Anything but the one thing that should be the simplest thing of all... if their god was actually real. And no, baby smiles and rainbows don't count.
"What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing. As odd as it may seem, there is no mention of Jesus at all by any of his pagan contemporaries. There are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates; there are no expressions of interest, no heated slanders, no passing references -- nothing. In fact, if we broaden our field of concern to the years after his death -- even if we include the entire first century of the Common Era -- there is not so much as a solitary reference to Jesus in any non-Christian, non-Jewish source of any kind. I should stress that we do have a large number of documents from the time -- the writings of poets, philosophers, historians, scientists, and government officials, for example, not to mention the large collection of surviving inscriptions on stone and private letters and legal documents on papyrus. In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus' name ever so much as mentioned." -- Bart Ehrman
How can believers claim to have "found Jesus" when nobody in history has been able to?
Nobody can be sure. I think of it as rather like saying, how can we be sure there aren't leprechauns and fairies and unicorns? You have to have something more than just saying, well, there's no evidence against it, and there has to be some kind of positive evidence in favor of it in order for you to take it seriously. So I think that the absence of evidence is the same for leprechauns and fairies. And I think the positive evidence is also equally weak for all of them. In 'The God Delusion,' I made a seven point scale, from zero, meaning I'm absolutely confident that there is a God, to seven, absolutely confident there there isn't. And I think I call myself a 6.9. And one of the things I use that scale for is to get rid of the rather silly idea that if there's no evidence either way, therefore it's 50/50. It isn't 50/50, or it'll be something else. It's there's no reason to say that just because we have no positive evidence either way, therefore it's exactly equally likely. Because you could say that about leprechauns as well.
I don't have to be confident that there is no god in order to be confident that I don't believe theistic claims of gods.
"The 'God of Abraham' and his followers have had apx. 3,800 years to demonstrate 'His' existence… Judaism has had about 3,800 years; Christianity, about 2,000 years; Islam, about 1,400 gears and Mormonism, about 200 years. Thousands of years, billions of followers and millions killed in 'His' name, yet NOT ONE has demonstrated the existence of the Abrahamic god. It is time for humanity as a whole to reject the 'god of Abraham hypothesis', altogether."
Long past time. It is a hypothesis that has reliably failed every single test, from the stars to viruses and everything in between.
Anyone putting their trust into something with a 100% failure rate wants to be disappointed.
"Religion demands perfect evidence from science, but no evidence from itself."
Believers demand atheists have degrees in cosmology, astrophysics, evolutionary biology, paleontology, bioanthropology, abiogenesis, particle physics and every other natural science, or else their non-belief is invalid.
On the other hand, to join their religion, you don't even have to have read their storybook, much less quote anything that's actually in it.
If you think the bible is evidence for your god, you don't understand what evidence is.
Now it's often said—it was said tonight, and Dr. Craig said it in print—that atheists think they can prove the nonexistence of God.
This, in fact, very slightly but crucially misrepresents what we've always said. And there's nothing new about the New Atheists; it's just we're recent. There's nothing particularly new.
Dr. Victor Stenger, a great scientist, has written a book called The Failed Hypothesis, which he says he thinks that science can now license the claim that there definitely is no God. But he is unique in that, and I think very bold and courageous.
Here's what we argue: We argue quite simply that there's no plausible or convincing reason, certainly no evidential one, to believe that there is such an entity.
And that all observable phenomena, including the cosmological one to which I'm coming, are explicable without the hypothesis. You don't need the assumption.
I don't need to prove the non-existence of a god any more than Xians need to prove the non-existence of Atum, Freyja and Huītzilōpōchtli.
Source: youtu.be
"The 'evidence' for faith, then, seems to leave faith looking even weaker than it would if it stood, alone and unsupported, all by itself. What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. This is even more true when the 'evidence' eventually offered is so shoddy and self-interested."
-- Christopher Hitchens, "God Is Not Great"
The Six Main Reasons I Don't Believe In The Existence of Gods:
1. It's such an extraordinary claim that I would expect to see some evidence. I don't. 2. There is no reasoning that necessarily leads to the existence of a god. 3. The philosophical contradictions that the typical god-belief leads to like the problem of evil, the problem of silence, the problem of poor design, and the problem of free will. 4. Contradictions within holy books themselves. 5. All the things religions get wrong about reality. 6. The overwhelming evidence of the power of indoctrination: people mostly believing whatever they are taught as children.
7. While we have zero evidence for any god(s), the existence of many mutually-exclusive god-claims is evidence that people can and do believe in gods that don't exist without ever knowing the truth. Even believers will agree with this... about other believers. That is, we have no evidence of god, and plenty of evidence of no-god. In the absence of the former, nobody can figure out the latter.
"I grew tired of religion some time not long after birth. I believe in people, I believe in humans, I believe in a car, but I don't believe something I have absolutely no evidence of for millennia."
-- John Malkovich
“Any God who would sentence you to an eternity of torture by fire for not believing in him, yet refuses to provide unambiguous, tangible evidence of his existence, is not a God.
It is either a myth or a an insecure, pathetic bully.”
Xians like to insist that their religion is responsible for science. This is unambiguously false, of course -- the Mesopotamians, Egyptians and Greeks were using scientific principles millennia before the Catholic Church was burning Giordano Bruno and imprisoning Galileo.
But let’s not just put that aside, let’s actually grant it. Purely for argument’s sake.
So, we are to believe that god’s people created a process. Let’s even grant that god himself inspired this process. We are, after all, regularly told that god works through doctors and scientists. This process provides a way for humans to know the world, to discover everything that this god made for us that’s possible to be discovered and known, through evidence and reason. A process so successful, it has resulted in doubling the human life expectancy, the transition of the majority of the planet’s population out of extreme poverty, an inversion of the ratio of literacy to illiteracy, and has put robots on another planet and a spacecraft out beyond the boundaries of the solar system. A process so useful and reliable that this god’s people want to make sure we’re aware of who gave it to us, and to credit them appropriately.
And yet, despite all of this, not only can this transformative process, gifted to us by Xianity, not find this same religion’s god anywhere, in any capacity, we are told that it’s unreasonable to, and that one must use the very worst, least reliable process of all: faith.
The great epistemological gift that Xianity bequeathed to us all, and their own god is completely immune to it.
That seems... unlikely.
"It doesn’t matter which is the fastest growing religion (delusion).
Buddhism. Catholicism. Islam.
All that matter is none of them have been able to demonstrate their truth.”
"Scholar.”
If you read White Fragility, you’ll learn nothing about society, nothing about how life works, nothing even about racism in America.
Because there is literally no evidence anywhere between the front and back covers for any of the assertions within. All you’re given is anecdotes where she says or does something facepalmingly stupid, then draws conclusions about the world - viewed through Critical Race Theory - and projects her character flaws onto everyone else.
Take the above quote. It’s not that she’s an astonishingly racist oxygen thief who fundamentally hates black people, it’s that all white people are as terrible as she is. It’s not that she’s a racist lunatic with no filter between the cesspool of her mind and her flapping cake-hole, it’s that that all black people are constantly offended by all white people.
Xians do the same thing. They tell non-believers that without belief in a god, they would be stealing, murdering and raping without guilt or remorse. This is supposed to be an indictment of human nature, but it’s just a confession projected onto everyone else.
The only things you’ll learn from reading White Fragility are: a) how completely screwed up she is, b) how her “scholarship” is nothing but the worst logical fallacies that would embarrass even Ken Ham, and c) how much better a person you are than she and her disciples.
It’s hard to believe that she’s held up as a beacon for addressing America’s concerns over race considering what a profoundly racist, appallingly awful person she is. This is your expert?
Source: twitter.com
“Reality is beautiful on its own.
No gods required.”
imafullbloodedpredatorikillshit
Without “God” there is no reality.
Without Super-God there is no “God.”
Without Ultra-God there is no Super-God.
Without Thor there is no thunder.
Without Astraea there is no justice.
Without Mbombo the world could not exist.
Without Quetzalcoatl there is no rebirth.
Without Neo there is no freedom from The Machines.
Without Odin there is no protection from the Ice Giants.
Without fictional characters there is no religion.
Without ignorance and fear there is no religious belief.
Without fallacies there is no argument for any god.
Without a cosmological model that necessitates or even suggests a god there is nothing to consider.
Without evidence there is no reason to believe.
“Witness what many Christian scholars come up with just to reject evolution, or to defend the literal miraculous resurrection of Jesus (which they do even with the terrible and paltry evidence we have).
Consequently, I don't care anymore what Christian apologists think. They are not rational people.
I only want to know what rational scholars think.”
-- Richard Carrier