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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

115 (44.7%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.7%)

Total Members Voted: 252

[McTraveller]

We have plenty of evidence that those historical artifacts are not true. The Bible and other holy texts make many claims that can be tested. Also, why selective trust? Why not treat all historical artifacts with evidence of supernatural equally? Are there tests to determine which are more truthful?

I'm honestly curious about this - what claims from the Bible and other holy texts can be tested?  Or what claims are you thinking about?  And which claims have evidence of being untrue (when such claims were actually claiming history, rather than being allegory?)

I mean claims like "Jesus walked on water" or "Moses saw a burning bush" are not really testable - you can test that someone today can't walk on water, or you cannot construct a burning bush, but you can't say that it didn't happen.  I agree you do have to choose to either write it off as fiction or a lie, or say "huh, maybe we don't understand everything about the universe."  Which even physicists will tell you 

As for the new testament, most even legal scholars say the number of new testament authors, and the fact the stories are the same but different enough, that they are probably evidence that something happened that was significant enough for them to write about it. And it wasn't clearly to get notoriety or riches, considering basically all the authors were killed; those people believed in what they wrote.  It's more compelling than "one dude sat alone and claimed to have a revelation" stories.

Incidentally I don't think Norse mythology is incompatible with Judeo-Christian mythos either; I happen to think that most of these "other" gods were Nephilim or fallen angels or something, so the idea of Loki fits in just fine.

Of course, it's entirely possible we are indeed in a simulation, and these things are all just NPCs or the avatars of the people running the simulation.

[Criptfeind]

Incidentally I don't think Norse mythology is incompatible with Judeo-Christian mythos either; I happen to think that most of these "other" gods were Nephilim or fallen angels or something, so the idea of Loki fits in just fine.

You don't think it's incompatible, but despite that you do think it's wrong anyway? Given you think it's compatible, how would you reconcile them as being both right, if you didn't believe that Norse mythology was wrong?

[Frumple]

Probably by reversing things, the whole christianity thing being a long con by loki or somethin'. The weird shaped angels, the odd stuff knocking up young women, I'm not saying christian scripture fits pretty well with loki screwing around, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't actually be difficult to make the argument.

Pretty much everything that's not the creation myth (that no one was alive to witness and exists entirely as a "trust me bro!") isn't really that impressive; the norse divinity'd probably be able to pull it off without much trouble. Doing it turning around and biting the trickster god in the ass by destroying most of their cultural base would totally fit into normal patterns for that kind of critter, even. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense, ha.

[Criptfeind]

That doesn't reconcile them, that's just saying Christian mythology is wrong.

[Strongpoint]

I'm honestly curious about this - what claims from the Bible and other holy texts can be tested?

You can start with the very first chapter and compare if the story told there is compatible with observations of astrophysics, geology, biology, etc.

Of course, there is always an answer - "Well. it actually was like that but looks different because [insert magical untestable explanation]."
The problem here is that if we accept that magical explanations are possible, there is no way to test which magical explanation is correct, no way to choose beyond "I want this version to be true."

Of course, it's entirely possible we are indeed in a simulation, and these things are all just NPCs or the avatars of the people running the simulation.

Another variant of "reality is not real."
We can invent as many of those as we want but there are zero reasons of believing that one is correct and another is wrong.

[Frumple]

That doesn't reconcile them, that's just saying Christian mythology is wrong.

Eh, the only thing it wouldn't entirely fit with is specific bits of genesis that not even scripture agrees on. You're not going to reconcile self-contradictory subject matters without something being kicked to the wayside, heh.

[McTraveller]

As for the Genesis creation story not aligning with astrophysics - that only happens when taking the creation story as a scientific treatise, not allegory.  It's only a vocal minority that thinks Genesis 1-3 is a literal creation account.  The rest of us think the point of Genesis isn't to describe the physics of creation but to say that it was created intentionally (which I agree is not provable or disprovable).

The one thing both Genesis (and other creation myths) and physics agrees on is that there was an effective beginning.  Even as Stephen Hawking said: things are different temperatures; therefore the (meaningful) age of the universe can't be infinite.

I do have to admit though that if Loki did invent and stage Jesus out of trickery, hats off to him/her/it/whatever.

[Criptfeind]

That doesn't reconcile them, that's just saying Christian mythology is wrong.

Eh, the only thing it wouldn't entirely fit with is specific bits of genesis that not even scripture agrees on.

This would only really be true if you accept that god is constantly lying to everyone. Which, I suppose, could be the case, but I'd still say that in spirit at least that counts as christian mythology being wrong.

[Frumple]

The critter does deceive folks in scripture, for what it's worth, either more or less directly (the famous child sacrifice bit for an easy example) or through proxies. It wouldn't be entirely out of character on the christian side to be lying about a lot of things, and it would be entirely in character on the norse.

You could probably finagle the spirit not being wrong while still having a relevant trickster god doing their thing... you're not changing god's behavior, after all, just peeling back the veil a little on their nature, heh.

[McTraveller]

How is that example of Abraham and Isaac (I assume that's the "famous child sacrifice" bit) deceptive?  I've never heard it described as deceit. It's definitely provocative, but where's the deception?

Even the stories of God's wrath I'd say are pretty straightforward - "do this stuff and there will be consequences" and then there are consequences.  I mean maybe I've got confirmation bias but I can't think of any times God is being deceptive.  People ostensibly following him- yes quite often, but I can't think of many times when that deception is presented as a good thing; the one exception that comes to mind is when that lady lied about hiding spies to protect their lives. Just about every other act of deception I can think of is portrayed as Not Good.

[Strongpoint]

As for the Genesis creation story not aligning with astrophysics - that only happens when taking the creation story as a scientific treatise, not allegory

Yes. It totally does. Anyone can take "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" and interpret it however you want. There are many creative ways to do it. "It means energy and matter." "It means matter and antimatter" "It means material world and spiritual world" and so on. I did a lot of such mental gymnastics when I was a theist.

But there is no reason to think that those words are meant to be taken allegorically beyond simple "I want it to be so because otherwise my faith is incompatible with knowledge". Also, if we do assume that those are allegorical, we should try to understand the language of the allegory, translate it and compare the translation of the allegory to the facts. 'Deciphering' the message by pulling meaning out of our ass is not the way to seek truth.

The one thing both Genesis (and other creation myths) and physics agrees on is that there was an effective beginning.

Since when physics say that the universe began to exist? All that the current theory says that there was a singularity.

Note that Genesis doesn't describe the creation of the universe either, only its expansion. The universe is everything that exists. If God exists, he is also a part of the universe - by definition. If God is the only thing that exists - he is the universe.

[McTraveller]

At some point I think we just suffer from Godel's incompleteness theorem.  We're complex enough to describe the universe, so there are necessarily things which are unprovable.

Or proverbially: it's turtles all the way down after all.

[MaxTheFox]

Most of the things critics of Christianity give as evidence of God being evil are from the Old Testament. Liberal and postmodern theology (I subscribe to the latter fyi) considers 70% of the OT to be allegory, while most of the NT as more direct truth. I actually do believe that Jesus rose from the dead but that that was the last major miracle. On what basis, you ask... does there need to be a basis? Objectivity is an illusion, the world is inherently arbitrary, why should we care about being non-arbitrary?

With regards to "reality is not real" or the simulation hypothesis, I think it's irrelevant. Even if the simulation hypothesis is true, this is the highest reality layer we can be in, might as well treat it as reality.

It all comes down to an inherent difference in worldview. I for example am fine believing things with little evidence for them if I feel like it or there is utility to be gained from such a belief. Mostly because I don't actually believe humans can even have answers for everything, or most things. Not in a billion years.

[Strongpoint]

OT is focused on the actions of God and people endorsed and supported by him. NT is focused on the actions of Jesus (kinda actions of God but... not really) and Paul saying how great and all-loving God is and how we should act to be his proper servants.

This makes NT ill-suited for evaluation of the character of God, he is barely present there.

[TD1]

I actually do believe that Jesus rose from the dead but that that was the last major miracle. On what basis, you ask... does there need to be a basis?

Objectivity is an illusion, because everything potentially is. But pulling aside the pointless veil of subjectivity    -    yes, there needs to be a basis. Even if that basis is 'because most people think so,' that's still a rational impulse which may lead to the germ of truth.

As for Jesus' rising being the last major miracle, there's a vast literature of miracles spanning centuries after his death. Various saints have died, risen, become talking heads, supped from the teats of wolves etc.

In their day and age, these were taken as seriously as you take Jesus' rising. I tend to conflate them, myself, as stemming from the same impulse - and not being grounded in reality. But I am not religious, sooo... operating from a Christian perspective, there are plenty of major miracles after Jesus, it's just you choose to ignore them. This is convenient for your narrative, but not for the truth - and any healthy faith should be more rigorous in its thought and application than to reject for the sake of rejection and narrative preservation.