying or hallucinating. But the question I asked is about someone in my position -- how should I weigh the evidence? I know I personally am not lying. I trust every one of my friends whose stories I've referenced. Most are college educated, including several with graduate degrees in technical fields, and none are prone to jump to conclusions. I have no indication (aside from these stories) that any of us suffer from hallucinations, paranoia, or other psychological issues; it's not like the guy on the back of the bus talking about alien abductions and lasers burning his legs and not knowing what city he's in.

You might be inclined to say that the data isn't statistically significant, that it's cherry picked. But I'm a mathematician; I know some things about data. Many of the experiences I'm talking about are very low probability. When people cherry pick low probability events from a broad data set, a particular pattern emerges: for every perfect hit, there are an order of magnitude more borderline hits, and another order of magnitude more near misses. For every Warhammer figurines story, there would be a dozen "God told me to give this tractor to your church" "we don't need a tractor but I guess we'll take it and let it sit for years until we eventually sell it" stories -- but I've asked around, and nobody has stories like that. There are no borderline hits or near misses; every experience my friends have been able to call to mind has been a perfect hit.

You might be inclined to argue that it's not actually God, but some other source -- white noise, ghosts, telepathic space aliens, the devil, or some combination. Whatever the source, it has the attributes of always being right, knowing or being able to influence the future, viewing love, compassion, and truth as tremendously important, and representing itself as Yahweh to me and my friends. While I cannot prove it actually is Yahweh (after all, it could be very lucky white noise), wouldn't it be reasonable for a person in my position to call it Yahweh until given good reason not to?

My earlier contention was that if someone I trust as God's follower were to report Him telling them X, and then X turned out wrong, that it would disprove my theory. Consider the above discussion to be a more detailed version of my theory -- I would certainly have to reject the theory as currently understood (thus, it is falsifiable), and instead make significant modifications to some part of it. It would be a really, really big deal if even one of those experiences turned out badly.

I also want to reiterate: this isn't the core of Christian experience. The core is a transformed life. This is stuff that just happens from time to time and is kind of cool, but God doesn't seem terribly interested in trying to use it as "proof". That's the context in which I originally brought it up -- demonstrating that the modern actions I've seen God take, like the ancient actions in the Biblical record, are more about Him accomplishing some specific goal than about impressing anybody.

> "I'm sorry for all the stuff that's messed up ... -Yahweh"

I previously noted that some people who have been faced with overwhelming evidence of the existence of God still choose not to follow Him. My wife, similarly, made the point that "it's not like [some people would] hate him any less knowing for sure he is real." Thus, God trying to "prove" Himself to those who don't want to follow Him is pointless, and He shows no interest in doing so.

Your above quote demonstrates this perfectly. Even if God proved His existence, you consider Him to have messed up or to have done a poor job. I've heard others call God bigoted, intolerant, cruel, petty, and a number of other perjoratives. If the God you say such things about proved Himself to be real, it wouldn't change the fact that you think He kind of sucks. So what would be the point of God proving Himself to you?

-------------

With the big stuff out of the way, a couple of minor points:

> "copies of copies of translations of copies by anonymous authors of which we have no originals"

Any decent modern Bible translation goes directly from the original languages. It's not copies of copies of translations of copies; it's just translations of copies. More accurately, it's usually translations of scholarly reconstructions -- since we have copies from such a wide geographic area, we can actually do a really good job tracking down even very minor changes and making reasonable, evidence-based determinations as to the most likely original. (The process of making such determinations is called "textual criticism"; look it up if you're interested.) This is generally considered a solved problem.

> "the lives of the members of the WBC have indeed been perverted by Christ"

At best, their lives have been influenced by an extremely distorted misunderstanding of Christ. They certainly haven't been transformed by an actual, direct interaction with Christ; they certainly haven't experienced the supernatural change of character that I referenced as core to Christianity. They certainly don't display attitudes that are remotely similar to Christ.

> "who is authorized to practice it?"

I don't know if anybody presently has the authority to practice either healing or exorcism. I don't see any indication from the recorded instances of it in scripture that God would allow it to happen as part of an ego-driven "proof" to a group like JREF. I also don't see any reason to think that someone who could perform those things would be interested in JREF's money.

> "even if all Christians did believe in the same core beliefs, doesn't mean that you agree on what parts of scripture trumps other parts of scripture"

Right. That's what I've been saying all thread long. That's why I'm a pacifist and my wife was a defense contractor -- a tiny disagreement on which of two statements has the higher priority.

I think it's actually a good thing. I think God is interested in developing mature followers who weigh and consider and make tradeoffs. He wants us to grow, not to stagnate.

You can find a draft of my point by point here http://pastebin.com/ae8Wvazc but I warn you that it will be a boring and not well put together read. I was planning on rewriting it or cutting it up and then appending it as a reply to each of the responses I got but I don't want to spam out this board and I don't want to go over everything again. Also sorry for responding so much later. I both love and hate getting into internet arguments. It always makes me anxious and stuff.. Anyway..

So your main concern is that I said that an unreasonable person would be someone who takes personal experience as evidence. My answer to that is two fold. First I have already said that the types of claims you and your wife are referring to do merit the same status as out of body experiences. That those claims are not testable and that I don't really know how it relates to evidence. So there you go. I do know that the brain is very malliable and that the way the brain experiences things are not exactly clear cut to us at this point. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/09/wiring_the_brain So while I wouldn't take things that you might have experienced to be evidence for God I don't think that you or people like you are unreasonable. Your type of experience however is not what I was talking about when I first broght this up. I'm talking about the people who hear the house settling and they think it is Ghosts. (I wasn't talking about you when I said this or later when I was giving an example of a falsifiable theory.) Or the presidental canidate who thinks the hurricane is a message to politicians. I was talking about how absurd it is to think that there is a majority group of Christians out there who want to rationally talk about their beliefs and in any way have them challenged. That point and your other point that groups that do terrible things are not Christians are the two main things that I disagree with you. Christians that do terrible things are still Christians just like atheists who do terrible things are still atheists too. In fact, alien worshippers could also be considered atheist. I use the term atheist to mean skeptical freethinker. I think you use the term Christian to mean true Christian. That there is actually additional criteria that you are applying to the term that wasn't there before. Otherwise, what, we would have to rewrite every single history book about every single unenlightened group? Christians are generally a wonderful group of people, especially those that actually know a thing or two about the Bible. I'm not and would never say the opposite. I just think that the crazies also fall under the same banner.

@Dove

"I don't know" is a perfectly good and, best of all, honest answer to some of the questions we have today. I'm almost certian you are of the belief that we can't understand God fully right? So I don't see why not knowing something is such a terrible thing. I am of the opinion that the evidence will lead you away from sources that claim to know about the unknowable especially when those sources need to rely on threats of eternal punishment. I imagine that terrible business might influence some thinkers like Pascal but if you stick to the evidence, the story will be different. As far as atheistic belief relying on vain things and Christians beliefing things despite riticule: the last I heard is that the statistic is like 93% of people believe in God. Is it also the case that atheists are still the most hated group in America? Either way, peer pressure doesn't work that way. If you want pride you will find it on any side of any argument, just as you will find smarmy repugnent a-holes, and complete idiots. I'm sorry that you seem to have had many bad encounters. All I can say is that it seems like it is easy to become embittered on the internet by all of the rampent inflamatory crap on here. Sorry.

Good on you for reading and trying to respond! Most folks would not take the time, but I see from your notes that you did. For the sake of keeping a reasonable thread of conversation, I'll let the topic as a whole rest. I trust you'll believe me when I say I am ready to have a book-length conversation on any of those topics -- and if you're interested in one I will! -- but my purpose is educational, not adversarial. Even if you don't find my arguments convincing (and you would hardly be the only one), my purpose is to demonstrate to you that I am committed to an evidential and rational worldview, and that it is in fact this commitment that leads me to Christ.

"I don't know" is a perfectly good and, best of all, honest answer to some of the questions we have today.

You are absolutely right. I have argued in the past (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1797035) that having an explanation for everything is a sure sign of insanity. And I stand by that. So why does the frequent "I don't know" in atheism bother me?

I would say it is part of a pattern of poor explanations and shoulder shrugs that, when taken all together, bothers me.

It seems to me that if you're going to reject a worldview -- and atheism is fundamentally negative -- you should be an expert on the evidence for that view. That should be the area of your best alternative explanations, your most careful scholarship, your most reasoned opinions. Instead, I find that what atheists write about Christianity is sloppy, often factually incorrect, and filled with "I don't knows" in all the areas of the most convincing evidence. If they could give plausible alternative accounts of the origin of the Bible and church, that would be something, but more often than not, they can't even get wikipedia-able facts right!

I feel a bit like Galileo with his telescope, trying to show people the moons of Jupiter. "Look how these are always in a line, how they appear to revolve around the planet!" People generally have not (and will not) look into the telescope, and when they do, they say, "I don't know."

That's certainly their right. I would never deny that. But why would I find such skepticism in the face of evidence attractive?

Why would anyone find it rationally attractive?

I am of the opinion that the evidence will lead you away from sources that claim to know about the unknowable especially when those sources need to rely on threats of eternal punishment.

My experience differs. I've spent my adult live studying the evidence as honestly as I know how. And while I've lost and changed a lot of opinions over the years, my faith in the reality of God and the reliability of the Bible and the person of Jesus grow stronger every time I learn something new.

And I think you would be surprised at how hell figures into all of this. I like to say that life on earth is either a little heaven or a little hell. I don't so much choose heaven over hell for eternity as I choose heaven over hell for the next five minutes.

But let me ask you. If there was one thing I should read and study, one thing that would really blow my mind and make me doubt Christianity, what would you recommend?

As far as atheistic belief relying on vain things and Christians beliefing things despite riticule: the last I heard is that the statistic is like 93% of people believe in God. Is it also the case that atheists are still the most hated group in America? Either way, peer pressure doesn't work that way. If you want pride you will find it on any side of any argument, just as you will find smarmy repugnent a-holes, and complete idiots. I'm sorry that you seem to have had many bad encounters. All I can say is that it seems like it is easy to become embittered on the internet by all of the rampent inflamatory crap on here. Sorry.

Well, those 93% are hardly kind to each other. The experience of following Christ in Christian society is often like the experience of Telemachus in Christian Rome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Telemachus).

But your point is fair -- everyone has troubles, and persecution does not justify anyway.

And thank you.

I rather enjoy long-form internet arguments. They give you time to research, ponder, and give thoughtful responses; it's OK if it takes a while to respond [0]. The thing that makes me anxious is worrying that I won't get any thoughtful responses, and therefore won't have anything worthwhile to think about or wrestle with. So, thank you for keeping up on this.

> "your other point that groups that do terrible things are not Christians" > "there is actually additional criteria that you are applying to the term that wasn't there before."

That's an inaccurate characterization of my point.

The label "Christian" has been in use for nearly 2000 years (it appears in its Greek and Latin forms in the Bible and other contemporary writings.) For a person to be "Christian", they must be transformed by Christ and therefore must show some of the characteristics of being Christ's disciple. This isn't new content I'm adding; this is all stuff that's talked about in the Bible (I think it's reasonable to consider the Bible authoritative on the subject.)

Now, it's certainly possible for a Christian to be a "work in progress", who shows some signs of transformation in some areas but is severely lacking in others, and who therefore does certain terrible and not-Christ-like things on occasion. But if a person is all terrible, all the time, with no evidence whatsoever of any transformation, they are not Christian (regardless of whether they claim the label.) The Bible talks about this, too -- 2 Peter 2, 2 Corinthians 10-12, and the entire book of Jude argue about those who masquerade as apostles of Christ, but aren't really. It is not a new thing for some people to claim the label but be undeserving of it, and it is not a fallacy to point it out when it happens!

> "the types of claims you and your wife are referring to do merit the same status as out of body experiences." > "I don't really know how it relates to evidence"

Everything is a form of evidence, including experience. It's all subject to certain forms of scrutiny and certain criteria; how well it holds up determines how strong it is as evidence. Some criteria include the accuracy/credibility of the source (is this person a known liar? Is the lab equipment flaky?), the external verifiability or correctness of the data, the detail with which it is measured and recorded, and so on.

Expereince, both personal and other, can be strong evidence or weak evidence. The only people I've ever heard speaking of UFO abductions have seemed non-credible in other ways, and as such, I consider their reports to be very weak evidence. I've also heard of out-of-body experiences that are vague and don't connect to anything external ("I saw a tunnel and heard a voice mumbling about how it wasn't my time yet"), which are not particularly useful evidence.

I've also heard of more detailed out-of-body experiences where people are able to describe things, in detail, that were happening outside of their immediate vicinity. That's a fairly strong type of evidence because it connects back to something external. Similarly, the experiences I described all connect back to something tangible, and all come from people I know to otherwise be credible, and I therefore consider them strong evidence (but since you don't know either them or me to be credible, you have the option to discard them as weak evidence.)

Given the consistent impressiveness of these experiences, I find them hard to discount; brain malleability, white noise, hallucinations, and ghosts are all woefully inadequate explanations. The only conclusion I can draw is that some intelligence is communicating information with us; I am content to label that intelligence "Yahweh" until it gives me reason to refer to it differently.

> "how absurd it is to think that there is a majority group of Christians out there who want to rationally talk about their beliefs and in any way have them challenged"

This is an unfortunate result of living in a place where the loudmouthed anti-intellectual branch of Christianity is most prevalent. All I can say is that it's not like that everywhere, hasn't been like that for most of history, and definitely isn't like that among theologians.

> "I am of the opinion that the evidence will lead you away from sources that claim to know about the unknowable"

I am of the opinion that most of the things being discussed are not "unknowable". They may be difficult to constrain to a lab, but they can be understood to some degree.

I am also of the opinion that evidence will lead you to wherever the evidence leads, as long as you're willing to follow it. It is intellectually lazy to decide, before looking at the evidence, that it will lead you in some specific direction. Dove and I have looked at a lot of evidence, and ended up where we are right now; do not be too quick to discount that.

When it comes to the history and translation process of the Bible, it's clear you haven't really studied the evidence; it appears you've simply adopted common opinions that conform to your worldview, which themselves come from people who haven't really looked at the evidence (you don't need to read biased Christian sites to get the other side; Wikipedia provides a nice, neutral look at these topics.)

For example, your "copies of copies of translations of copies" comment is an oft-repeated but factually incorrect meme; you would be well served to read about the topic of "textual criticism", and read the introductory page in various Bibles where they describe their own translation process.

Likewise, you stated (in question form) "different Christian denominations have many different versions of the Bible that include and cut out passages". Aside from a few cult groups, I'm not aware of any denomination that has its own version of the Bible. I've seen a good mix of translations in Catholic, Baptist, Mennonite, and non-denominational churches. The difference between the translations is primarily linguistic philosophy -- the reading level they target, whether they focus on word-for-word [1] or phrase-for-phrase translation, how they handle idioms, etc.

Regarding passages that have been "cut out", this goes back to textual criticism; any decent article on the subject will discuss the end of Mark, Luke 22:43-44, John 8, and 1 John 5:7-8. (The NET Bible, available at net.bible.org, has extensive text-critical notes on each of these passages as well.) It's not as though each individual denomination cuts out passages that don't suit them; rather, when the manuscript evidence shows a passage was likely added later, it's put in brackets with a note that says "this probably wasn't original".

Again, you stated (in question form) "the Bible was started many many years after the mericals from Jesus". We have copies of the Old Testament that are older than Jesus; this is not at all in doubt. The evidence points toward the New Testament writings originating between 50 and 70 AD. Notably, none mention the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, which is kind of a big deal. Even ignoring this, many parts of the NT are quoted in letters by Clement of Rome (95 AD) and Polycarp (120 AD), and some fragments from Polycarp's era still exist in museum collections (look up Papyrus 52). This puts the writings within a generation of Jesus' death.

Regardless of what you think of the value or truthfulness of the Bible, the evidence is clear when it comes to its origins and content.

[0] also, Minecraft 1.8 just came out, which has made me even slower to respond. Sorry.

[1] purely word-for-word translations are often written in an "interlinear" style, with the Greek/Hebrew interspersed line-by-line with the English. Since the original language syntax is so different from English, these are difficult to read, but great for studying certain details.