FAITH = SUPERSTITION
"If we start out in life with pretending to know
what we do not know; with professing to accept as proof evidence which we are
well aware is inadequate; with willfully shutting our eyes and our ears to facts
which militate against this or that comfortable hypothesis; we are doing our
best to deserve the character of liars." (T. Huxley) How can one reasonable
accept the authority of the church when there are so many churches? Faith is
bigotry and superstition. A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that
faith does not prove anything. atheism, atheism, atheism,
atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism,
atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism,
atheism, atheism, atheism
LOGICAL ARGUMENTS FOR GOD
FIRST CAUSE
Everthing we see has a cause. If one goes back in the chain
of causes further and further, one must come to a first cause - God. But what
caused God? If there can be anything without a cause it may just as well be the
universe as God. It also is an unwarranted assumption that the chain of causes
stops.
DESIGN
There is so much order in the universe that it must have been
caused by an intelligent agent. But there is also much disorder. To assert that
the small amount of order we have in our little corner of the universe is beyond
chance is beyond what one can reasonably claim. We have nothing to compare our
universe to. Can you believe that this is the best that an all-knowing and
all-powerful God could could create in billions of years? "This world is very
faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard, and was only the first
rude essay of some infant deity who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame
performance; it is the work only of some dependent, inferior deity, and is the
object of derision to his superiors; it is the production of old age and dotage
in some superannuated deity, and ever since his death has run on at adventures,
from the first impulse and active force which it received from him."(Hume) "We
are told that with God all things are possible. If so, it was possible for him
to create a world in which the vast mass of suffering that is morally
pointless-the pain and misery of animals, the cancer and blindness of little
children, the humiliations of senility and insanity-were avoided. These are
apparently inflictions of the Creator himself. If you admit that, you deny his
goodness; if you say he could not have done otherwise, you deny that with him
all things are possible." (Blanshard)
BY DEFINITION
God is perfect. An aspect of perfectionis existence.
Therefore God exists. These are just words. Unicorns are perfect, therefore they
exist. The premise assumes that which needs verification. Saying it doesn't make
it so.
MORAL ARGUMENT
There must be heaven and hell in order for there to be
justice in the long run. "Why then eternal punishment for temporary offenses of
so frail a creature as man? If God's justice resembles what we mean by justice -
then the bestowel of infinite happiness for finite welldoing and infinite misery
for finite illdoing is in no sense just. If the justice of God doesn't resemble
what we mean then it is an abuse of language to use the name justice for it.
Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men - the good and the bad. But
the greatest part of mankind float between vice and virtue." David Hume
REVELATION
"Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication
- after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a
revelation made to him; and although he may find himself obliged to believe it,
it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a
revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to
him."(Paine)
THE BIBLE
"The real question is not whether the Bible is inspired, but
whether it is true. If it is true, it doesn't need to be inspired; and if it is
not true, then inspiration cannot be established."(Ingersoll)
MIRACLES
"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the
testimony be of such kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the
fact which it endeavors to establish. Our uniform experience of the laws of
nature are a direct and full proof against the existence of any miracle. There
is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number
of men, of such unquestioned goodness, education, and learning as to secure us
against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity as to place them
beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and
reputation in the eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to lose in case of
their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time attesting facts,
performed in such a public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as
to render the detection unavoidable: all which circumstances are requisite to
give us a full assurance in the testimony of men." (Hume: An Inquiry
Concerning Human Understanding "Section X Of Miracles" ).
WAS PILATE RIGHT?
We regard courts of law as the final arbiters of truth.
The court found Jesus guilty of being a political revolutionary. Was Pilate
right? Or 2000 years and several cultures removed, do we know to a certainty
that he was wrong? Consider that Jesus surrounded himself with twelve rough
muscle-men. And consider these quotes:
Luke 14:26 "If any man come to me,
and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethern, and
sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. "
Matthew
10:34-35 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send
peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and
a daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in
law."
Luke 19:27 "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign
over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."
How can one revive the
fortunes of a false savior? Paul hit upon the brilliant idea of the second coming. It turns
palpable defeat and failure into a virtue, a hope.
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