I spent a few days in Colorado with four friends last week.
We couldn’t decide what to do to fill those few days.
So we got lost.
Nothing passes the time like trying not to die of exposure.
I’m exaggerating a bit.
We weren’t even close to reenacting a scene from Revenant.
But we were thoroughly confused for upwards of 5 hours.
Listening to my pals retell the story, I realized something.
All four of my friends are liars!
They all said different things!
You can listen to the details on Daren’s comedy podcast.
(The story begins at around the 23 minute mark.)
Five guys telling a different version of an event.
Reasonable people will conclude that we made up the whole thing.
But we didn’t.
Here are my shoes to prove it.
(Special thanks to Ken Davis for the professional repair job.)
72 Responses
John,
Because you have shown a picture of your shoes, we can affirm that they exist. (I dare not ask for a smell test as additional data).
Since your shoes exist, and I do not think they are an illusion, they must have been made by a shoemaker. (Do you actually refer to a maker of sneakers as a shoemaker? Well.. I guess I do, at least).
That means that something exists, and not nothing. If something exists now, (to borrow from R.C. Sproul, a personal hero of mine — full disclosure), then Something exists necessarily. That means that Something has the power of existence. If there ever was a time when nothing existed, then nothing would exist now. Because nothing can’t create something.
Your sneakers do not have the power of existence in and of themselves, since we know they were created, and neither does the shoemaker, because he was created. Only God Himself has the power of existence. He did not create Himself, as He would have to have been there before He was to make Himself. (a truly headache-inducing concept). The universe cannot create itself, for the same reason a shoe can’t or that God can’t self-create. Something must have the power of existence. The universe can’t have the power of existence, because (a Sproul direct quote):
“Could this be the universe itself? No, because if the universe as a whole were self-existent, it could not change. Change means something is contingent, dependent, derived. Therefore, the self-existent Being must be the Creator of the universe of time and change.”
http://renewingyourmind.org/broadcasts/2016/08/22/the-existence-of-shoes
That is deep-thinking stuff that I worked hard to wrap my head around, but it is true.
Dave
Colossians 1:16-17 (ESV) – “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
@John
As you are a fundamentalist evangelical christian, a schooled purveyor in the art bullshit dust I will bow to your first-hand experience of not believing the stuff you say.
It is wise to acknowledge an expert in such matters, John and you seem to be the man.
And they say you only find hypocrites in church.
I presume it is me or KIA you consider hypocritical? For what reason, Jasmine?
I consider a hypocrite to be someone who makes accusations to others of things they do themselves, such as making assumptions without any former knowledge, name calling, or not answering simple questions.
Ah, my apologies I thought you were referring to KIA or I.
So you mean the way John refers to Christian Hayes that she is only teaching at Yale for the money and doesn’t believe a thing she is saying.
Thanks for clearing that up, Jasmine.
Sorry if I suggested you thought I was being a hypocrite.
Have a fab day.
There must have been a sale on rose-coloured glasses somewhere.
Fellas, we have a running policy not to engage in conversations on old posts, for the sake of our readers.
The readers here are interested in seeing how easily Atheists will come unglued when having the godless worldview questioned. And they shouldn’t have to dig through old posts (or track us down on another blog) to participate.
Thanks for understanding!
Ah, well I would rather come unglued than be stuck in the Tarpits.
Oh, I forgot, do you believe in Old Earth and dinosaurs and all that?
For those who are just joining us, my official position is I’ll accept anything proven by (good) science. The scientific method is a great way to find truth. (Side Note: it’s because the scientific method was developed by Theists who believed that the Universe is orderly and knowable because it reflects God’s character. And it turns out, they were right! The Universe is predictable and logical.)
Sooooo, if science or history starts to suggest I’m wrong about some fact or detail about God, I’ll look into it.
I’m just not very interested in having that conversation with people who are foolish enough to believe God doesn’t exist AT ALL.
Excellent. So you accept that the as per the HGP the biblical story of Adam and Eve is simply fiction, yes?
I don’t know. I’ve not done enough research.
A former youth minister of mine stepped down to get a doctorate degree in biblical archaeology, and he has said there are many schools of thought. As with most of life, it’s not cut and dry. The Pentateuch may not be literal history, or it may be partly historic, or it may be a literal description of exactly how things happened less than 10,000 years ago.
As I’ve explained to you (and will explain again), I don’t trust you to relay what “science” tells us, because you have proven yourself biased. You want to know everything about God before you’ll admit he’s there.
So, feel free to share the details of the Human Genome Project which prove the Old Testament is garbage, since that’s the only thing you EVER want to talk about. 🙂 Go for it.
Just don’t be surprised when (as I’ve told you before) it won’t change my hunger to worship God… and when I take everything you say with a block of salt because you’re biased. There are far more reliable historians than you.
I’m biased?
The HGP was originally headed by Francis Collins – an evangelical Christian, for goodness sake.
Please, for the gods’ sake, don’t tell me you don’t know who this is?
And why the hell would I lay out the science for you when you can simply read the scientists who worked on the human gene project who will do a much better job of explaining than I could possibly do …ever ?
Of course there are better historians than me…. probably ALL of them as I am not an historian!
Collins and his team aren’t historians ( as far as I am aware) so what has that got to do with their work?
“And why the hell would I lay out the science for you when you can simply read the scientists who worked on the human gene project who will do a much better job of explaining than I could possibly do …ever ?”
That’s actually exactly my point.
I’ve heard of Collins. He’s a Christian who wrote a book called “The Language of God,” if I’m correct.
Clearly, whatever he discovered while heading up the Genome Project wasn’t as life-alteringly important as you think it should be.
And there we have the hand wave comment.
Would you accept a summary then?
Whatever you want, Ark.
If it’s hugely important and life-changing and I need to hear it NOW then enlighten me.
No, dear, not whatever I want. If you want. And only if you are prepared top be a lot more grown up.
The Human Genome Project demonstrated that it was not possible for there to have been an original human pair as per Genesis.
Now, I am damned if I am going to go to the trouble of writing out any sort summary if all you are going to do is behave like a petulant child.
I literally have no idea how I’m being childish, Ark.
If the Genome Project “proves” that Adam and Eve didn’t live at the same time, then the biblical story is allegorical.
So what?
Why is that the thing you’ve been so desperate to talk about for days now?
Desperate?
If you are prepared to accept that Adam and Eve is allegorical how do know that the entire bible is not allegorical?
The character of God is described best by the Bible. An infinite, creative, loving God who exists outside of space and time.
There have literally been BILLIONS of people who recognize the existence of God. And, as we’ve worked together to find out more about Him, the Bible has been the compass (not to be confused with GPS) which has shaped the developed world.
And how is this remark in any way answering the question regarding the bible being allegorical.
Do you think you can stay ”on point” ?
I start with the belief that there is an infinite Creator who loves us enough to build this amazing Universe, and I go from there.
What I experience and what I know about humans makes the most sense when I line it up with the moral explanations written in the Bible. Christianity is the most consistent with life.
BUT, that doesn’t mean I have to use the Bible like a math equation and take every story literally. I have to defer to textual critics and historians to tell me which parts probably REALLY happened and which parts probably just teach us moral lessons.
Either way, it hasn’t been relevant to ANY the blog posts you have commented on so far.
So you begin with a presuppositional worldview and then attempt to build your faith upon that.
This is biased and in fact somewhat dishonest as I have already informed you science has proved that the creation story of Adam and Eve is fiction.
And this is just the beginning of the difficulties you face.
Fast Forward: In the New Testament, Paul believed Adam and Eve were real historical characters from whom sin derived.
He was wrong. Period. But how could he be mistaken? You tell me?
Bible scholars are fully aware of this. Though you seem not to be.
So, no Adam and Eve.
No Original sin.
And Paul’s understanding of Judaism critically flawed.
Shall we explore Noah’s Ark and see if this too is allegorical?
May I ask how many stories it will take before you accept the foundation tenets of your faith are simply fiction?
And what moral explanations are written in the bible?
We’ve been over this, too, Ark. Humans were built to make presuppositional observations. We’re pattern-recognizing machines. From even before we come out of the womb, we are little scientists learning about our environments and noticing how things work. Things don’t make things.
Even my 5-year-old recognizes that a sandcastle on the beach had to be built intentionally, by an intelligence. Not scrape into turrets by a sea turtle. Not splashed into existence by the rain. But designed–on purpose.
Humans were built to recognize design. We were made to seek truth.
Atheism doesn’t acknowledge this very basic, OBVIOUS truth. Therefore, I have to keep looking for another explanation.
No we are not. We assign agency. This is fact. And evidence will either back this or refute it.
Evidence refutes Adam and Eve.
Evidence refutes original sin doctrine.
Evidence refutes Paul’s belief in the historicity of Adam and Eve.
Also, your presuppositional worldview includes the character Jesus of Nazareth and the claimed resurrection, and this is a serious evidentiary problem.
So, once again, please. How many stories will it take before you accept the foundation tenets of your faith are simply fiction?
And what moral explanations are written in the bible?
I really don’t know whether you’re not getting it, or I have to go slower.
I really don’t.
But if you think God is a house of cards and you only have to remove one card to knock the rest of him down, you’re wrong.
I don’t worship the Bible.
I worship the God described in the Bible.
You can’t say whether Adam and Eve were meant to tell the “story of sin” rather than be literal history.
You can’t say whether Paul thought they were real people or characters to make a point (like “the Boy Who Cried Wolf.”)
You have no idea whether Jesus was a real person or not because–as you’ve already confessed–you’re not a historian.
So (just to let you know now, so you’re not surprised), this will be my last comment on the Bible.
Now I think you should think deeply into YOUR OWN beliefs and find out whether godlessness makes sense.
You should ask yourself–if the Universe just happened by accident and none of this matters–why am I staying awake until the wee hours of the morning trying to convince some random American to stop believing in Jesus?
I don’t know if you’re getting it I really don’t .
Yahweh is a Canaanite deity first described in the Ugaritic texts. The Israelite ( who were part of the Canaanites adopted Yahweh from the Canaanite pantheon.
Ergo. You worship a man made deity.
Pastor Tim Keller, a participant in a BioLogos workshop on evolution and Adam and Eve held last November (!), says this:
“Paul most definitely wanted to teach us that Adam and Eve were real historical figures. When you refuse to take a biblical author literally when he clearly wants you to do so, you have moved away from the traditional understanding of the biblical authority. . If Adam doesn’t exist, Paul’s whole argument—that both sin and grace work “covenantally’—falls apart. You can’t say that Paul was a ‘man of his time’ but we can accept his basic teaching about Adam. If you don’t believe what he believes about Adam, you are denying the core of Paul’s teaching.”
Need a link or are you okay with the quote?
Pastor Tim Keller recognizes there HAS to be a God…so I would love to have a conversation with him. (I’ve read a couple of his books, and he has compelling thoughts. Definitely the kind of guy seeking the Truth and open to changing his mind.)
The God I worship is big and powerful enough that even the Canaanites might have seen and described a piece of Him 1000 years before Genesis was written… Most Christians already believe he guided the evolution of the Bible over 1500 years. What’s another Millenium?
All truth is evidence for God. ALL of it. So it doesn’t matter who or when or how someone discovered a piece of truth, God had to be behind it. If he wasn’t, then “truth” is just an idea our brains made up to give us a sense of purpose in order to keep reproducing.
Either it’s all about God or it’s all about survival. And the “survival” explanation is so stupid that even Atheists don’t live consistently with that belief.
Can’t say I have read anything of Tim Keller.
Helen Keller, maybe …
Yes, Keller does consider there is a god.
And what he is saying in this quote demonstrates the shaky ground he is now on after the findings of the HGP were revealed.
Although you seem not have noticed how tenuous his position is.
None so blind as those who will not see and all that, right?
The god you worship, Yahweh, is a work of fiction. A megalomaniacal, egotistical genocidal maniac.
A deity who has encouraged incest and happily allowed abortion.
He is the essence of pure evil and more or less says so himself.
Even if he was real why would anyone who was not indoctrinated willing genuflect to this capricious monster?
Can you tell why you do?
…you seem to think genocide and abortion are wrong.
Do you want to talk about morality again?
Right and wrong have been built into humans for a purpose.
Either that, or you’re indoctrinated, too…by your parents and grandparents who didn’t understand how evolution works.
And now you’re trying to convince me to see your chemical’s version of “truth.”
Can you tell me why you care?
No, I am answering that age old claim that your god, Yahweh, is a god of love, when quite clearly he is a monster.
I accept evolution and that morality derived from it. Good and bad.
You don’t.
MY question stands:
Even if he was real, why do (would) you worship such a monster as Yahweh?
A mass of words isn’t an answer.
WHY do you care?
About what?
ANYTHING?
Don’t follow? Be more specific?
There you have it, ladies and gentleman. Whenever you ask Ark a question, he doesn’t understand it.
Why do you care about anything?
If you don’t follow those six words, then I think I’ve figured out why you can’t see God anywhere…
And which god would that be?
LOL!!!!!!
Best plan. Laugh at make believe monsters and they go away. Say after me …”Yahweh is a Make Believe monster.”
Say after me, “Without God, I can’t answer questions that anyone is interested in.”
Oh, but I can …
You are the one who lives with indoctrination, believer they are a sinner , thinks Jesus is watching (over) them and lives with death anxiety.
Me? I just worry if Liverpool will ever win the Premier League again.
… Something tells me this part of the conversation won’t make it to your blog. 😉
Why do you care about anything? Liverpool included?
The same you care for your children, so do I care for mine.
I cannot understand why you ask such bone-headed ignorant questions.
I am pretty sure you are not mentally ill, so are you simply stupid?
WHAT reason is that?
Because I love my kids and am concerned for their welfare ,and their happiness to ensure they buy me a fathers day present every year.
That sounds great until you start thinking about what “love” is.
What’s love?
Maybe my understanding is different to yours? You tell me what you understand by love. And make it quick I have a client to see just now.
No.
I’m not answering my questions for you.
I GUARANTEED your understanding is different from mine.
What do you mean by “I love my kids.” ??
You’re probably right. I don’t understand. But I did love making them though.
Yeah… it’s all biological, isn’t it?
There’s really no difference between what your brain “loves” and what your penis “loves,” eh?
Isn’t it? You tell me?
I’m still not answering my questions to you, Ark.
Your godless perspective; your job to defend it.
You are the one that touts god-belief and believes you are a sinner and that a make believe god will send you to hell for being naughty.
You believe that a make-believe god imbued you with your morals ( or lack thereof)
You believe in Creation and that a fictional ”book” is the basis for your worldview.
You deny science and wish to indoctrinate your kids and anyone else who will listen.
Whereas I’m normal. So why on earth do I have defend a godless perspective?
Gotta go. Client. Have fun.
Have a great rest of your day, Ark!
See you next time!
Have a listen to this lecture.
https://jerichobrisance.com/2016/03/27/yale-lecture-series-on-hebrew-bible/
It’s on Youtube but Matt ( the blog host) has cued it up so you don’t have to listen to the introduction.
It might help you gain some insight on how the Old Testament came about.
Always nice to hear a different perspective and this woman is considered an authority.
Let me know your thoughts.
I’m just going to be honest, Ark, even though it’s going to send you into a tizzy. I’m not going to listen to this lecture. At least not right now.
My interest right now isn’t in where the Bible came from. It’s one of the (many) fascinating topics that I’ll probably study later. Right now, I’m reading Plato and a book by a guy named Dr. Vishal Mangalwaldi.
And, when I’m taking a break from reading, I am working through “The Code” on Netflix. (It’s about how ordered the Universe is.)
So, I don’t have time to get to YOUR favorite thing to study about creation right now.
My theory is:
Christine Hayes (the lecturer in the video) realizes there’s cash in skepticism.She doesn’t really believe that stuff she’s saying. She’s laughing all the way to the bank.
*Shrug* Watch don’t watch….
These six words were funny;they made me smile.
As advised by John B.
Posting my comment from an older thread here.
Bit late to this post, but you do have some rather interesting things on your blog, and this particular comment fascinates me.
As the Pentateuch is regarded as myth (Historical Fiction) except by religious fundamentalists/biblical literalists (YECs e.g.) and evidence has demonstrated this beyond doubt, on what grounds do you base your Christian faith upon?
And here it is ladies and gentlemen!
Arkenaten’s only question!
I’ve answered it before but since you may not have had a chance to see how his robust, scientific doctrine responds….here we go again!!
My faith is grounded in the observable fact that intelligence only rises from intelligence. We never see intelligence come from chaos. Similarly, we’ve never observed life rising from non-life.
The universe shows so much evidence of design that naturalists had to invent the multiverse in order to maintain the religious view that there is no designer.
I believe there is a designer.
On what grounds do you base your lack of belief in an intelligent designer?
Oh, I’m with you John. I have no evidence to deny there may well be a creator of the universe.
All I am saying – all I ever </em say is that the evidence put forward so far for every single creator god can be dismissed with impunity.
Do you have any evidence for your creator deity John?
Thankfully we have the sciences of textual critcism, historical analysis and archaeology to be able to piece together the way the bible actually came together and has been transmitted and passedmon to us thru the centuries.
The gospels, starting with mark, were indeed just made up. Maythew and luke both cribbedmfrom mark the majority of their works, with changes and additions, then john was written much much later using those three but changing al8t and adding stories and teachings not found in any of the other three. Later, once the roman empire became ‘christianized’ the other 30 or 40 ‘other’ gospels were either discredited or destroyed to take out the competition for ‘true christianity’ and consolidate for the world, often by the point of a sword or torture, what christianity is and is not.
Yes, it was all made up.
Hi Kia,
Apparently, you’re ‘know it all recovery’ is a slow process!
For sure. Not quick enough at all. But I’m on the road. How about you?
Care to comment on my post?
No.
We can have a conversation here so you’ll have a chance to expose my buffoonery to my readers. Your readers already know I’m an idiot.
I doubt you are an idiot. You still believe idiotic things (sorry, couldnt resist) but you are most likely a very intelligent and thoughtful man. Just wrong
Don’t you trust me, brother John? I don’t bann,block, delete or edit comments. All are welcomed
I’ve got not compelling reason to trust you.
Already told you my reasons.
Trust is offered freely unless violated. As I have trusted you