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I love how most people who believe the bible can trace their belief to the notion that the bible explains their origin. The problem though... and I've never heard a good defense for this... the bible never explains the origin of magic but uses it frequently as proof of divine power. So not only do you have to believe the bible, but you also have to believe in the existence of magic. So even if you might want to believe in an alien race or species that evolved the ability to create humankind... you'd still have to believe that species could do impossible magical feats that defy the laws of physics. This(magic), to me, is even more intellectually ambitious than the God proposition. Because we can't prove or disprove God, but we can disprove magic.

ZealotX 4 Feb 25
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9

The Bible is the biggest bullshit story ever told and not worth debating over .The same as questioning a children’s book of fairytales.

The Matrix wasn't real either. And yet many debates can be had about it. It's really just about what you can take away. There is both good and evil in the bible just as there is both good and evil in humans because humans wrote it.

6

Welcome to the asylum. Enjoy your stay.

Most believers don't know the history of their religions or their "holy" books.
I don't allow any of them to use any of it as some sort of defense for anything.
But that's just me.
I'm pretty adamant about my anti-theism, as well as my atheism.

I have no need of "disproving" gods. There's no evidence to demonstrate their existence.
As far as I'm concerned, they've never existed anywhere except the imaginations of people.

Show me credible, verifiable evidence to the contrary, and I'll rethink my position.
Unless and until that happens, there are no gods and never have been any.

3

What is all that claptrap!? It sounds like SATAN has gotten a hold of you! You need to be HEALED Get the demons purged from you! Glory!

3

"...the bible never explains the origin of magic but uses it frequently as proof of divine power."
By 'magic' may we assume you mean 'miracles?' The two are never synonymous in the eyes of most believers. Magic connotes a trickster or sleight of hand, or it can refer to witchcraft and the devil. Either way, magic cannot be associated with divine miracles as found in a book or certified by some priests and elders. I enjoy a good magic show as well as the next person, but the laws of physics remain unbroken, and miracles don't happen.

I speak of magic devoid of context. It is only when the believer applies context that they say one is magic and the other is miracle. But no only is there no difference, but if God created everything then this cannot exclude magic or those that practice it.

Love your portrait of Thomas Paine

3

Who says you can't disprove god? It was done by Epicurus way back then BC in the Epicurean Paradox plus any day with logic, all gods without exception were created by ignorant humans, ergo all are made up and fake.

As a Deist, the god my avatar believed in formed the universe and the laws governing it, and then left for other pursuits. No miracles, no answers to prayer or supplication, no holy books, buildings or prophets, nothing sacred or divine and above all, no organized religion. One might well ask, as did Epicurus, ‘Why call him God?’ To which I would answer, ‘Why not?’ Unlike any of the other gods I’ve been told about, the god of the Deist is one that I could live with—at least he leaves us the hell alone!

@p-nullifidian A few of our Founding Fathers were Deists.

@DenoPenno Yup, including my avatar, Thomas Paine, author of 'Common Sense,' a pamphlet read by more colonists than any other publication of its time, and without which, the American Revolultion might not have happened.

@p-nullifidian all gods are fake and nonexistent, whatever and however you want to label yourself, the undisputed truth is that gods were all created by ignorant humans.

You can't disprove ANY non falsifiable claim, because that is the definition of non falsifiable, and the christian god is built to be non falsifiable.
But also you can't claim to know or be sure of anything non falsifiable. In practice a non falsifiable claim is useless by definition.

@Pedrohbds easy , prove to me gods were not created by men. Who created mithra, odin, osiris, ra, etc. Themselves? Animals? Tell me how is this false instead of you just repeating crap.

@Pedrohbds, @FrankA yes it does, because tell me who did it then? All gods we have now were created by ignorant people from more than 2000 years ago and even more, if not tell me who did, did they self create? Who wrote their moronic books, the air? Magic speaking calfs? Who? No answer proves my point.

@Mofo1953 Yes, you are correct, most of gods can be traced to its origins. but it does not change the fact that they are not falsifiable.
The god creator can claim that the god showed itself to him/her and then he is not the creator of the god, just the message bearer.

This does not make the god real.

Se, it is useless to discuss the existence or not of an non falsifiable entity, because by definition the results of existence or not of a non falsifiable entity are the same.
And that is why religion is bullish, because your god has the same "evidence" of the tribe of the smallest island, unicorn or any dead religion... NONE. So why bother choosing one and living by its rules?

This is the agnostic way of thinking. If the definitions are useless, why bother trying to guess or find justifications to answer yes or no to them? The final result is the same.

So let's worry about things we can verify and stop wasting time with infinite non falsifiable claims that you can't do anything about.

@FrankA really, brilliant people in the years prior to the dark ages? Amazingly ilogic answer which doesn't answer anything. Books not moronic? Amazing? So Adam and Eve had 2 sons first, who had Cain's wife? Answer me with a logical reply. Or was the wife a monkey? Please don't waste my time with your infantile non answers.

@FrankA, @Pedrohbds i just proved to you that. The fact that you don't want to accept the obvious and go to a metaphysical type of nonsense, is your choice. To anyone this is black and white, except for those who want to perpetuate the idiocy of gods somehow.

@Mofo1953
Calm down your titties no one is advocating about reality of gods. No one is perpetuating the idiocy of gods somehow.

You proved nothing. You showed evidences. And that is the beauty of logic, you can put up a ton of evidences and they don't sum up to become a proof. Proff is only possible in very few cases, mostly on ideal system as mathematics..

As you expect the lack of possibilities to prove or disprove opens up maybe infinite possibilities BUT, those possibilities are not equal.

What I am saying is non falsifiable gods don't interfere with the reality we know, they might have communicated somehow with the original prophet... Yes, but then all the thousands of proposed gods can do so...
This makes those infinite gods collapse in infinitesimal chance of each one really exists instead of being created by superstition. confirmation bias, power hunger or mental problems.

It is not black and white, but the results are very close as it was black and white.

In the end you are also saying something you can't prove because you weren't there, and even if you were, you can't know what happens inside someones mind. And the fact that you can't prove, does not make your point invalid, actually I would always bet that you are right.

But for the sake of being exact, precise and using strong definitions that closes the door for the imprecision that are used to "advocate for gods existence" you need to abandon your urge to prove something or to give a final argument because it is philosophically impossible to do it by definition of what is a proof and what is a non falsifiable argument.

Saying that god exists has the same weight as saying that feires, unicorns and Sagan's garage dragon exists... It does not change anything in reality, it don't change the way the world works, because the definition of those beings makes them non falsifiable.

You can't measure, test or prove something that by definition does not interact with the world, but at the same time, why bother? It will change nothing and all of the proposed gods are mutually excludent (because all of them claim to be the only one or the only group of gods that are real at the same time).

The final message is that you can't prove that gods are not real but you don't NEED to do it to see that religion is bullish exactly because there is no way to test it, something that is impossible to test, is by definition useless and don't change the world.

That is why "you can trace the sources of gods" is correct, and "you can't prove they don't exist" is also correct.

@FrankA because you say so? Please.

@FrankA who? Name names. I gave you Epicurus, you can also read about it with Hawkins, Dawkins, etcetera. Read "The God Delusion"? Armin Navari's book "Why there is no god", Hitchens books including "God is not great" etcetera. Show me the "brilliant minds that say what you wrongly claim and I'll show you a brainwashed religion supporter.

@Pedrohbds not because you say so nor your new agey lingo. Spare me. Don't want to waste any more time with religion and god apologists.

@mofo

No, sir. Unfortunately, one cannot disprove God. God is indeed set up to make this impossible. Let us take for instance the notion of prayer. If a believer asks for something and it doesn't happen, do they give up and say God doesn't exist because he didn't answer their prayer? Or do they say God knows what's best and chose not to answer, possibly, because giving them what they wanted would have led to a bad outcome or that it wasn't time yet or because of their sins or because of a myriad of other excuses. But if it DOES happen... then it was definitely God's doing because they asked. It's about credit.

Example: I'm a very safe driver. I've only ever damaged my car due to extreme conditions and actions by another driver. But if we're driving an hour or more away my mother will almost certainly, without fail, pray for safe traveling mercies. Because apparently God is watching traffic and protecting drivers who ask (because you have to ask or else you can't be mad at God for not protecting you, even if you have one of his precious children in the car). If we arrive safely, my mom will thank God, not me, the safe driver. Of course if I did crash would it be God's fault? Or mine?

This is just one of many possible examples were God cannot fail because of how believers assign credit and blame. When they get a positive outcome their faith is reinforced. When they get a negative outcome its the fault of other people and/or the devil. And if you try to get God to do something to prove himself they'll simply pull out a scripture to say that you cannot tempt God.

@Pedrohbds @Mofo1953 "you can't prove they don't exist" may be technically and grammatically a sound statement, but it is not true statement.
Since we are discussing "a god" I will stick with that example, no I cannot prove that a given god does not exist, but I do not need to.
Aside from the obvious burden of proof argument, the non existence of a non corporeal, invisible, inaudible, intangible thing that exists outside of time and space is impossible to prove because even if it did exist it might as well not, it can have no bearing on reality and reality can have no bearing upon it. This being the case, to all intents and purposes for any being actually existing in this reality the existence or non existence of such a "god" would be exactly the same.
If on the other hand it is contended that the said deity can and does impact upon this reality, then reality must conversely be able to impact upon it at least while it is doing so, as every action has an equal and opposite counter reaction.
A lack of evidence for such interaction and counter reaction must therefore lead to a potential conclusion that is is highly improbable that under the given criteria the "god" either does not exist or did not ever interact with our reality, thus indicating a very high probability that the "god" does not" or "may as well not" exist.

@FrankA funny you mention Hawking but not his quote but a writer's. Here's a direct quote from Hawking, notice the name of the book:

"We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.

Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking - There is no God. There is no Fate.. Retrieved on 4 July 2013.;. Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe?. Discovery Communications, LLC. (7 August 2011). Retrieved on 4 July 2013.. - Curiosity (2011)

It is also well known that Einstein's view changed, you quote a letter from a jewish man to another jewish man, but just 4 years later, he wrote this himself:
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein, 1954, The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press)"

As for Carl Sagan, it is also well documented that his wife was very religious and he did not want to upset her, he always spoke ambiguously about god to her, but his writings say otherwise:
"The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity."

Any other? Don't waste my time.

@FrankA there is no worse blind person than the one that doesn't want to see. I proved you wrong with every reply, yet you continue to insist in your nonsense. Go bother some of your religion apologists, I have proven my point with evidence, much to your denial. No more time for this crap.

@ZealotX Read my other replies to useful idiots of religion who repeat that moronic mantra that "god cannot be proven or disproven" when evidence shows it has since antiquity. Go bother some of your other religion apologists. I am out of here, too much idiocy around, it can be contagious worse than the corona virus. Shalom biatches!

@Mofo1953
No one is advocating for religion, there is no new age stuff on my speech, is pure logic. I am an agnostic, I don't believe that any kind of supernatural divinity exists. BUT is not my belief that define me, is my knowledge

Belief is a choice, knowledge is a consequence. My religious (lack of it) opinion is based on knowing not on believing. And knowing non falsifiable stuff is useless and you can come up with an infinity of it, i discard them and act as if they were all false, because being false or true is actually the same for all practical purposes.

It is not new age lingo, it is basic scientific method, you only deal with falsifiable claims, you don't bother with the non falsifiable ones because there is nothing there to learn or to discover. And that is the Agnostic position, we say that the discussion about god is fruitless, I can't prove and disprove god because it is a non falsifiable claim, it was built to be impossible to test. Science and knowledge don't work with this kind of claim because this kind of claims leads to nowhere.

If you think this is religion or apology you can't see that I am talking AGAINST religion means that you can only see your opinion and thinks anything out of your box is false, exactly as a religious person behaves.

@LenHazell53 What you told is the same, except that I give a conclusion that existence and not existence would generate the same result so it is useless to look for this non falsifiable gods, you won't find them BY DEFINITION.

@FrankA At this point I can only say: Dont feed the troll. Or he is just flaming war and not even reading, or he don't have basic skills of text interpretation as he takes a clear anti religion text and answer like it is new age apologist...

@Mofo1953

First, I think you should be more careful about assumptions in making your arguments. If you think anyone here aiding or abetting religion then you have massively misunderstood what is being stated. And I see that you did not bother to respond to the argument I made. You're just assuming you're right without showing your work which is exactly what religious people tend to do. Ironic. If you feel like I'm being unfair or have spoken in error simply show how god can be disproved. I'm all ears. I would love for you to be right. I just cannot see how you are right in anything you have shared on this post.

@Mofo1953 On agnositc.com you find those who run the gamut in their certainty. But it was none other than Thomas Huxley--the one who coined the term agnostic--who had this to say:
"Agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of popular theology, but also the greater part of anti-theology." And, "In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable."

@FrankA I agree that belief in a god has nothing to do with intelligence or I.Q. Some of the most brilliant Mathematicians and Scientists believed in a god .I am bored with the atheists on this site with their superior attitude in that they assume they are more intelligent than believers.

@richiegtt well, facts and evidence prove you're wrong. [independent.co.uk]

@Mofo1953 @FrankA There is always two sides to the story .There are many more articles on this but I only chose one

@Mofo1953 The paradox assumes that human and divine notions of evil coincide. Since even human notions of evil don’t coincide across cultures or even individuals this primary implicit assumption cannot be justified. Therefore from a divine viewpoint there may be no such thing as evil and so there is no paradox. I’ll go a little further. Properly speaking even in human affairs evil is best understood as an adjective. Once we make it a non-substantive noun the whole notion of it “existing “becomes a linguistic Boogaloo. Next the problem of evil was no problem prior to Christianity. Before that if a child from a polytheistic culture were to ask a parent why is there war why is there a death why are people mean to each other? Why are there earthquakes?Etc. The parent would answer there is a god of war of death of discord of storms or earthquakes i.e,that there was no conflict between these things in divinity.To the ancient Israelites all these divine attributes were wrapped up in the single God YHWH. I form the light and create darkness I make peace, and create evil. All YHVH do all these things.

3

ha, youre not supposed to take that stuff literally; that is the mistake of most believers tho

if they didn't take the magic literally then the Exodus wasn't possible and there would not have been any threat of execution for not believing Moses.

@ZealotX i would say the exodus has clearly "spiritual" implications--by which i mean "not religious," that being that after being "freed," one must " cross the sea of reeds," and other...liberating? concepts; shrouded in language that allows "believers" to misinterpret, wisdom is hidden from the wise

3

As Arthur C Clarke famously said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

I'm interested in your suggestion that we can't prove or disprove God, but we can disprove magic. I'm not sure we've defined either God or Magic well enough to disprove either. Tradition wisdom is that you can't prove a negative. However if we're sensible then belief works the other way round, we belief things we have reason to believe not all things that haven't been disproven.

If we have established certain laws in physics, then there cannot be any "magic" that could break these laws. If there was anything in existence that could break these laws then they wouldn't be laws. For example, can a God who can do anything, pass a square peg through a round hole without shrinking the peg or changing the diameter of the hole? If we change what God can do based on what could be considered "within reason" then God loses this magical "he can do anything" status. So how then could he resurrect the dead? This God isn't useful and yet, most of the "divine interference" are using elements of nature. The problem here is that how do we know it's God and not natural processes? I'm 100% sure mount Horeb was an active or semi-active volcano and that the Israelites saw an eruption. The believer simply looks back in hindsight and says "oh yeah, that was God". A non believer isn't looking for an external force. But the "oh yeah, that was God" folks also have an ulterior motive in that, if God can do X then God can do Y; Y being to give them eternal life. That's really what they want from God. Everything else is just to prove that he can do it for them. And so when we argue with them about the existence of God what we're really doing is pouring buckets of salt on their quest for immortality. And usually that quest is stronger than their desire for truth.

@ZealotX OK well that's a lot of words. I'll just deal with the first sentence "If we have established certain laws in physics, then there cannot be any "magic" that could break these laws."
So I ask you. have we established laws in physics that we know cannot be broken? And how do you know that they cannot be broken?
What about if you and I both shuffle a deck of cards and each of us turns over the cards one at a time. If somehow both shuffles produced the same sequence of cards would that violate any laws of physics? Could it be magic? I ask these question just for the sake of argument. I don't believe in magic. But I do support logical rigor.

@MattHardy if they can be broken then they haven't truly been established in the first place. If magic were a thing... then such a thing would have to live by its own rules. It's rules would have to integrate with rules of physics just like, on some level, quantum physics must play well with physics. The problem is that people who believe in magic are simply doubting the rules, not creating realistic principles for how the rules of rule-breaking actually works. They simply want a way around the rules. If you and I shuffled a single deck of cards the possibility of what you describe wouldn't be that low if we were both extremely skilled at shuffling so that the second shuffle perfectly corrected the sequence of the second. If each card is perfectly interlaced with the other side of the deck it should be possible. But this interlacing would constitute a "rule". As I said, if magic were a thing, such a thing would have to live by its own rules. For it to be "magic" it cannot be coincidence. If it was magic the experiment would need to be done more than once with the same result.

@ZealotX We seem to be going round in circles, it's a simple question."have we established laws in physics that we know cannot be broken?"

@MattHardy
if you are looking for a particular answer, please just state it. And if I agree I'll say I agree. Otherwise, I could go in different directions and you wouldn't be happy with my responses. So if you're getting at "we don't know what we don't know" this applies to scientific theories, not scientific LAWS. But again... not sure this is the answer you're looking for and I don't want to frustrate you.

@ZealotX well I don't believe that there's scientific law, however established which is immune to us finding exceptions at a later date. For example Einstein demonstrated circumstances where Newton's Law of Gravity is broken. Doing so may not be Magic but it might enable "Sufficiently advanced technology" which is arguably indistinguishable.

If you believe that when science names something a "Law" that means that it can never be broken then I'm afraid that this is at odds with my scientific education. I'm aware that at a simplistic level, young children are told that when a theory has been tested and tested that this becomes a law. However that's not really what happens in practice. In fact I'd say that whether something is named as a Law or a Theory is largely an accident of history rather than an indication of how likely they are to be overturned at a later date. As time goes on and we see more examples of our models of reality having holes poked in them, we've become humbler and more reluctant to name them "Laws" Remember that these laws and theories are the map not the territory. Science doesn't claim that there are no exceptions, only that we've tried really hard to find exceptions and not found any yet.

So I'm looking for an clarification in the form of "I ZealotX believe that the Law of Gravity cannot be broken"

Just name a law that you think we have demonstrated can never be broken or review your earlier claim "If we have established certain laws in physics, then there cannot be any "magic" that could break these laws."

If your predicate is not true then the conclusion is not sound.

Like I say, I don't believe that Magic exists. I can't prove that's the case but I shouldn't have to. The burden of proof lies with the person who claims that magic does exist. I don't believe either that you've proven that Magic doesn't exist and I'm focusing at the moment on just one of the weaknesses in your argument.

@MattHardy

I, Zealot X, of sound mind and body do believe in the conservation of energy.

I think the law of gravity cannot be broken but the theory of gravity could be.

But let's keep it simple.

I declare that 2+2 will always equal 4.

although one might be able to poke holes in someone else's math, math still exists and has rules.

No matter what you do, 10,000 years from now you cannot get a different result from 2+2.

Otherwise, I do agree with you about science simply not being able to find exceptions. However, that would not make the exceptions "magic". It would simply create new science around the exception and new laws and theories to further complete our understanding.

So I take your point. I simply don't think magic could ever fit into that slot because it, by definition, breaks these laws without any explanation or scientific assertion that would give any understanding as to how. Magic is basically the same as saying superman exists. I'm pretty sure superman was invented by Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster. I'm 100% confident I'm not going to wake up one day and learn that someone named Kal'El was spotted flying through New York.

Science can also have a high degree of confidence but doesn't technically allow itself to say something is impossible, just highly improbable. I understand this view but, and like I said, I take your point. But it is a very agnostic kind of view where I'm willing to cross that threshold, since I'm not representing the scientific community, and say God doesn't exist and neither does magic.

@ZealotX at the risk of going into semantics it sounds like you have a clear idea of what you mean but I'm still not sure whether we're talking at cross purposes. The words you're using may mean something different to you than they do to me.

For example usually when people say "the law of gravity" they mean the one that Newton proposed. As mentioned above this has been superseded by Einstein's theory of relativity. I can charitably assume that you don't mean this "Law."

The law of conservation of energy is broken on the quantum scale. Turns out that conservation of energy is what you get when you average out all the small stuff that temporarily pops into existence before annihilating itself within a time interval so short that you can't be entirely certain which event happened first. Maybe you don't mean that Law either.

Science works on the assumption that the universe operates according to fixed rules and that these rules can be inferred by observation and experimentation. We attempt this inference by hypothesizing rules and testing them against our observations and experiments to see if the predictions made under our hypothesis match our observations of reality. If not then our hypothesis is wrong we can discard it. If we do get a match then our hypothesis may be correct but we can't be certain we won't find a problem later.

This is often called the black swan problem. If I find 100 swans and they're all white does that prove that black swans don't exist. How many swans must I find to be white before I've proven that none are black? Of course the answer is that you can never be sure, even it you've examined every single swan in existence you still don't know that's you've examined every single swan in existence.

Even if there is a consistent way that the universe works and your theories model that perfectly you still can't know that you've succeeded. All you know is that you've looked really hard for an exception and not found it.

So I think what you're talking about is not the human derived models that we know about and call Laws and Theories but the actual rules obeyed by the universe.

The trouble there is that even the existence of these actual rules is a hypothesis. Maybe the universe does operate according to fixed rules. But while we may try to infer the rules; not only can we not be certain when we get one right, we can't even prove that the rules are indeed fixed or even exist.

The best evidence I'm aware of that these assumptions of science are correct are the degree to which the process has been extraordinarily successful. To quote Randall Munroe: "It works bitches"

That's good enough for me but it's not what we call proof.

I certainly believe the the universe does obey fixed rules and I live my day to day life accordingly. But that's not the sort of thing that can be proven. Just as I don't believe in God and Iive my day to day life as if there is no God. But once again that not the sort of thing that can be proven.

I'm wondering if you still see a difference between being able to prove or disprove God and being able to prove or disprove Magic and if so can you explain what I'm missing?

Of course the other argument I made was an example of a hypothetical scenario that would commonly fit the description of Magic but does not seem to obviously violate the laws of physics. Would you also assert that anything that doesn't violate the laws of physics can't be described as Magic. Jesus telling unsuccessful fishermen to try their nets again and them catching a large number of fish doesn't violate any laws of physics that I'm aware of. Nor does weather calming down at a time then Jesus happened to have asked it to. These things are improbable could be explained by coincidence.

@MattHardy

what I said was "Because we can't prove or disprove God, but we can disprove magic."

whatever you think science is, although I respect your opinion and I think you have shared a wealth of information that is, in and of itself, important.... but whatever we find tomorrow that we don't know today simply becomes new science. And yes we have to be careful when talking about laws and theories because at first I thought you mispoke when you mentioned the law of gravity vs the theory of gravity. Theories are just explanations of the things we observe. Even if you observe something new tomorrow. That doesn't necessarily mean the thing you first observed didn't exist. We may have found a new "god" particle, but atoms still exist.

On one hand, our science would look like magic to an ancient society. After all, we can "fly". But we can't "fly". We need to use our knowledge of science and use technology to be able to do it. So this isn't magic. It's science. So in a question of magic vs science there is only science and science yet to be discovered. The more we discover science, the less magic can be believed. If someone says "I can fly" and I say "prove it" they will probably get on a plane or use some other device that uses physics. There is a way to levitate, using newly discovered scientific principles. But you need extremely cold temperatures and magnets. So new things are possible IN SCIENCE, but that doesn't mean magic is one of those possibilities. Magic, by definition, breaks the rules; both the ones we know AND the ones we have yet to discover.

The introduction of quantum physics often introduces interesting effects based on certain technicalities. For example... particles moving in waves vs a straight line. Some are thought to blink in and out of existence but we may very well one day discover, that it only appeared that way, but instead they were passing, perhaps, through a different dimension because they don't have the same restrictions at that size, or possibly occluded by or colliding with other particles we cannot see causing rapid displacement. I'm theorizing which I'm allowed to do. But can a person vanish and appear in another city via their own will?

Like I said, science hasn't observed flying pigs either, but you have to admit that a flying pig would be different from a black swan. A black swan only need have a different pigment. A flying pig would need...

...to get on a plane.

That's my time, people. Thank you. I love you. Drive home safe.

And for that difficult person who says you can throw a pig off a cliff, that's falling, not flying. Thanks.

2

Nothing there makes sense

bobwjr Level 10 Feb 25, 2020
2

Most religious folks I know think miracles are good and magic is evil and you sure as hell don't want to mix that shit up.

gearl Level 8 Feb 25, 2020
2

go to genesis and assume that the word "god" refers to the universe as a whole. a personification. now things start to make more sense. it's still a bunch of hooey, but now it doesn't seem so silly.

exactly. "god" can mean a number of different things, including poetic. However, there is no getting around the bible's copious use of magic and no where in the bible does it tell us the origin of magic, why it exists, how it works, etc. It assumes that the reader already believes in magic. I find that assumption interesting because it reveals who the target audience is and uses their assumed belief in magic to sway them into believing in a god that can do magic.

@ZealotX I understand your point but I don't believe that the mythos destroys everything. The vedas promote that mythos to develop greater devotion ... and they admit it. There are real-life geologic events that we can trace many old myths back to. Retell that story a few times and it becomes a legend. I think you're missing on that point.

@JeffMesser

not really. I love mythos. I am a Jedi basically because I like the fact that Jediism uses a mythical story to develop on common themes and concepts of enlightenment. I have no problem with that aspect at all. I have a problem with one guy claims God spoke to him and told him to commit genocide on his own people just because they don't believe that God spoke to him or that any god, for that matter, should be taken literally. I also don't particularly care for the story where Gandalf the Grey... -err sorry, I mean Elijah, parts some water a la Moses, and then is taken to heaven in chariots of fire because they couldn't just let him have a normal death. This use of magic is used to persuade people that God is a real and conscious entity that wants their worship and sacrifices; sacrifices which the priest makes his livelihood on.

1

Wrong bible breath....we do demand believers define and prove exactly what and where their alleged gawds are..... Atheists have zero burden of proof for anything..... Atheism is the absence of theism.... we Atheists are not believers.... capitalization of a Gibberish Sound does not make the names of alleged deities real .... thor = Thor thunder = Thunder ..... gawds do not explain lightning bolts or the sound of electrical discharges in clouds or down to the ground

zero = Zero = gods

You must have not understood a word I said. I'm an atheist. Try reading it again. Slowly.

@ZealotX I read it 3 times now and you are wrong on many counts as I replied, I shall reply again...We Atheists CAN examine believers allegations and so far 100% fail the evidence and logic tests.....you twisted the fact of disproving a negative into an alleged Atheist inability to dismiss believer alleged proofs....your fundamental errors are arguing with delusional people about their delusions AND THE SIMPLE FACT gawd is a gibberish sound spelled and capitalized as if it is an extant thing .....origins are traced in DNA RNA fossils and cultural artifacts....your post about magic is worthless and lack entertainment value unless you LOVE brow beating imbeciles

@Larry68Feminist
I think it is interesting how people boast without providing even one example. No, you're saying that they have the burden of proof. They have to to prove it to you. No... they don't. They "believe". They do not "KNOW". Therefore, it's not even proven to themselves. The burden is on whoever is making the argument. If your argument is that there is no god then the burden of proving that is on you. Can you do it? Please provide evidence so that I can use it too. But if you can't... then again, you have not understood my post; even to the degree that you accused me of being a believer.

Who cares what word you think is gibberish? Who cares, who you think is delusional? Who cares what you think about my posting about how the bible heavily uses magic but doesn't provide any reason to believe that magic exists? To me, this fact means that it was clearly taking advantage of the superstitions and beliefs of ancient societies before they had a clear understanding of science and the natural world. If that makes no difference to you then so what? I don't even know who you are? Why would I be writing content for your personal entertainment? Did you not see any of the other comments? Did you not see other comments addressing the issue of what you can or cannot prove? No, you decided to be rude; to inject your criticizing into a conversation that you don't personally like, just to complain and hurl insults. You can vainly imagine things about me all day long, but if you want to be rude or insulting two can play that game and we can have an uncivilized tennis game of who can come up with the best insults.

There's no reason to do that.

Never did I mention "believer alleged proofs". There will always be some believers who will lie and make up fictional garbage to use as evidence. Such evidence cannot prove their case, nor does disproving their alleged evidence prove that all believers are wrong. It is therefore of little value. When I was young and was a believer I was able to find non-believers who were ignorant or lied as well. After I came out of belief I even used certain evidence that was discredited by a believer. I assumed the evidence I was using was correct and honest. And this is the same thing believers assume about their evidence. At the end of the day, neither side wins.

As far as fundamental errors, your fundamental error is assuming what are fundamental errors in other people. What people choose to do with their time, whether it is debating or not, isn't a matter of right or wrong, but how they choose to spend their time. You chose to devote part of your time arguing against "bible breath" and your first word was "Wrong"; as in, an attempt to point out error. You argued against what I said and then claimed I was wrong for arguing. I, therefore, don't think you are qualified to be the judge of what is delusional. Now if you have some sort of emotional baggage that leads you to being so rude and negative, that is a 'you problem' that you can keep to yourself. If you try to make it my problem I will rebuff your offenses.

1

One's miracle is another's magic. Both an illusion. As for origins, we're all from Africa.

1

"any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" too

1

Are not miracles magic (LOL)

of course they are.

the Bible makes plain that miracles are for ppl...who are misguided, and fwiw
No son of man may die for another's sins; is in there, too
[biblehub.net]
(a search of "Jesus died for our sins" )
!

believing Yah needs a Sacrifice to make you acceptable to Him is pagan as hell lol

hence why have you forsaken Me?
possibly

1

We may never know the exact origins of the universe and all the matter and energy that exists within it. We are not capable of seeing before the beginning or after the end, the cold energy death that is inevitable for the universe as we know it. What man does not understand he attacks or calls it 'God'. I'm breaking from that truism and just accepting this existence and trying to enjoy my brief moment in the cosmic cycle and try to make others' moment better as well.

1

There has to be an "uncaused cause."

When they go back to this cause, they call it god and give it "magical" powers--the ability to create everything with the spoken word and to maintain the universe; and, in later writings, it developed the ability to know everything--past, present, and future--this makes this god even more complicated and difficult to explain.

The simplest explanation for the "uncaused cause" is energy--no consciousness, no will, no volition is necessary. We know that everything comes down to energy. We know energy becomes matter and matter becomes energy. We know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. And, there is no reason to conclude that this energy has consciousness, will, volition--or any kind of magical powers.

Unfortunately, their god is not bound by the laws of reason and physics. If it were, they would be able to see that it cannot exist.

That is pretty much how I see things as well. The problem with needing a creator is that it is an act of dishonesty if you do not require the creator to provide an origin for its existence. If the reason why we need a creator is because of the innate complexity of life, then God would require a creator all the more; one that explains how he gets to have super powers. This, of course, leads to an infinite circular logic loop as each creator must be more powerful and more intelligent than the last; basically the inverse kinematic operation of evolution. But people never care beyond the first creator and most don't know his name or really anything about him except for the human qualities "he" is given by human writers. The fact that believers don't care, to me, makes it dishonest. Clearly, they don't care about where they came from, only that they were created by a magical being who incidentally is the sovereign king of the universe and its vast quantities of surplus... space.

1

Always amazed that most church going people have no problem with historic magic.
They wouldn't believe in healing a cripple with a touch in 2020, but reports of the priests of Baal turning their staffs into snakes gets a pass

its all about presentation. See Simon the Sorcerer in the NT.

0

Yeah you're right. There's no explanation in the bible for how magic came to exist (which just doesn't).

Mayse Level 3 Feb 29, 2020
0

About magic... Any technology advanced enough will look like magic.

We have a mind that trust in science (at least in some science as creationists could tell).

For example, in the Iliad the laboratory of Hephaestus is described as having metallic golden women helping him in the forge.
For ancient readers this description is pure magic, but with a today's mind we could say that this is the interpretation of a classical era man of robots.

Am I saying that there were robots in ancient Greece? NO, it is just a coincidence, i just used the text to give an example.

0

Or god or the universe came from nothing. I can see that the universe exists...

(yes it is a joke, the precise and reality are a lot more complex, but relax and laugh before stating it)

0

That seems rather silly, but presence within our immediate reality should cover all that, both the doers of magic tricks and the god guy believers both have reality issues, they both take human involvement, that is reality.

0

The "magic" in the Bible stories is defined as either miracles, when provided by YHVH or his son Yeshua, or else it's the work of competing gods or demons. Either way, by definition it's a violation of the laws of physics, just like creating the universe in 6 days would be. In other words: fairy tales. It should, by rights, be taken just as seriously as anything out of the Arabian Nights or Just So Stories.

Unfortunately, many Christians (many Jews and Muslims as well) have a vested interest in believing their books are literally true, because if they're not, then it casts doubt on the existence of their god and the validity of their belief. After all, what are they doing wasting all that time and money in churches, temples and mosques if their god isn't real?
What are they doing killing people who believe differently, if their god isn't real?

but in reality, all magic comes from God because who created those demons and devils? They're using power, either that he gave them, or that he allows them to borrow or use. If they're using something outside themselves then God must have created it because he created everything. The problem of religion isn't about the real origin of a thing but WHO GETS CREDIT. Applying certain things to a Satan simply allows believers to be disingenuous about the ultimate source of both good and evil.

0

Different time, different place, different expectations.

Don’t worry bout it.

lol, its not a thing that produces worry for me.

0

So what magic are you disproving?

I think magic is already disproved by science. This is why where there is no science magic is able to fill that void, but when science explains the thing we don't understand, then magic has to exit stage left. Better to accept ignorance from the beginning rather than get caught up into superstition or magical explanations of what it might be, only to be proven wrong later and look like a fool.

0

Xians won't acknowledge that gos is magic, they just proclaim him to be omnipotent and capable of everything. Somehow this isn't magic because magic is evil. That's why they demonize things like Harry Potter and D&D for being wicked because those things promote the use of magic and, as I said, magic is evil to Xians.

So to summarize: god is magic but he isn't because magic is evil unless god does it then it's neither magic not evil, it's just god being omnipotent which isn't magic but it is.

Simple.

Here's a JW cartoon that went viral back in 2013 that will make it all clear --

naturally. It's jut like how when God kills you it's not murder; it's your time to go. If God kills men, women, children, toddlers, babies, infants, all at once... its good. This gives me a thought. So you mean to tell me that after Abraham asked God to spare sodom if "peradventure" there were x number of decent folks, neither Sodom or Gomorrah had that many children, or babies? What was it? a retirement community for fetishes and alternative lifestyles?

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