The video is actually not all that entertaining, since she's responding to a Christian who's not making all that good a show. Not all that much to refute, but the one thing I found, I was drawn into a dialogue. After the dialogue, some little more too. It should be mentioned, I do not adress whether Emma Thorne intended to imply what she implied, I am just saying the words she used actually imply the kind of argument I am adressing.
"If Atheists were Honest" | Actual Atheist Responds
Emma Thorne, 19 Febr. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOZhk3pP1wM
- Hans Georg Lundahl
- 7:30 Would you mind detailing how the evidence for Islam or Hinduism are equal to those of Christianity?
- Christopher Parks
- Who are you asking? Because nobody said that.
I’ll explain it though! There is a minimum threshold that all of them fail to meet. So their credibility is all the same. Zero.
- Hans Georg Lundahl
- @christopherparks2987 I was asking Emma Thorne, because she said, literally, this:
Any other person of any other faith could say the exact same thing to this guy.
Freaking, a Hindu could come and do the same thing.
She was not speaking of your view all "fail to meet" a minimum threshold, she was referring to what other people of other faiths would say.
Which if done would imply a debate about specific details on credibility between the two religions.
An implication you fail to meet by this purely atheist "explanation" ...
- Christopher Parks
- @hglundahl I know what she said. It isn’t the same as what you said. You’ve deliberately misrepresented what she’s saying here.
@hglundahl let’s try it this way: tell me where sue said that they have equal evidence. The quote you provided does not in any way assert that position.
- Hans Georg Lundahl
- @christopherparks2987 But imply it.
If you say a Hindu has as much evidence to challenge a Christian with as a Christian to challenge a Hindu or an Atheist, you imply that Hinduism has about as much evidence for itself as Christianity.
Do you understand what the word "imply" means?
- Christopher Parks
- @hglundahl that isn’t what she said, though. She isn’t saying anything about evidence. You are constructing an argument that she did not make.
- Hans Georg Lundahl
- @christopherparks2987 I am sorry but in context she was commenting on the exact argument of evidence which ought to convince anyone honestly enquiring AND she claimed a Hindu or anyone other than a Christian could make the exact argument.
That DOES add up to a remark about the evidence, it's not my fault if you pretend to be obtuse or (not my priority hypothesis) if you really are.
- Christopher Parks
- @hglundahl Emma: he just made a strawman of an atheist and is pretending that Christianity is infallible and obvious which is silly because any Hindu or Muslim could say the same thing to a Christian.
You: she just said all religions have equal evidence.
You are still misrepresenting her argument and attempting to slight my comprehension because I refuse to pretend that your strawman is what Emma actually said.
- Hans Georg Lundahl
- @christopherparks2987 "pretending that Christianity is infallible and obvious which is silly because any Hindu or Muslim could say the same thing to a Christian."
If it is silly, it's because they have equal (roughly speaking) evidence for their specifically religious positions.
No, I am not strawmanning Emma.
If any has radically better evidence, for the religious positions, that makes Emma's comment meaningless, i e, she implied very strictly, and this is not a strawman, that Hindus and Christians have roughly speaking equal evidence for the religious positions.
- Christopher Parks
- @hglundahl This guy was pretending that the only reason people aren’t Christian is because they are rejecting an obvious and infallible truth. She is saying that this is not a compelling argument as any religious person could say the same. That doesn’t imply that they have equal evidence in any way. What she is saying is that there is no religion nor religious belief that is infallible and obvious.
She is not in any way saying the evidence is equal. It’s not simple misunderstanding at this point. You’re being dishonest now.
- Hans Georg Lundahl
- @christopherparks2987 "She is saying that this is not a compelling argument as any religious person could say the same"
The problem with this is, what someone could say does not equal what someone could back up in argument.
So, you admit she actually said any religious person of a non-Christian religion could say the same, and the only conceivable point she could make about that is if she implied any non-Christian person could back as much up in argument.
To deny she implied what I said she implied means to make her argument pointless.
- Christopher Parks
- @hglundahl yeah, she’s saying that none of them are infallible and obviously true. She is not saying they have equally compelling evidence.
How are you not understanding this?
- Hans Georg Lundahl
- @christopherparks2987 How are YOU not understanding that "none" for both = "equal"?
@christopherparks2987 Or in other words, do you deny that she claimed, that any argument I could use to refute "compelling" evidence for Hinduism, she could equally use to refute such for Christianity?
- Christopher Parks
- @hglundahl she did not make that claim, nor did she claim that all of them have “none” evidence.
Stop trying to twist her words into the message you want it to be. You are wrong.
- Hans Georg Lundahl
- @christopherparks2987 Stop trying to show me wrong when I am right.
And stop equating claims about implication with claims about verbatim claims.
- TheNinthGeneration
- Basically, if you changed the name of the god in the argument, you’d have a fundamentally similar argument. This is because all religions have the same kind of evidence, people who believe in old writings and conclude that there must be some kind of higher power for our universe to work therefore it must be the one(s) they already believe in.
- Hans Georg Lundahl
- @TheNinthGenerarion "This is because all religions have the same kind of evidence,"
Do they?
"people who believe in old writings"
Even most atheists do when it comes to non-religious propositions.
The difference is, do the old writings support the religious claims if taken to be true? I can't believe the Gospels are historical, without believing Jesus is God. But I can believe Mahabharata is historical without believing Krishna or Shiva are gods - Krishna can well have been a man, and Shiva was arguably a manifestation of a demon, given that he made Arjuna a great warrior, but also a very lousy husband to poor Draupadi.
- TheNinthGeneration
- @hglundahl there are versions of Hinduism that have a monotheistic deity just like your own, as well as millions of other deities, and their texts are far older than your bible. It’s also possible to take the books as metaphorical instead of literal, the way the ancient Israelites did, instead of killing the text. At most one of them can be read as reality, many other origins even have primordial eggs like the Slavics. Where is Christianity’s egg?
All theistic mythologies (and the religions based on them) have deities or some other omnipotent force who creates the world. You also completely forgot about Brahma, the god who made the universe out of himself, while Vishnu preserves it and us with their power. A human cannot preserve the universe in that way, there are many more gods you are unaware of, including the first man in the Malagasy religion, Andriambahomanana, whose also a moon deity. His wife is named Andriamahiala. Though I do have one question about your own mythology, do you also believe in Lilith, the first woman?
As for atheist writings, what specifically are you referring to? Are you referring to scientific theories and laws? Those have evidence that supports them, with new ways to verify and collect the evidence being discovered every day. Unlike religion, we measure the world and make ideas based off of it. Though, not all atheists believe in scientific theories, you can believe in supernatural things without also believing in a god.
- Hans Georg Lundahl
- @TheNinthGenerarion "there are versions of Hinduism that have a monotheistic deity just like your own,"
I have heard that Brahmo Somaj is a fairly recent version of Hinduism.
"as well as millions of other deities,"
That's another story. Here the difference isn't so much on whether some spirits bring rain to where it needs to be, but whether such spirits should be worshipped or not.
"and their texts are far older than your bible."
No. Mahabharata and Ramayana are considered to have been orally transmitted since Vyasa, not far from the events of Mahabharata (OK, not sure if Ramayana is also said to be by Vyasa), but that claim is very hard to check. They have not been written down before the Dead Sea scrolls, and arguably even a lot later.
Here is a comment on, not a writing down, but a writing down of a content list:
The Spitzer Manuscript was found near the northern branch of the Central Asian Silk Road.[10] It is unique in a number of ways. Unlike numerous Indian manuscripts whose copies survive as early translations in Tibet and China, no such translations of the treatises within the Spitzer Manuscript have been found so far.[8] The manuscript fragments are actually copies of a collection of older Buddhist and Hindu treatises.[8] Sections of Buddhist treatises constitute the largest part of the Spitzer Manuscript. They include verses on a number of Buddhist philosophies and a debate on the nature of Dukkha and the Four Noble Truths. The Hindu portions[citation needed] include treatises from the Nyaya-Vaiśeṣika[citation needed], Tarkasatra (treatise on rhetoric and proper means to debate) and one of the earliest dateable table of content sequentially listing the parva (books) of the Mahabharata, along with numerals after each parva. This list does not include Anusasanaparvan and Virataparvan.
It's from c. 1st C. AD.
"It’s also possible to take the books as metaphorical instead of literal,"
Which highly reduces their value as evidence.
"the way the ancient Israelites did, instead of killing the text."
Your source for that being what ancient Israelites did being?
"At most one of them can be read as reality, many other origins even have primordial eggs like the Slavics. Where is Christianity’s egg?"
If I did not believe Christianity, I might believe a primordial egg. You said Slavics? I already knew of Orphics and one version from China.
I do believe Christianity and I believe Genesis 1 because I believe Christianity. But the Gospel is far better evidenced than any version of ultimate origins.
"All theistic mythologies (and the religions based on them) have deities or some other omnipotent force who creates the world."
And Christianity has evidence for Him:- in memories of Adam and Noah preserved in Genesis
- in the calling of Abraham and the events of ensuing generations
- in the Exodus
- in Jesus from Nazareth, claiming with clear implication to be He and substantiating the claim by rising from the dead.
"You also completely forgot about Brahma, the god who made the universe out of himself, while Vishnu preserves it and us with their power. A human cannot preserve the universe in that way,"
A God who preserves us can however become human.
Hindu's claim, Krishna is Vishnu as human. The life of Krishna in the Mahabharata does not substantiate this claim made for him (and apart from Bhagavadgita, I am not aware that he made it for himself). Christians claim, Jesus is Adonai as human. His healing miracles, raisings of dead, mastery of elements, control of natural processes He could speed up to instantaneous AND His resurrection substantiate that claim.
"there are many more gods you are unaware of, including the first man in the Malagasy religion, Andriambahomanana, whose also a moon deity. His wife is named Andriamahiala."
And their evidence for the first man becoming a moon god is?
"Though I do have one question about your own mythology, do you also believe in Lilith, the first woman?"
I believe there is a demon called Lilith. I do not believe the Talmudic invention she was "Adam's first wife" ... hence, no, she was not the first woman.
"As for atheist writings, what specifically are you referring to?"
I didn't mention atheist writings. I mentioned Atheists believe in old writings when the subject is not religious. Atheists believe there was a battle at Kadesh, between Egypt and the Hittites. Or that Julius Caesar took whatever of Gaul was not yet Roman, up to BeNeLux. So do I - from old writings.
14:30 "the morals of thousand of years ago ... extremely outdated in today's society"
Even if I weren't a convinced Christian, I would be very worried about people imagining themselves as updating morality ... for one thing, that's a contradiction in terms. Since morality is what should be done for its own sake and not to achieve some other result, unrelated except as means to end, it's about the correct ends. You can update means, like means of transport and communication.
You cannot update that communication is supposed to be about spreading truth and not deliberately lying.
You also cannot update jokes except ones that are very context dependent.
The Oldest Joke: Is Humor Timeless?
TREY the Explainer, 22 June 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HJH6C0yp2I
14:01 Convicted is a technical term in certain semi-Christian views about how salvation happens on the subjective side (like versions of Calvinism, perhaps all Calvinism, probably other than just Calvinism ...)
On those views "someone is convicted" = God has forced him to face evidence he is (doing or in this case believing) wrong and will have to answer for it.
On the Catholic view, being in this sense "convicted" is not necessary to be saved, any more than having been in personal moirtal sin is.
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