Atheist Meme of the Day: The Burden of Proof

Scarlet letter
Today’s Atheist Meme of the Day, from my Facebook page. Pass this on; or don’t; or edit it as you see fit; or make up your own. Enjoy!

It is not up to atheists to prove that God doesn’t exist. It is up to believers to prove that God does exist — or at least, to provide some reasonable evidence that he does. Many atheists do have good arguments against God… but believers are the ones making the positive claim, and the burden of proof is on them. Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.

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Atheist Meme of the Day: The Burden of Proof
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31 thoughts on “Atheist Meme of the Day: The Burden of Proof

  1. 1

    My argument-against-gods of choice is the simple fact that there are no good apologetics, no arguments for any gods that stand up to scrutiny.
    Which is another way of saying that theists have been assiduously looking for the dragon in their garage for thousands of years, without success, which leads me to believe that there’s no dragon there.

  2. 2

    And yet they still say that atheism is saying that there is no God so we have to prove it. Then, when we explain that atheism is a lack of belief in gods, they refuse to accept it.
    It is very frustrating.

  3. 3

    !! WARNING: THIS WILL BE LONG!!
    Proving that God exists is not the appropriate topic to engage between believers and non-believers The term “God” defines a spiritual entity which cannot be evaluated, or analyzed by physical means. When atheists asks for evidence of God’s existence this turns out to be a trick question, since the atheist denies or disbelieves in the existence of the supernatural and/or spiritual.
    Christians should avoid all attempts at answering these arguments because in the eyes of everyone, especially atheists, they sound ridiculously foolish.
    If we entertain the idea that God does exists, (furthermore the Christian God) then we can speculate and draw from the bible as to why non-believer’s reject the idea of God. The bible upholds the foundation of Christian faith and for the most part is conclusive. (for Christians) But this argument can serve as a basis for the general idea of God.
    God is spirit. So my bible tells me so… Therefore God cannot be evaluated, measured, or analyzed by physical proof.
    This opens up a debate for Spiritual vs Physical. Natural vs Supernatural.
    Also pointless, since spiritual matter can only be seen by “faith”.
    To find evidence of “spiritual proof” one can only rely on eyewitness accounts and testimonies, since matters of the spiritual realm can only be seen and evaluated from visible and tangible human experience.

  4. 4

    SPIRITUAL
    1. of, pertaining to, or consisting of spirit; incorporeal.
    2. of or pertaining to the spirit or soul, as distinguished from the physical nature: a spiritual approach to life.
    3. closely akin in interests, attitude, outlook, etc.: the professor’s spiritual heir in linguistics.
    4. of or pertaining to spirits or to spiritualists; supernatural or spiritualistic.
    5. characterized by or suggesting predominance of the spirit; ethereal or delicately refined: She is more of a spiritual type than her rowdy brother.
    6. of or pertaining to the spirit as the seat of the moral or religious nature.
    7. of or pertaining to sacred things or matters; religious; devotional; sacred.
    8. of or belonging to the church; ecclesiastical: lords spiritual and temporal.
    9. of or relating to the mind or intellect.

    PHYSICAL
    1. of or pertaining to the body: physical exercise.
    2. of or pertaining to that which is material: the physical universe; the physical sciences.
    3. noting or pertaining to the properties of matter and energy other than those peculiar to living matter.
    4. pertaining to the physical sciences, esp. physics.
    5. carnal; sexual: a physical attraction.
    6. tending to touch, hug, pat, etc.; physically demonstrative: a physical person.
    7. requiring, characterized by, or liking rough physical contact or strenuous physical activity: Football is a physical sport.

  5. 5

    CONCERNING SPIRITUALITY:
    1 Corinthians 2:14-16 (NLT)
    14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:
    THE IDEA OF “GOD” SOUNDS FOOLISH
    1 Corinthians 1:18-31 (NLT)
    18 The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. 19 As the Scriptures say,
    “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”
    20 So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. 21 Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. 22 It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. 23 So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.
    24 But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.
    26 Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you.
    27 Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.
    29 As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.

  6. 6

    In summary: The Burden of Proof exists outside of the physical realm to which non-believers only perceive. The believer can comprehend both, physical as well as spiritual, natural and supernatural, and by denying the latter of the two it becomes impossible for anyone to prove God’s existence to those unwilling to believe.
    This is my answer. Not to be taking as an insult. If I was an atheist, I wouldn’t ask for proof of God since I don’t believe in the supernatural. However, a believer has the right to ask for proof of evolution because we exist in both the natural and the supernatural.
    BTW: it’s okay to call us crazy.
    ADAM
    a Christian

  7. 7

    If I was an atheist, I wouldn’t ask for proof of God since I don’t believe in the supernatural.
    If you were an atheist you’d know that none of your arguments, including this one, make any sense. But yes, you wouldn’t go around asking for proof, you would, however ask the people who come to you with absurd claims to back them up, or… you know, refraining from coming to you with absurd claims!
    However, a believer has the right to ask for proof of evolution because we exist in both the natural and the supernatural.
    No need to ask. There’s plenty! You can get started in a few minutes with some simple research on google and you’ll have your answers in no time.
    BTW: it’s okay to call us crazy.
    You are the second Christian here in a short time who almost insists on this. This feeds into your persecution complex? You are obviously not crazy as much as sadly ignorant. I’m sorry but you can’t use that as an excuse. “The atheist will just call me crazy, and so I know they are just being meanies and that I am right!” No, you are ignorant and uninformed and there is an easy cure for that. Learn more! No excuses! Go back and study these things better, and make more sense the next time.

  8. 8

    I understand the point Adam was trying to convey in that long drawn out comment.
    @Maria:
    But yes, you wouldn’t go around asking for proof, you would, however ask the people who come to you with absurd claims to back them up, or… you know, refraining from coming to you with absurd claims!
    Adam proposes “proving god’s existence” itself is impossible, unless a non-believer first comes to believe in the supernatural. Otherwise an attempt to offer proof of god’s existence would end in futility.
    One could even argue Spiritual vs Physical but that too, would be pointless, in reference to 1 Corinthians 2:14-16.
    So in closing: it is impossible to prove the existence of god(s) due to their spiritual nature, which is incomprehensible to a person lacking a “spiritual mind”.
    Maria, I’m afraid you missed the point of Adam’s comment entirely.
    BTW: you can call me crazy as well.

  9. 10

    Adam
    Thankyou for providing us with an example of religious wank* to dismantle.
    Matters pertaining to the mind are bi-products of the phyisical. Damage the brain, and the mind don’t work so good.
    As to the Bible acknowledging that it isn’t exactly convincing – You are using that as an argument for it being true?
    Ever hear of something called the “Big Lie”? It is a propaganda technique in which you knowingly say something so outrageous, so stupid that everyone believes it simply because they can’t honestly bring themselves to think someone would say it without it being true.

  10. 11

    Again… You missed it.
    by saying:
    BTW: you can call me crazy as well.
    I was siding with his statement. Not referring to your comment.
    Is comprehension banned here?
    (shakes his head)

  11. 12

    Now onto the argument that the religious can percieve the spiritual (Which is why I call your argument wank.)
    If the religious can percieve the spiritual it should have a two major qualities:
    1: Consistency. The spiritual should be consistent between people far removed from each other. Except it isn’t. A buddhist has a very different spirituality to a Christian, a Hindu is also quite different. As are various animist beliefs.
    2: The element of suprise. Oddly enough the “spiritual” realm almost always fits your political biases – which makes it indistuingishable from shit you just made up.
    Reality? Reality surprises us the whole time – which is why science has to be self-correcting while faith simply has to be held onto.
    Now you say we can call you crazy, funny thing I don’t think you are crazy, I think you are lazy.
    You hold the opinion that you don’t have to defend your opinion, and make up excuses for it.

  12. 13

    I was siding with his statement. Not referring to your comment.
    I’m ever so sorry!
    So…
    Adam proposes “proving god’s existence” itself is impossible, unless a non-believer first comes to believe in the supernatural.
    So, what you (I’m assuming you are still siding with him), and Adam, are saying is that you first have to believe in something unproven (without any reason to believe in said unproven thing at all) to believe in something that is said to be this of this unproven quality? And this makes sense… how?
    One could even argue Spiritual vs Physical but that too, would be pointless, in reference to 1 Corinthians 2:14-16.
    And why would a bible passage be an authority on what is and isn’t pointless to discuss?
    So in closing: it is impossible to prove the existence of god(s) due to their spiritual nature, which is incomprehensible to a person lacking a “spiritual mind”.
    Excuses… excuses… This makes no sense at all. Can you even explain what a “Spiritual mind” is?
    I didn’t miss the point of the arguments he made that you, for no good reason at all, seemed to think you needed to repeat. I ignored them because they didn’t make any sense, and it was clear that he didn’t know what he was talking about. I did not miss the point of the ones of Adam’s words that I ignored, and I didn’t miss the point of the ones that I chose to reply to.
    Is comprehension banned here?
    Apparently it’s optional!

  13. 14

    due to their spiritual nature, which is incomprehensible to a person lacking a “spiritual mind
    I just had to come back to this, because this is just the silliest bullshit I’ve read in a long time :-))
    This is nothing but the most immature kind of excuse! What stops anyone from just making shit up, and then when someone else points out that the made up shit is in fact made up and doesn’t even make sense, the maker up of shit can just say: “Well, you would comprehense my made up shit if only you had a spiritual mind!”
    There’s absolutely no way to prove such a person wrong. There is also absolutely no reason to take such a person seriously!
    Seriously! :-))

  14. 15

    What Bruce said about consistency and the element of surprise. Religious experiences do not look like real experiences of real phenomenon; for these two reasons, they look very much like stuff people made up in their heads.
    I will also add to this: If the supernatural is real, and religious people are perceiving something real… why don’t we all perceive it? I don’t just mean the consistency argument (“why don’t we all perceive it in roughly the same way?”). I mean, Why do some of us not see it at all? If God is real, why did he make some of us essentially color-blind to his existence?
    And I’ll also point out that the “I’m just seeing something that you’re blind to” argument is entirely unfalsifiable. You could say it about anything. I see the Flying Spaghetti Monster, flying over my house right now! You can’t see it? Well, you must just not be a very spiritual person!
    As I’ve pointed out many times: There are perfectly good natural explanations for religious experiences: confirmation bias, our tendency to see pattern and intention where none exist, our ability to rationalize mistaken ideas ad infinitum. Given all that, and given all the other strong arguments against the supernatural, why would anyone assume that religious experience is an accurate perception of a real phenomenon?

  15. 16

    @BRUCE:
    You hold the opinion that you don’t have to defend your opinion, and make up excuses for it.
    I’m saying we/Christians can’t prove the existence of God. It is impossible to those unwilling to believe. Why is this statement so hard to understand?
    If someone told me Ol’ Saint Nick was climbing down my chimney, unless I was an elf — I’d refuse to believe this. Which is the stance of the atheist. An atheist has their mind made up regarding the existence of God, therefore how can one prove to them otherwise?
    The proof an atheist requires is supernatural. The atheist doesn’t believe in the supernatural — therefore concluding there is no burden of proof.
    1: Consistency. The spiritual should be consistent between people far removed from each other. Except it isn’t. A buddhist has a very different spirituality to a Christian, a Hindu is also quite different. As are various animist beliefs.
    Each religion has its own spirituality. “Which God is true or not” is another topic.
    2: The element of suprise. Oddly enough the “spiritual” realm almost always fits your political biases – which makes it indistuingishable from shit you just made up.
    Political biases? Whose? What? If you’re implying religion is an instrument of the inhabiting government — then what of its followers?
    Are they “tools” as well? What religion has scoured the earth providing countless charities, missionaries, outreaches? Who has risked their lives daily just for simply believing in a man named Jesus? Under whom were they subject to other than God?
    You’d be careful to examine this as you’ve made a serious error.
    ADAM
    a Christian

  16. 17

    If someone told me Ol’ Saint Nick was climbing down my chimney, unless I was an elf — I’d refuse to believe this. Which is the stance of the atheist. An atheist has their mind made up regarding the existence of God, therefore how can one prove to them otherwise?
    This is incorrect! Again, go read up on things!

  17. 18

    I will also add to this: If the supernatural is real, and religious people are perceiving something real… why don’t we all perceive it? I don’t just mean the consistency argument (“why don’t we all perceive it in roughly the same way?”). I mean, Why do some of us not see it at all? If God is real, why did he make some of us essentially color-blind to his existence?
    Again 1 Corinthians 2:14-16.
    and/or
    2 Corinthians 4:2-5
    Why are some of you essentially color-blind to God’s existence?
    God requires blind faith. Sorry. I’ve known non-believers who claimed to have simply put down the logic, (a prerequisite) and deal with the denial within themselves. (also a prerequisite) Only then, were their eyes open.
    If you claim to see the bigger picture already, then it’s impossible to see what you don’t want to see.
    Many people have given accounts/testimonies to visions, dreams, premonitions, apparitions, countless miracles, yet these experiences are always refuted by the scientific community for lack of physical evidence.
    My comment wasn’t meant to come off as “we see better than you” or anything of that nature. And my comment about being called crazy was aimed at any particular person. Or part of any “persecution complex”.
    I was saying that I’m aware that my argument sounds foolish, and to most we most we must be crazy to believe such a thing. This is written in the scripture I quoted. Hence: you can call me crazy.
    As a Christian, I am saying it is impossible to prove the existence of God (who is Spirit) to those who don’t believe in the supernatural. Now if you want to argue “where’s your proof for the supernatural?” that argument would also be a waste of time, simply because atheists don’t believe in the supernatural.
    As I’ve pointed out many times: There are perfectly good natural explanations for religious experiences: confirmation bias, our tendency to see pattern and intention where none exist, our ability to rationalize mistaken ideas ad infinitum. Given all that, and given all the other strong arguments against the supernatural, why would anyone assume that religious experience is an accurate perception of a real phenomenon?
    What would you perceive to be an accurate perception of a “real phenomenon?”
    Again. not being critical, just asking a question.
    I reference the Bible, because I don’t have the answers. God does. In His Word which is the Bible. That and my testimony is enough.
    Your quarrel is with Him. If any Christian tries to persuade you with clever words or material objects– then they’re not speaking for God. God has already spoken.
    It’s no different than referencing, Darwin, Dawkins or any other atheist/scientist. They were your teachers. God is mine.
    I appreciate you taking the time to respond Greta.
    ADAM
    a Christian

  18. 19

    It’s no different than referencing, Darwin, Dawkins or any other atheist/scientist.
    This is incorrect!
    You do nothing but utter direct falsehoods – or are they indeed lies? and preaching! If god has already spoken then kindly cease the preaching!

  19. 20

    @MARIA:
    Am I wrong in asserting that the atheist almost, absolutely believes there is no God?
    Am I wrong for asserting that since the atheist, almost, absolutely believes there is no God — that they also don’t believe in spirituality?
    ADAM
    a Christian

  20. 21

    Am I wrong in asserting that the atheist almost, absolutely believes there is no God?
    Now, that is not quite what you said before, now is it? Tell me, does your god tell you to discuss with atheists in an intellectually deceitful and dishonest way, while preaching to them incessantly, to, I presume, bore them do death and so hopefully distract them away from said dishonesty?

  21. 22

    Maria, darling you’re good at puling rabbits. Please. Take a xanax.
    I’ve known plenty of atheists who boast 100% there is no god.
    Adam. I apologize for her ignorance.
    Sandra Berkowitz-Collins
    a Teacher/student

  22. 23

    My goodness. I thought she’d be happy that I corrected that.
    Just goes to show… can’t please everyone.
    ADAM
    a Christian

  23. 24

    Maria, darling you’re good at puling rabbits. Please. Take a xanax.
    *LOL* What happened to the high-and-mighty-preaching-tone?
    Well, you’re actually much less awful at the-trying-to-insult-the-atheist-thing than at preaching! So… Much better!!
    I’ve known plenty of atheists who boast 100% there is no god.
    It is very obvious that you were all along very well aware of the 100% fallacy – which makes it clear that you have indeed not been honest from the start here.

  24. 25

    Maria, darling you’re good at puling rabbits. Please. Take a xanax.
    I’ve known plenty of atheists who boast 100% there is no god.
    Adam. I apologize for her ignorance.
    Sandra Berkowitz-Collins
    a Teacher/student

    Oops, sorry. I mistook you for Adam. No wonder the change in tone was so big!! No need to apologize for me, I can do that for myself, and I do apologize for mixing you two up!

  25. 26

    My goodness. I thought she’d be happy that I corrected that.
    THIS is where my reply should have been!!! Again, apologies for that.
    You know very well that that was not “a correction”, Adam. You knew from the start that your assertions of atheists were wrong!

  26. 27

    Is at possible to get back to the topic at hand? Maria must you take shots at me?
    Why the tone? Why the attitude?
    I’ve read Greta’s “No Atheists in the Foxholes” as well as vocal proclamations from atheists “saying they believe there is no god”. Only agnostics claim uncertainty. Yes, I’ve spoken with them as well.
    I didn’t think I needed to clarify that on an atheist blog.
    I’m not here to clash, preach or whatever you’re mislead to assume.
    I’ve puzzled over the growing number of atheists as of late and, through tireless surfing last night, I arrived at this site among others.
    My purpose was to offer my take on this question. Was it hasty? Was it ill-informed– I don’t think so. I stand by it. Does it make me “irrational?” No.
    It seems to me Greta was the only person who appropriated the right response. Her question reflected that.
    If my statement was sorely lacking and wasn’t explicit in the point I tried to convey then,
    I apologize. Forgive me.
    But the backlash is unnecessary and immature.
    ADAM
    a Christian

  27. 28

    People, people, people… can we please stop with the meta-debate about who was mean to who first, and get back to the actual topic at hand? Meta-debates make my head hurt, and I have very little patience for them. Thanks.
    I don’t have time now to get into this in detail, but I want to say this:

    Each religion has its own spirituality. “Which God is true or not” is another topic.

    It is not another topic. It is very much the topic at hand. If religion requires blind faith, how am I supposed to know which religion to have blind faith in? And if no religion can make any better claim than any other for why their perception is accurate and their version of God is the right one… on what basis am I to choose any of them? How am I to know that the Bible is the word of God, as opposed to the Koran or the Upanishads or the Tibetan Book of the Dead?
    Dawkins, Darwin, etc. don’t ask me to have blind faith in their assertions. They show me the evidence for them. If your belief requires that people close their eyes to what is real before they believe… that’s not a very good belief. That’s not acceptance of reality. It’s the denial of it.
    And you are very much mistaken about what atheism is. Atheism is not the absolute, unquestioning, 100% certainty that there is no God. Atheism is the conclusion that there is probably no God: that the God hypothesis is unsupported by good evidence, and that there’s no good reason to believe it’s true, and we’re going to assume that it’s not true unless we see better evidence to change our mind. Evidence that doesn’t involve “blind faith” — i.e., deciding ahead of time what you want to believe, and then twisting the evidence to fit into it.

  28. 29

    Is at possible to get back to the topic at hand? Maria must you take shots at me?
    What exactly is the topic at hand? I apologize if I have been rude to you, and this is really not another shot at you, but look at your comments above. They are all over the place, and they ARE intersected with passages that can’t be said to be anything else than preaching. And we really didn’t get asked to get preached at in such a way. To be honest, it is extremely annoying!
    as well as vocal proclamations from atheists “saying they believe there is no god”. Only agnostics claim uncertainty. Yes, I’ve spoken with them as well.
    This wasn’t what you were saying, and that I reacted to, this came later and looked a lot like backpedaling to me. Let me, for clarification’s sake, quote your words here (AND at the same time trying to get back on what I think the topic might be by answer some of the things you said in your initial comment):
    It is impossible to those unwilling to believe. Why is this statement so hard to understand?
    The statement is not hard to understand, it is very simple. But it is incorrect! Atheists are not “unwilling to believe”. We are unwilling to worship, but that’s another question! But it’s a ridiculous sentence in any case, because it also asserts that all you have to do to believe is to be willing! And that is not how it works either. You believe that for which there are sufficient evidence. Willingness to believe only (what you call faith I guess) is something that atheists think is a very bad reason to believe in things.
    If someone told me Ol’ Saint Nick was climbing down my chimney, unless I was an elf — I’d refuse to believe this. Which is the stance of the atheist. An atheist has their mind made up regarding the existence of God, therefore how can one prove to them otherwise?
    This IS incorrect. Atheists do not refuse to believe things from sheer refusal alone, we don’t believe in things for which there is not a shred of evidence. I don’t see why this is a problem for you to understand. You are doing the same thing as regards to Santa Claus, obviously. We accept that for which there is sufficient evidence. We don’t “believe in evolution” for example. We accept it because there is enough evidence. If there was enough such evidence for the Christian god we would accept that he exists. Why would we refuse to? We would, however, not worship him, but it would be just absurd to deny his existence. You said we have had our minds made up, and that is simply not true. Our minds are open to new evidence. Read here what ebonmusings has to say about it, for example:
    The Theist’s Guide to Converting Atheists. What would convince an atheist that a religion is true?
    http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/theistguide.html
    He is listing what would convince him. Now, you assert, in the above quote, that all atheists have a closed mind and won’t believe because we don’t want to. It’s your mind that is closed if you would refuse to believe in Santa Claus, for example, even though there would turn up sufficient evidence for him. That is of course not very likely, which is why you used him as an example. Atheists think that it is not very likely that there will ever turn up any good evidence for god either, for us there is no difference between god and Santa. But if it should, we would admit we were wrong. What’s so horrible about that?
    Now, apart from simply being incorrect about such things, you make several claims in your comments that you do not explain or back up. Instead you make this big all-encompassing excuse = “non-believers are just blind to things that believers aren’t blind to anyway” (a claim which workings goes unexplained and non-backed-up in itself) – of why you don’t have to explain and back these claims up. THAT is what usually does not go over well with atheists.
    Examples:
    The term “God” defines a spiritual entity which cannot be evaluated, or analyzed by physical means.
    How can you know that it can’t? Besides, god definitions (the Christian god not least) do all the time contain elements which claim that this god interacts with the physical world in very direct ways. Why can’t these interactions with a physical world be evaluated and analyzed? By your own arguments the god you speak of is completely indistinguishable from something that doesn’t exist. It’s more likely that he doesn’t than that he does and we just happened to be blind to it. Especially since your main reason for thinking we are blind seems to be a perceived unwillingness to believe on our part, which, as you have already seen is not true.
    God is spirit. So my bible tells me so…
    It’s a physical book, written by physical people on a physical world, why would you think that it tells you the right things, only because it tells you that it’s telling you the right things? You are just swallowing this whole, and then you conclude from this that:
    Proving that God exists is not the appropriate topic to engage between believers and non-believers The term “God” defines a spiritual entity which cannot be evaluated, or analyzed by physical means.
    That does not follow! Come on, you believe this only because a book tells you to? It’s absurd from the start. Your argument only holds water if this assumption is true and there’s nothing that says that it’s true, apart from a very physical book which only claims to truth is its own claims of being true.
    Christians should avoid all attempts at answering these arguments because in the eyes of everyone, especially atheists, they sound ridiculously foolish.
    This is true! But why are you not open to that the reason for that is simply because it IS ridiculously foolish, and not something that just appears foolish in the “blind eyes of an atheist”? Because of this passage?
    14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:
    From
 the book, which only claims to truth, is its own claims of being true? It is, I admit, a very clever passage though, because it helps the believer shield off any sort of questioning of their faith. It makes any belief unfalsifiable, because no matter what I say to you, you don’t have to consider it, you can dismiss anything anyone ever says to you that you don’t like Your book has given you permission to “make judgments about all things” as a “spiritual man” (and you can just decide for yourself that you are indeed a spiritual man, there are NO other requirements to get to call yourself that, you don’t have to take a test, you just decide it) and then you can just judge that whatever you don’t like comes from a “man without spirit” and so they won’t accept your spirit-stuff anyway and can’t understand you.
    I’m not here to clash, preach or whatever you’re mislead to assume. My purpose was to offer my take on this question.
    That may so be, but this naïveté that so many believers chooses to show when arguments gets a bit heated is starting to become old. Surely you are aware that anything you say publically on a blog actually can be criticized or commented on? You really should be prepared to “clash”! You can’t just say a lot of things and then act surprised and claim you didn’t want to engage in any exchanges of words when people reply to you. We can neither know your purpose, nor do we have to care about it, really.
    It seems to me Greta was the only person who appropriated the right response. Her question reflected that.
    I freely admit that Greta is much better at discussing things with believers, than I am, no doubt about it. Again, I do apologize for being less nice at places!

  29. 30

    Adam
    Political biases? Whose? What? If you’re implying religion is an instrument of the inhabiting government — then what of its followers?

    Lets put it this way: If you are a racist you can go to any given religion and say “Ahh, all those other races had a distant ancestor who did something wrong, and thus are marked by God for punishment.”
    If you aren’t, you read the holy books and see “Ahh, God holds all people as being equally flawed and beloved.”
    And you get something similar with Gay marriage, or female rights, or feudalism. God has a convenient way of agreeing with you.
    Which means he has every mark of being an imaginary friend.
    Greta has already answered the point on consistency.

  30. 31

    If someone told me Ol’ Saint Nick was climbing down my chimney, unless I was an elf — I’d refuse to believe this. Which is the stance of the atheist.
    No, actually it isn’t. The stance of the atheist is “okay, show me.”
    If you can show me that Ol’ Saint Nick is indeed climbing down my chimney, I will grant you the point.
    If you can’t then frankly I have no reason to believe you now do I?
    The proof an atheist requires is supernatural. The atheist doesn’t believe in the supernatural — therefore concluding there is no burden of proof.
    So basically so long as you base any given premise on a previous un-evidenced premise, you can say whatever you like.
    If you can’t demonstrate the existance of the supernatural that does not remove the burden of proof, it simply means your argument sucks.

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