The correct answer to that question is:
WE DO NOT KNOW.
YOU do not know...the atheists do not know...and we agnostics do not know.
Assumption...which is essentially a blind guess.
But, if it helps you cope with life...stick with it.
Ignorance and the Bible
- Thread starter domer76
- Start date
The correct answer to that question is:
WE DO NOT KNOW.
YOU do not know...the atheists do not know...and we agnostics do not know.
But, if it helps you cope with life...stick with it.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Most discoveries of the ancient world were through historians and archeologists combing through ancient documents.
Sadly, a multitude of ancient records were burned with the Library of Alexandria.
Library of Alexandria | Description, Facts, & Destruction | Britannica
Library of Alexandria, the most famous library of Classical antiquity. It formed part of the research institute at Alexandria in Egypt that is known as the Alexandrian Museum. The library was named after Alexander the Great, who initiated the collection of documents in 334 BCE.
www.britannica.com
Library of Alexandria - Ancient, Burning, Destruction | Britannica
Library of Alexandria - Ancient, Burning, Destruction: The fate of that great wealth of books remains provocative and controversial. For centuries the main point of contention was whether or not the library (or libraries—as two sites existed) survived until the Arab conquest of Alexandria in the...
www.britannica.com
That's good because you clearly have no clue about atheism.
Yeah your opinion on what atheists think is exactly meaningless.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
^^^
Perry has a compulsion to prove he is smarter than @Cypress....and always fails. Sad, but weird!
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Agreed. Just not any on this thread.
You, gmark77, are the one who does not understand atheism. You pretend it is something other than what it is...a belief system.
And "implicit atheist" is another name for an intellectual coward who wants to use "atheist" as a self-descriptor.
Grow some balls.
Bullshit. Atheism is a pretense.
TEST:
Do you believe there are no gods?
Do you believe it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one?
C'mon. Answer those questions.
Every example I've cited of Bart Ehrman on this thread is where his conclusions categorically clash with the conclusions of you and Domer.
So don't try to hitch yourself to Ehrman's wagon.
He at least practices a type of agnostic intellectual uncertainty, and he tries to steer clear of the confirmation bias practiced by atheists on this thread and elsewhere.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Perry Penis-Puller AKA @Daylight63 AKA @gmark77 has long been known to lie, troll and have a weird obsession with @Cypress.
His posts are the worthless dribbling of a 12-year-old boy trapped in the body of a 40-year-old man. I have no doubt he is still being cared for by his mother and will become a ward of the state when she passes.
Even @domer76 is catching on that tying himself to Perry is a bad move.
LOL. I've read a lot of Ehrman's stuff. I like it. You are in no position to tell anyone who they should read. Especially given how narrow your reading is.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
^^^
Previously claimed to have a PhD in rock collecting. Weird!
Most discoveries of the ancient world were through historians and archeologists combing through ancient documents.
Sadly, a multitude of ancient records were burned with the Library of Alexandria.
Library of Alexandria | Description, Facts, & Destruction | Britannica
Library of Alexandria, the most famous library of Classical antiquity. It formed part of the research institute at Alexandria in Egypt that is known as the Alexandrian Museum. The library was named after Alexander the Great, who initiated the collection of documents in 334 BCE.
The Royal Library was an unfortunate casualty of war. In 48 bce Julius Caesar became involved in a civil war in Egypt between Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII. Caesar sided with Cleopatra and was soon besieged by the Ptolemaic forces by land and sea in the great harbour. He realized that his only chance lay in setting fire to the enemy fleet, and it was by that drastic measure that he managed to gain the upper hand. Yet he is remarkably silent regarding the extent of the destruction caused by the fire in the city itself. Subsequent authors, however, provide details of the ensuing destruction. Most explicit is Plutarch, who, after a personal visit to Alexandria, explained that “Caesar was forced to repel the danger by using fire, which spread from the dockyards and destroyed the Great Library.” Equally indicative is a statement by Strabo who, during a long stay in the city (c. 25–20 bce), expressed in an indirect manner his regrets over the loss of that great library that had once supplied Eratosthenes and Hipparchus with the original reports of earlier discoveries, sources that were no longer there for him to consult.Library of Alexandria - Ancient, Burning, Destruction | Britannica
Library of Alexandria - Ancient, Burning, Destruction: The fate of that great wealth of books remains provocative and controversial. For centuries the main point of contention was whether or not the library (or libraries—as two sites existed) survived until the Arab conquest of Alexandria in the...
It's actually remarkable we have much of any writing preserved from antiquity.
99.99999999999999 percent of everything written two thousand years has been forever lost because they weren't copied and maintained by scribes for centuries.
Which makes the atheist complaints about the vintage and quantity of extant early Christian writings striking. It demonstrates a kind of historical ignorance. In terms of amount and vintage of documentary evidence, the New Testament canon compares extremely favorably to writings about other people and events in antiquity.
Thanks for confirming in this thread, Bart German categorically contradicted the atheist posters on numerous claims.
Ross Dolan is correct.
Atheism is a truth claim about reality.
It's not just a lack of belief in something, which is just a psychological state of mind not a truth claim.
If you aren't sure that atheism is making a truth claim, then you aren't an atheist. You are an agnostic.
I see gmark77 just laughed at my comment: (See my #1646 above)
Bullshit. Atheism is a pretense.
TEST:
Do you believe there are no gods?
Do you believe it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one?
C'mon. Answer those questions.
I understand his reaction. No way he can possibly answer those questions without showing his bullshit about "implicit atheism" to be laughable.
Maybe that was what he was laughing at.
Bullshit. Atheism is a pretense.
TEST:
Do you believe there are no gods?
Do you believe it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one?
C'mon. Answer those questions.
I understand his reaction. No way he can possibly answer those questions without showing his bullshit about "implicit atheism" to be laughable.
Maybe that was what he was laughing at.
Richard Dawkins has a narrow specialized expertise in zoology and a skill in hawking books. But he does not seem to have a basic working knowledge of history, physics, and the corpus of ancient literature.
I've seen Bill Maher complain about the Bible, but it's clear to me he's never read the Bible, and he doesn't know ancient history. He is just repeating things he heard from amateur atheist podcasters.
What kind of weakness are you presenting when you start every 3rd post with a "thanks for confirming" and then follow it up with something I didn't confirm?
If you think Ross knows atheism then I leave you to it. You are clearly not particularly bright and certainly not in this area.
God the stuff you don't know about atheism could fill a book.
You aren't an agnostic either. But we both know that, right?
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
^^^What kind of weakness are you presenting when you start every 3rd post with a "thanks for confirming" and then follow it up with something I didn't confirm?
If you think Ross knows atheism then I leave you to it. You are clearly not particularly bright and certainly not in this area.
God the stuff you don't know about atheism could fill a book.
You aren't an agnostic either. But we both know that, right?
Perry's OCD* on display.
*Obsessive @Cypress Disorder
On the one hand, entropy favors biological life over inanimate matter, so given the right conditions one might expect to find life.
On the other hand, we have no explanation for the almost infinite complexity of a single cell, the machine-like properties of it's self-organization and functions, or how biology can just emerge from inanimate matter.
Where did you get this? I've never heard that.
(Don't worry, I don't expect you to explain your "reasoning" here because it would require you to google too much. LOL )
You didn't deny that Bart Ehrman contradicted you atheists at numerous points in this thread, and I take that as a tacit confirmation that even a nonbeliever like Ehrman doesn't buy all the standard atheist arguments.
I read it in a physics book I have.