Emma Thorne took on proofs of God video

"7 Proofs Of God" | Atheist Responds
16th April 2022 | Emma Thorne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E26KO2UYYUc

If you'd like to support my own "proofs for God" - I have only skimmed at Jean Aitchison's

The Seeds of Speech: Language Origin and Evolution
Jean Aitchison
Cambridge University Press, 4 mai 2000 - 282 pages
https://www.cambridge.org/fj/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/sociolinguistics/seeds-speech-language-origin-and-evolution-1?format=PB&isbn=9780521785716

and so my refutation of her version of a gradual transition from "ape" to "human" is very incomplete.

Would you mind sending (perhaps via crowdfunding) an example to

Hans Georg Lundahl
c/o ESI St. Martin
27 ter Bd de St. Martin
FR-75003 Paris?

5:10 Bart Ehrmann never was a Roman Catholic, was he?

I think he was somewhere on the Evangelical spectrum before leaving his ... modicum of a semblance of Christianity ... (or apostasising if you think he was a real Christian, obviously) ...

So, "you don't need evidence to defend the faith" ... not quite right to my scholastic ears, no.

You don't have direct evidence beyond divine revelation for certain parts of the faith called "mysteries of faith" - God is one single God in three distinct persons, the bread and wine cease to exist as such and become Body and Blood of God Made Man, and some few more.

But you can dismantle purported evidence against them and you can show evidence for the divine revelation from which we know them ...

23:36 "you can't have faith in something that is proveable"

You can have complete faith in something that is only partly proveable, and no place disproveable.

5:10 bis "if we had irrefutable proof, we would all be Christians"

Some guys believe we have irrefutable proof that prokaryotes became very simple eukaryotes that became eumetazoa that became bilateria that became chordata that became fish, amphibiae, synapsids, mammals, primates, apes and men. All by just mutations and natural selection/ According to your principle, how would these guys explain there are Creationists?

That's right, a Christian who thinks Christianity is irrefutably proven can use that kind of explanation about non-Christians too (and actually did before any Evolutionists were around : I feel so plagiarised!)

7:00 Whether Daniel is 600 - 500 BC or post-Alexander with some "prophecy after the events" (about the ram from the West = Alexander), as it is accepted by Jews, it is definitely pre-Christian.

And here is a problem : Jews have changed their chronology around the weeks of Daniel. This means Jewish chronology is missing years "in the intertestamental period" and this can basically be demonstrated. Given this, the propohecy of Daniel here either refers to crucifixion of Jesus (if He was born in the 65th week of Daniel) or to some event in the temple around year 47 AD (if Christ was born in the 63rd week of Daniel).

Whether you think it's by the actual Daniel described in the book (which is then partly autobiographic) or you think it's post-Alexander, you can't pretend Christians invented it to prove Jesus was Christ.

7:45 "under Antiochus IV in 167 - 163 BC"

Before Christ. Therefore not invented by Christians to make the weeks match the Crucifixion.

8:45 Well, you could have a point on Daniel written under Antiochus IV who was in fact a vassal to Rome, but it would still be impressive that the precise Roman Empire would divide into two parts, West and East (two legs) and would stand on feet mixed or iron (the metal of the empire) and clay (something more chaotic). The division of the Empire in (earliest attempt) 286 AD.

Obviously, these critical scholars have no proof either of chapters 1 to 6 being folk tales or of chapters 7 to 12 being added under the persecution of Antiochus IV, except their anti-Christian, anti--Theistic principle that real prophecy doesn't occur.

9:35 Yes, critical scholars chose a date of composition which suits their agenda of not accepting fulfilled prophecy as proof!

10:45 And I'm not aware of any philosophical principle in correct philosophy that all correct discovery needs to be done by science ...

11:10 I think the meme is about the saying "when pigs grow wings and fly" ... a very good analogy for apes coming to develop a human language.

And Noam Chomsky, who is actually an evolution believer, tried to explain human language by one decisive and final mutation that totally changed the way we communicate.

11:30 And no, elephants and whales have bigger brains, but no human language!

12:05 "tons of contradictory accounts"

My little hobby, how about you making a claim a bit more specific than "tons of" and I'll be happy to dissolve the contradiction!

12:18 St. Augustine resolves the supposed contradictions by saying there were four angels.

Different accounts mention different ones or configurations of them, but every angel mentioned in any of the accounts was there and no account contains a straight denial of angels in other accounts.

Next try?

12:30 The burden of proof is on someone claiming an account contains a contradiction or two accounts contradict each other.

That is namely a positive claim and requires positive evidence.

A typical debate (not the only possible one) between a Christian and an Atheist may indeed involve a more general level where the burden of proof is on the Christian, namely where the Christian is proving Christianity true. However, on some levels of the debate, the Atheist is in fact making counterclaims, and therefore the burden of proof is in those levels on him, and his claim of contradictions is precisely one such level.

12:52 Yeah, as I mentioned, how about your giving specific passages? And stating what the contradiction is supposed to be about?

13:49 "he's not even going to list any ..."

Like you are not even listing any contradictions.

I

Martin Herald

Contradictions: How did Judas die? Acts 1-18 "and all his bowels gushed out." or Mathew 27:6 "and went and hanged himself."
This one is very easy to remember and I've yet to hear an apologist talk their way out of that one.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

He hanged himself, was saved, then went to the field the priests had bought for him, and there his bowels gushed out.

Problem solved.

Martin Herald

@Hans-Georg Lundahl I'm not sure if your serious or not.
Oh cool... Just quote me the passage in the bible that clears that little issue up : )

Or perhaps I should just quote some more of the same passages. You're correct! It doesn't say he hanged by his neck until dead, as they do in old law court documentation. So you've found yourself some highly doubtful and ridiculously unlikely wiggle room. But it also doesn't say that they stuck his guts back in and he run off and was killed by some rabid chipmunks either. As his character doesn't appear again in the play and medicine was in the stone ages then, It's normal to assume he died. So lets look into your explanation a bit shall we?

The only problem with your reading of history. Is that when they went and saved Judas from hanging himself, according to Mathew 27:5, the priests bought the field. Then according to Acts 1:18, Judas brought the field with exactly the same 30 pieces of silver, that the priests had already paid for the field, before his guts spilled out. Is that another two inconsistencies in less than two paragraphs in comparison? Due to both accounts calling the place 'The field of blood', there is no doubt they are talking about the same field. I could write a more accurate book than that 'perfect work of god' 2000 year old instruction book.

Mathew 27:
5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

6 The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. 8 That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9 Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, 10 and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”

Acts 1:
18 (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. 19 Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

Or if you can just invent situations that aren't actually in your special book, then surely so can I. Jesus death for example:

Mark 15:
"37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died,[c] he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

The Centurion was mistaken in his death proclamation. He isn't a Doctor and he didn't go up and take Jesus pulse. He was simply fooled as Jesus breath became very shallow when he passed out. As evidenced by the fact Jesus recovered from his injuries and left the tomb they placed him in. Then he died latter due to an infection he was too weak to fight and because none of his follows bothered to help him with his shock and clean bandages.

I have more biblical evidence to support Jesus living through his ordeal, than you do for Judas surviving his hanging. As how many people have you seen rise from the dead? I personally have seen a few unconscious people who could be mistaken for dead. So if we were talking about anyone but Jesus, which version of the story do you think is more likely? But of course that would stuff up both the resurrection miracle idea and Jesus dying for our forefathers sins idea, and Christians would still have to make animal sacrifices of things like their best rams ruining herd quality, for original sin that they had nothing to do with, even today. That's why you guys are stuck with the whole Jesus sacrificed himself to appease himself, so he didn't have to punish us anymore, when he could have just said 'O.K I forgive you' stupidity.

You can make up things, just to maintain your existing biases. But don't expect anyone else to accept your undocumented fairly tale about Judas (including not in the bible) as evidence of anything.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Martin Herald I am serious, if you read the biography of St. John, he was asked about this and gave this answer.

It's not in the Bible, and as I am not a Protestant, but a Catholic, I don't subscribe to everything true or even relevant to Biblical truth having to be in the Bible anyway.

"As his character doesn't appear again in the play and medicine was in the stone ages then,"

If a hung man had not yet suffocated and the momentum was not sufficient for breaking his neck, he could still be saved.

It would have been lots harder if it had been a try to save him after the guts spilled.

"You can make up things, just to maintain your existing biases."

Or I can recall what St. John said when challenged on the question.

"But don't expect anyone else to accept your undocumented fairly tale about Judas (including not in the bible) as evidence of anything."

Supposing it had been really undocumented, I would have stated it differently, like "he could have been saved after hanging himself" but it would still have shown you have no contradiction proven here.

@Martin Herald "according to Mathew 27:5, the priests bought the field. Then according to Acts 1:18, Judas brought the field with exactly the same 30 pieces of silver, that the priests had already paid for the field,"

Actually, here is part of the second verse in DRBO : And he indeed hath possessed a field of the reward of iniquity,

Not necessarily implying he bought it himself.

@Martin Herald As to the lance hit, St. Longinus was a Roman soldier and knew how to hit the heart to remove all doubt

II

Arcturus

No contradictions?
here is one
“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.” — James 1:13

“And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham…” — Genesis 22:1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

James is speaking of temptation to sin, Genesis 22, Moses means God put Abraham to a test.

14:47 What you now called "the actual history of marriage" is in fact basically a reconstruction by Friedrich Engels who wasn't very big on history (even less than Marx who knew some details of how industrial capitalism replaced the feudal economy), but who was definitely (like Marx) very big on ideology.

15:53 He just may have another video, where he goes into creation in depth ...

16:25 Can you prove there is anything millions of light years away, specifically to a Theist?

Like, if I want to say "God is turning the universe around Earth each day" and "angels turn the actual planets" (earth not being one) "around the zodiac and the stars into the movements classified as parallax" you'd need to prove atheism to prove me wrong, and without parallax - > no 4 light years to alpha Centauri, no 9 light years to Sirius, no "main series stars" are all solar size, and that breaks down the rest of the cosmic distance ladder.

So, Theism, specifically Christianity, doesn't include any creatures "millions of light years away" which we would need to account for.

"God is wasteful"

So, if that's how He likes doing things?

16:47 Btw, strongly disagree with his "limitless expanse of the universe" point.

18:08 DNA very certainly contains base pairs, often referred to as letters.

For each three base pairs, an aminoacid is typically denoted.

A gene is typically coding for a proteine or enzyme and it usually contains just lots and lots of amino acids stringed together the right way. A mutation changes one base pair, will hardly affect anything, except sometimes just ruins the proteine or whatever it was. A deletion or duplication event would not change the triplets, but if it did change them, the resulting "gene" would most certainly be a pseudo-gene, each new triplet coding for an amino-acid and these having no functional connexion to each other, the only connexion being is, if you read the triplets one base pair top the left or to the right, instead, you would actually get something that was functional.

18:35 Would the common ancestor have had the human or the ape like version of the FOXP2 gene (which is involved in language)?

If the ape one, what a coincidence that the mutation(s) actually improved the gene!

19:56 What is your overwhelming evidence for new cell types evolving?

Last time I checked, and expluding nerve cells, it happens, on evolutionist views, once every three millions of years - unlike speciation events very definitely not observed.

22:07 I can prove that your sexuality as you just definied it is not conducive to childbearing and childrearing ... and that old people are happier around children and grandchildren than around strangers in old people's homes (during the first confinement in France, old people's homes outside Paris were one of the riskiest places for dying in Covid).

22:16 The "World Happiness Report" on some issues choses the wrong parameters for "happiness" - and as it is written by secularists, perhaps that is not surprising.

Sweden is in 2022 "fourth" (after third, before tenth) happiest country, I very strongly disagree, I am a Swede and keeping out of Sweden.

It's institutionally a nightmare for Christians (though Norway came out worse in the Bodnariu case a few years ago), and even for those who aren't, gun violence is exploding.

And Israel is not the only one growing more brutal over time ... secularism does it too.

23:16 And you don't need to link to any very relevant sources, the World Happiness Report not being one.

23:25 And your assessment of Christian circularity of reasoning is also not sourced to any actual statement by a Christian ....

24:04 It is not "blatantly obviously" true, but still proveably true that Jesus is God the Son:

• He claimed it
• He also claimed to rise on the Third Day
• He rose on the Third Day.

Again, it is not "blatantly obvious" to us He rose on the Third Day, but still proveably so:

• Christianity traces back to the Apostles
• who claimed it
• and died as martyrs for it.

Now, some would claim "Christianity doesn't trace back to the Apostles any more than Mormons to the Nephites - in fact, it traces back to the Apostles like Mormons to Joseph Smith.

Any later point at which you accept Christianity as a historic fact is useless as a beginning, since it shows Christianity already there in place.

You normally accept St. Clement I of Rome as historical, he was fourth pope of Rome, with St. Peter the Apostle as first one. You normally accept St. Ignatius of Antioch as historic, he was the third bishop of Antioch, with St. Peter as first bishop of Antioch (between his stay in Jerusalem and his setting off to Rome).

And Joseph Smith never claimed to be fourth or third Nephite King after Mosiah II, nor did Mormons ever claim it for him, but no one disputes that John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff were third and fourth where Joseph Smith was first, namely in the title "President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"

Walter Daems

Absolutely! God does exist! Under the roof of your skull where he resides and should be protected by all means because once he leaves these very limited surroundings he is bound to dissolve in thin air.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Walter Daems I think you kind of missed the historic argument for the Resurrection ...

Walter Daems

@Hans-Georg Lundahl historic??? According to who? The eyewitnesses? Do me a favour, jump into your local police station and ask the first detective how he values ‘eyewitnesses’.
If you are so fond of zombie story’s I would recommend’Day Z’ with Brad Pitt :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Walter Daems Yeah right ... now check how historic facts are usually known ...
Eyewitnesses!

Walter Daems

@Hans-Georg Lundahl in general historians are pretty good at separating fairytales from facts and there is also a small difference between fans and historians and historians where not involved in the narrative. By the way, don’t you think it’s a tiny bit suspicious that it took almost hundred years before the story was written down? But hey don’t let that stop you to continue to believe your particular fable amongst the, at present, 4299 other gods story’s :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Walter Daems Look, the confidence you have in historians is somewhat over done, from both our perspectives.

1) Some of them stamp things as "fairytales" I don"t agree on;
2) and some of them consider the Gospels historic, which you don't agree on.

It so happens too, the most normal method for assessing the age and authorship of a book is to go with as ancient assessment as one can get.

Walter Daems

@Hans-Georg Lundahl we can run around the bush about historians, holy books and eyewitness from now till eternity but I prefer to tackle the core. If god existed, there would be no need to prove his/her/it’s existence because he/she/it would be perceived or at the very least be experienced by believers and non believers alike and since that’s clearly not the case it’s safe to say that gods are man made and not the other way around.

By the way let me remind you how much props, stage, decorum and actors even the believers themselves need to keep the delusion alive in the form of churches, cathedrals, priests, cardinals, popes, tv evangelists etc.

In a desperate attempt to save the furniture, some believers postulate that god doesn’t need to prove his existence. So you have this god entity who creates humans with a brain capable of questioning his/her/it’s existence and free will. But those that use their free will and their brain to question his existence (with very good reasons) are doomed for eternity. Nice chap this god character.

If god doesn’t exist, a guy claiming that he is the son of god can only be a conman. Just like Mohamed or Joseph Smith or one of the others among the, at present, approximately 4300 other religions. It all comes down to the fact that people turn their particular wishes into beliefs. The mere fact that every religion demands faith and belief should make any human being with a grain of brain suspicious. Because it’s exactly the first phrase you will hear from every common conman: ‘trust me, believe in me’.

Voltaire: ‘religion was born when the first scoundrel met the first fool’.
Seneca: ‘For common people religion is true, for wise men false and for rulers useful’

Truth on the other hand doesn’t need to be believed, that’s why it’s called truth.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Walter Daems "If god existed, there would be no need to prove his/her/it’s existence because he/she/it would be perceived or at the very least be experienced by believers and non believers alike"

Perceiving God is the bliss reserved for Heaven, so no.

"By the way let me remind you how much props, stage, decorum and actors even the believers themselves need to keep the delusion alive in the form of churches, cathedrals, priests, cardinals, popes, tv evangelists etc."

I suppose you have some of your attitudes from a teacher ...?

"In a desperate attempt to save the furniture, some believers postulate that god doesn’t need to prove his existence."

They are called Fideists and the Catholic Church (as you mentioned Cardinals) disagrees with it and even condemns it.

"So you have this god entity who creates humans with a brain capable of questioning his/her/it’s existence and free will. But those that use their free will and their brain to question his existence (with very good reasons) are doomed for eternity. Nice chap this god character."

Your supposing that coming to the conclusion God doesn't exist is the best and most normal use of your brain?

"If god doesn’t exist, a guy claiming that he is the son of god can only be a conman."

Conman or madman. It is to be noted that a man who claimed to be God founded a Catholic Church that for some time gave us a Christian civilisation, which is better than any we have had before or since. Very ironic if the origin of that were a conman or a madman.

"It all comes down to the fact that people turn their particular wishes into beliefs."

But atheists are a miraculous exception, right?

"The mere fact that every religion demands faith and belief should make any human being with a grain of brain suspicious."

You are supposing your own world view demands none?

I don't mean "the answer no to one particular question" I mean the other parts of it.

I would count Voltaire as a scoundrel comparable to Joseph Smith and even worse. But of course, you have faith in him, don't you?

And if Seneca is slightly less bad, it's because he had no Catholic education.

"Truth on the other hand doesn’t need to be believed, that’s why it’s called truth."

Only the obvious does not on any level need belief. And not all truth is obvious. That 2 + 2 is four is obvious, but that "For any three block letters in sequence, English alphabet only, the added values range from 195 to 270, from AAA to ZZZ," needed calculation, and that the combinations after 195 start going up like a triangle number sequence, and reverses to end up as a triangle sequence going down towards one at ZZZ = 270, and that in between, at the top of possibilities, it flattens out, also needed calculation. And that the top two sums in probability had 507 possibilities each, you'll just have to take on faith, until you calculate it, if you take the time to do so. It's still perfectly true.

Now, by "religion" Seneca did not mean belief in God, he meant belief in "the gods" which is a somewhat different matter. He actually believed in some kind of god. So, btw, did Voltaire, just one who didn't interfere after creating. I think Seneca was into the idea of "providence" too, but look it up.

Did you find yourself out of the water when history came up for serious?

@Walter Daems Btw, is it "out of your water" or "out of the water"?

Walter Daems

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Walter Daems "If god existed, there would be no need to prove his/her/it’s existence because he/she/it would be perceived or at the very least be experienced by believers and non believers alike"
Perceiving God is the bliss reserved for Heaven, so no.

And what about 'experiencing'? Because if you neither perceive nor experience this god (certainly true for those practicing their free will in non believing) it's exactly what I said: a wish to have faith in some entity amongst 4299 (approximately) other entities. Nothing more, nothing less.

By the way let me remind you how much props, stage, decorum and actors even the believers themselves need to keep the delusion alive in the form of churches, cathedrals, priests, cardinals, popes, tv evangelists etc."
I suppose you have some of your attitudes from a teacher ...? "

Nope, I'm 65, and at 14 I left home, went to Amsterdam and lived independently from then on. My quotes, my thoughts are definitely mine in contrast to yours; I think we can agree on that in all fairness.

In a desperate attempt to save the furniture, some believers postulate that god doesn’t need to prove his existence." They are called Fideists and the Catholic Church (as you mentioned Cardinals) disagrees with it and even condemns it.

Oké but in that case, be a good sport and answer my ironclad opening: 'if god existed there would be no need to prove his existence because he would be perceived or at the very least be experienced by believers and non believers alike'.

"So you have this god entity who creates humans with a brain capable of questioning his/her/it’s existence and free will. But those that use their free will and their brain to question his existence (with very good reasons) are doomed for eternity. Nice chap this god character."

Your supposing that coming to the conclusion God doesn't exist is the best and most normal use of your brain? "

Well, yes indeed, absolutely. Like I once came to the conclusion, still in childhood mind you, that Santa Claus, Father Christmas, the Easter bunny, pixies and goblins only exist as figurines of imagination. Or, what I said in a previous post; 'god does exist, undoubtedly. Under the roof of your skull where he resides and should be protected by all means because once he leaves these very limited surroundings he is bound to dissolve in thin air :)

If god doesn’t exist, a guy claiming that he is the son of god can only be a conman." Conman or madman.
It is to be noted that a man who claimed to be God founded a Catholic Church that for some time gave us a Christian civilisation, which is better than any we have had before or since.

I'm pretty sure Muslims say exactly the same and all the other founders of religions. Aside from that, I can't see any reason why the Greeks with their mythology who provided us with the cradle of western civilization, the Egyptians or the Chinese should be regarded as inferior in comparison with your precious Catholic Church. Very biased to say the least.

Very ironic if the origin of that were a conman or a madman.

Jesus was a mediocre philosopher living in the delusion that he was the son of god, no different from Mohamed and all the others who claimed /are claiming that they have a hot line with some celestial Copperfield.

"It all comes down to the fact that people turn their particular wishes into beliefs." But atheists are a miraculous exception, right? "The mere fact that every religion demands faith and belief should make any human being with a grain of brain suspicious."
You are supposing your own world view demands none? I don't mean "the answer no to one particular question" I mean the other parts of it. I would count Voltaire as a scoundrel comparable to Joseph Smith and even worse. But of course, you have faith in him, don't you? And if Seneca is slightly less bad, it's because he had no Catholic education.

Listen, here is the thing; if you would provide me with one shred of real evidence to prove that god does exist, even at 65 I would instantly make tabula rasa with that what I took as more plausible the day before.
If I, on the other hand, would slap proof around your ears with the force of wet towels, that god doesn't exist, it wouldn't make any difference in your belief because somewhere in your life you have decided to believe a particular story (one amongst 4300 other stories) and since then you are on a path with no return.

"Truth on the other hand doesn’t need to be believed, that’s why it’s called truth." Only the obvious does not on any level need belief. And not all truth is obvious. That 2 + 2 is four is obvious, but that "For any three block letters in sequence, English alphabet only, the added values range from 195 to 270, from AAA to ZZZ," needed calculation, and that the combinations after 195 start going up like a triangle number sequence, and reverses to end up as a triangle sequence going down towards one at ZZZ = 270, and that in between, at the top of possibilities, it flattens out, also needed calculation. And that the top two sums in probability had 507 possibilities each, you'll just have to take on faith, until you calculate it, if you take the time to do so. It's still perfectly true.

My friend, if you need to revert to these kinds of sofisme to prove a point, you are far gone from the path of healthy reasoning :)

Now, by "religion" Seneca did not mean belief in God, he meant belief in "the gods" which is a somewhat different matter.
Because you forcefully want to believe so :)*

He actually believed in some kind of god. So, btw, did Voltaire, just one who didn't interfere after creating. I think Seneca was into the idea of "providence" too, but look it up. Did you find yourself out of the water when history came up for serious?

Voltaire, Seneca are expressing thoughts that I share with them. Out of common decency I mention their names. I don't have a wish to turn anybody into a religious leader, that's your field of expertise if I'm not mistaking :)

Now let me put some more gasoline on your burning wish to believe.
Believing was a necessary step in evolution to transmit knowledge comparable to the teaching of a child. But from a certain age we expect children to think more for themselves and to believe less. Far is it for me to conclude that believers are stuck in evolution, childhood or both but in all fairness, the thought crossed my mind :)

Christianity is so widely popular because it serves the poor and the powerless and the rich and the powerful alike.

If you're poor, living a life of misery, you can comfort yourself with the idea that the score will be settled when you get your VIP pass to heaven. The rich are very happy with this deal as long as the poor don't threaten their cozy life on earth with a revolution, like the French one for example :)

The middle class is also served. They can feel great about themselves distributing food and second worn clothes to the poor in cozy family gatherings.

Christianity, in contrast to Islam (for the record: equally stupid) appeals to the cowardly aspect of human nature. If somebody insults your wife, girlfriend, friend, you can honorably piss your pants and declare that you are walking in Jesus footsteps.**

Now, between you and me, don't you think it's somewhat of an insult that a human being needs a heaven and paradise as a carrot on a stick and a hell and eternal damnation as deterrent just to live and behave in a decent way?*** And by the way, if you look outside your window, do you see atheists running down the streets, creating havoc, murdering and pillaging like there is no tomorrow?° And if you gonna talk about the origins of morality I suggest you take a break from the Bible to search for the gazillion clips on YT portraying animals behaving outstandingly moral towards their own species, different species and us humans. But they probably come together in some underground cave to engage in Bible studies every so often :)

To conclude our little chat. For the most part of my life I couldn't give a toss about that what somebody cared to believe. I preferred and still prefer to think about less silly matters. But then came a time that idiots blow themselves up in the name of one delusion and you lot endorsed a criminal clown like Trump.°° From then on, as a thinker, it was my duty to debunk the crazy.

Nonetheless, I appreciate your effort and I wish you all the best in the name of the one no one should believe in :)

* note

I missed this one - no, because there are places where he does mention "deus" without pagan worship names and with a context suggesting either assent or at least as considering it a clear possibility.

** note

I missed this one too - no, a Church Father says "if someone slaps your face" means your own face, and not someone else's. You are not invited to not defend your near ones or for that matter, even more importantly, God.

*** note

I missed this one three - humanity hasn't been as its best since Adam fell, you know.

° note

I missed this one four - no, I'm not living in Moscow or St. Petersburg in late 1917, thank God!

°° note

I missed this one too. I resent that remark very much. Unborn babies are being saved because of Supreme Court Judge Kavanaugh and one more also nominated by Trump.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Walter Daems "Nope, I'm 65, and at 14 I left home, went to Amsterdam and lived independently from then on."

You are a lucky guy, but perhaps not well instructed.

"Oké but in that case, be a good sport and answer my ironclad opening: 'if god existed there would be no need to prove his existence because he would be perceived or at the very least be experienced by believers and non believers alike'."

God will be in some way experienced even by the damned, when they face their judge. They will see Christ's manhood, not His divity, but they will experience someone [W]ho is in fact God.

Your opening was very far from ironclad, as I already mentioned that perceiving God is a reward for the afterlife.

"I'm pretty sure Muslims say exactly the same and all the other founders of religions."

Mohammed never claimed to be God. In any account of him.

And if you had studied some history, you might have come to the conclusion that the Catholic civilisation has some perks compared to the Muslim one. I hope you enjoy beer and that your wife (if you are married) enjoys you with some exclusivity of rights? While Christianity itself doesn't totally forbid slavery, the abolition of slavery has deep roots in the Christian civilisation, namely reaching back to Queen St. Bathilde who died in 680.

"Aside from that, I can't see any reason why the Greeks with their mythology who provided us with the cradle of western civilization,"

In your home, I suppose your wife can talk to your guests as much as you can? The wives couldn't in Athens under Pericles!

"the Egyptians"

Too statecentred.

"or the Chinese"

Also too state centred. Doing what you did would have been looked down on much more severely, perhaps punished by law, in China, as compared to Protestant Netherlands.

"should be regarded as inferior in comparison with your precious Catholic Church."

Well, at least has a thing in for boys or girls not quite obeying parents all the time. Study Sts Clare and Francis of Assisi (Clara and Franciskus I suppose you say in Dutch).

"Listen, here is the thing; if you would provide me with one shred of real evidence to prove that god does exist, even at 65 I would instantly make tabula rasa with that what I took as more plausible the day before."

That's an experiment. I'll give it two shots.

I
According to your world view, men developed from apes, I suppose. But apes don't talk. They communicate. But in a very limited way, since lacking notionality.
Give a plausible account for how ape communications along the line of biological changes gradually changed into human talk! And "scientists have been studying that" doesn't count for you, that means putting precisely faith in someone else, not knowing it because it is obvious to you.

II
According to your world view, no person endowed with will and reason exists on the scale of sun, planets and stars. Every person endowed with will and reason is an inhabitant of a planet. This leaves only gravitation and inertia for the mechanics of how things move on celestial scales. And this implies Heliocentrism.
But Heliocentrism is not what we see. Our first impression of the world, the Sun, slowly, but surely, moves across the sky, and so does the Moon. So do the other stars (whether planets or fix stars, they can be visually referred to as stars). And if this is true, the most rational explanation for this is an intelligent mover moving them, personally or through other intelligent movers obeying him. Why not opt for this mover being God instead of opting for a "scientific" position deduced from atheism?

"If I, on the other hand, would slap proof around your ears with the force of wet towels, that god doesn't exist, it wouldn't make any difference in your belief because somewhere in your life you have decided to believe a particular story (one amongst 4300 other stories) and since then you are on a path with no return."

It is most usual for people either 65 like you or 53 like me to be on a path with no return.

Your assessment seems to indicate, other people have taken up the offer, and all their arguments have been dismissed - perhaps by your psychologising them - but anyway, dismissed.

"My friend, if you need to revert to these kinds of sofisme to prove a point, you are far gone from the path of healthy reasoning :)"

It's not a sophism, it's a fact. Three upper case letters of the English alphabet adding up to 195 is exactly one possibility. AAA. And three letters adding up to 270 is just ZZZ. For 232 and for 233 it is 507 possibilities each.*

I did that as preparatory work for assessing, not the exact probability of real names and words adding up to 666 compared to real names and words that don't do so, but as a proxy for that, all combinations of 9 letters adding up to 666 compared to all such combinations not doing so. It was closeish to 1/150. I find names with that number overrepresented among sovereigns of today.

As long as you don't have done the math yourself, you will have to take my word on faith. And that's exactly what faith means.

Now, I will give you a hint on how to do the maths, if you like : for two letters, the sums 130 and 180 are AA and ZZ. 131 is either AB or BA, and 179 is either YZ or ZY. 132 is AC or CA or BB, 178 is XZ or ZX or YY. At a certain point, this will not leave you a "rhomb," but a six edged shape, and when you start out with adding a third letter, this will give a beginning of triangle numbers (196 is AAB, ABA or BAA, 269 is YZZ, ZYZ or ZZY) from each side, and then it will flatten out in the middle.

Now, God has also given a hint on how to check for ourselves that He exists : live a Christian life, and when you go to Heaven, you will see.

* note

I'll have to work this through again, I may have missed some point at some point, the post I wrote on my blog only contains the conclusion, and the pad where I did the math behind that conclusion was stolen - like so many other things. UPDATE : did check, yes, it is correct. From 195 up to 220 number of chances per number work like triangle numbers. 220 is the last number for which 130 is still relevant, since it is 130 + 90 like 195 is 130 + 65. It is also the first number for which 26 possibilities per letter is relevant for 155 + ... after it, the 130 one possibility is no longer relevant, you start getting triangle numbers (1 for 221, 3 for 222, 6 for 223 and so on) deduced, and the next possibilities number for each letter is 156 + ... = 25, next one, 157 + ... 24 and so on. From 232 to 233, the added possibility is 13 and the next tier of the triangle number deduced is also 13, so, 507 for 232 remains equal to 507 for 233. Yes, it works, as I recalled./HGL

Walter Daems

@Hans-Georg Lundahl well, at least you convinced me that I have every reason to be very happy that I’m not in one of the 4300 religious rabbit holes; amen and hallelujah for that :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Walter Daems No, I haven't convinced you of it, I only have confirmed what you believed already, never mind.

24:21 I'm noting you have no qualms about making money, since you have both patreon and merchandise ... why single out ChristRighteous as a hypocrite doing it "only" for money if you won't include yourself?

Btw, reminds me of some kinds of secularist school teachers of Britain (I've had one in IB over in Sigtuna in Sweden) who will say that kind of thing in lessons where they are in fact also getting paid (and sometimes from tax money provided involuntarily by Christian parents of such pupils as they have) ...

So, I'll be nice, you are probably a little girl who imitates a big teacher you recently used to have ...

24:48 Women dying in childbirth is actually one of the things predicted in the Bible ... Genesis 3:16.

25:45 "if morality came from God, it would never change"

Sounds a bit like "if Christianity came from God, it would never change" ... what about:

• if Christianity comes from God, true Christianity doesn't change
• if morality comes from God, true morality doesn't change (except when God specifically inserts or retracts a permission, like between Moses and Jesus on divorce).

In both cases, there are such things as heresies.

And believe me, Ehrman's fideistic take on Christianity before leaving and your own secular morality are only two of the very many heresies, and some would be more hateful to you than Catholic Christianity and Christian morality.

26:01 I am not totally unfamiliar with science fiction, and I am an actual fan of certain works of fantasy, while also somewhat familiar with certain other works I like less.

When did Neil Gaiman come up with anything as tedious as Genesis 5?
When did Terry Pratchett come up with anything as tedious as Genesis 11:10-end?

I am not sure but it is possible that Frank Herbert and GRRM have imitated genealogies of the Bible, as Tolkien certainly has ... but in free composition, it is not what I would invent as pure entertainment. Any more than the ship catalogues in Iliad B.

26:33 Come over to France and see how your "first commandment" would work out now that duck liver has replaced goose liver ....

Human minds indeed have more creativity than "thou shalt not murder" - like a few decades ago, we had a creative version stating instead "thou shalt not murder healthy Germans or Germans who only have bodiuly handicaps, unless they are Communists or have a Jewish or a Black parent"

The reason why the Ten Commandments can't have a purely human author is precisely the human creativity in moral heresies.