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[Stupid]

The terrible logic of apologetics.

If you accept any claim as being real until proven false, then you must accept all other gods that have been invented as being just as real as yours.

Do you accept this?

> I just told you: the debate about whether or not good exists is not a philosophical one. This is not about an idea, this is about a thing.

Empirical evidence is all that matters, regardless of your mental gymnastics

Sorry, but you don’t get to refer to your claim when attempting to validate it.. the only source that states god ever revealed itself to anyone is the Bible itself, so that’s no good as evidence that it actually happened.

Like it or not, your burdens are as follows:

Prove the supernatural exists

Then

Prove any god exists

Then

Prove that god is the god of the bible

Then

Prove that the shit in the bible actually happened.

That is a long list, good luck with that lmao

[jimwalton]

You are under the delusion that theology is deductive reasoning, which it is not. Theology is most accurately abductive reasoning. It's not possible to deductively prove theological truths, which is what you are trying to make my burden. It's a false approach, not matching the correct means to the question at hand.

> If you accept any claim as being real until proven false, then you must accept all other gods that have been invented as being just as real as yours.

This is where reasoning comes in. If we start on a neutral plane, which is the only non-biased way to begin, then we start to examine the evidence and the logic for the position. After the data collection and reasoning process, we are able to discount certain religious beliefs as being implausible and others as being possible. Further weighing of data and evidences narrows the field until we reach a point where we are able to infer the most reasonable conclusion.

> Empirical evidence is all that matters, regardless of your mental gymnastics

I'm sorry, but my mind just isn't that small. There are many methods to gather truth, and empirical evidence is just one of them. Tell me, is a photograph of Vincent VaGogh or his painted self-portrait a more accurate rendering of his personality? If you can use only empirical evidence, you have nowhere to go. Is Shakespeare's Hamlet an accurate rendering of the human psyche in self-doubt? Is the U.S. immigration policy just? Can you solve Hadamard's conjecture empirically? Can you evaluate the statement "Empirical evidence is all that matters" empirically? You can't even evaluate your own thesis empirically. Your case is self-defeating.

> Prove the supernatural exists.

As I said, we deal in probabilities, not in proofs. Theology is not deductive. Deductive reasoning has limited application because for it to work you have to have premises that are verifiably true. Most of the things we have in life cannot be placed in a deductive process.

But there are evidences of the supernatural. Millennia of theists have experienced supernatural phenomena. Human history is replete with stories of visions, angelic visitations, spectral phenomena, and supernatural occurrences. The weight of empirical evidence is in favor of supernaturalism. What is your rebuttal?

> Prove any god exists.

Again, we deal in logic and evidences, not proofs. There are logical arguments for the existence of God (cosmological, teleological, analogical, ontological, and others); there are scientific evidences for the existence of God (fine tuning, purpose, design); and there are experiential testimonies by the billions of God's existence. And what is your rebuttal?

> Prove that God is the God of the Bible

Here we weigh the evidence to infer the most reasonable conclusion. We examine the claims, consistency, corroboration, and conformity to reality of the other religions along with Christianity. We see what is true to life and has evidence to back it up. And we conclude what is plausible against what is less reasonable.

> Prove that the stuff in the Bible actually happened

Well, the historical stuff is easy to prove. There are thousands of corroborations of the historical information in the Bible. Its theological perspective is impossible to prove. It's not in the realm of the deductive.

Remember it's not only the actual that is real. Possibilities are real. It is possible that I was wearing blue jeans today, and that it is a real possibility. It is possible that I'm a Democrat. It is not only the actual that is real.

You're probably talking about the miracles in the Bible, however. Certainly you know that the miracles are like a pebble dropped in a stream. They give evidence to the eyewitnesses, but there is no lasting material evidence that they ever happened. I had hiccups last week, but I can't prove it. I forgave a friend last Saturday; I can't prove that either. There is no lasting material evidence of such events. Jesus walking on the water was witnessed by only 12 men. There is no proof of it except the reliability of their testimony. We have to weigh its plausibility by the reliability of the witnesses. There is no philosophical argument or scientific experiment that conclusively disproves the possibility of miracles. Scientifically speaking, the odds of certain miracles occurring (such as the resurrection) may be infinity to one, but theologically speaking they are x:x (unknown to unknown). Miracles are outside of the scope of probability calculations.