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The Jesus dvd and rationality?

Sun, 2009-06-14 20:33 — TRUTHSEARCHER
Question:: 
First, I would like to know about this dvd that is claiming that Jesus never existed? I don't want to waste money on buying it but I would be interested in seeing what it has to say. And i'm not about to submit a video that would ruin my chance for a possible place in eternity for a dvd, so another way to get the dvd would be nice. But beside that, I had a question about the whole blasphemy challenge and the rationality behind it all. Hypothetical question, i guess. Jesus is God or He isn't. So if you are athiest you still have a probability that if you are wrong about there not being a God you would still have a 50 percent change to still have eternal life. If there is no God then it wouldn't matter anyways. So if there is a God and you still had that 50 percent chance to still have eternity you have apparently just screwed yourself, making your once 50 percent to know 100, if the verse quoted on the site is interpreted right. I really hope it was interpreted wrong because I would want you to still have that 50 percent chance. So doing the blasphemy challenge, to me at least, seems like a pretty unrational thing to do. And about the Jesus thing. Do you athiests use science to prove everything about the universe and everything in it. If so how would you prove Jesus, or any other person in history that is now gone. I mean you can't prove scientifically that someone existed. That's why I wanted to know what the video was all about. I have a lot of other questions that would make this way to long so i'll leave you with that. Like I said earlier, I hope the whole blasphemy being an eternal sin isn't right. I would say pray but you wouldn't care as much that way, or would you? Are you offended by prayer? Sorry, i'll stop asking questions. Thanks!
Atheist Answer: 

You're talking about The God Who Wasn't There. It goes past atheism, which merely denies the resurrection as improbable without the existence of God, and examines all the documentation presented as evidence for even a historical man named Jesus.

The idea is to question all the unspoken assumptions that most Christian apologists make when arguing for the resurrection; it's easier for them to start with a real man than from scratch, but are they justified in doing so? I haven't seen the film either so I can't comment on its efficacy, but even if it falls flat it asks questions worth asking.

It's impossible to prove 100% that the deceased existed without physical evidence, human remains for example, but there are other ways to support it. Take the Roman emperors for example: their names and faces are on statues, busts and coins created during their lifetimes, and are visually consistent. Jesus has nothing like this; his only support is a set of documents, chief among them the Gospels, and the first of which were written well after his death. This is why these are so ferociously defended, but they are not above criticism and that's where the movie starts.

Your argument against the Blasphemy Challenge is exactly the reason why it exists, because you've restated Pascal's Wager with its major inherent flaw intact.

Here's the core of the problem: even if atheists are wrong, Christians are not necessarily right. If there is indeed a god, out of the thousands of gods humans have worshipped and the infinite number of gods we haven't even thought of yet, the chances that the real god is the Christian god exactly as described are not just miniscule but negligible.

By throwing in with any god, including Him, one has a far greater chance of offending some other god who happens to be the real one, and being forced to explain one's worship of a popular, well-liked but still false god. Atheists wouldn't have that problem, and might even receive credit for combating belief in false gods.

Even if the probability that there is a god and a Heaven is 0.5, you must multiply that by the probability given the assumption of a god that it's your particular one. To reach that 50 percent you mention, the second bit would have to be a certainty, and it is not. If there are just two other possible gods, then by worshipping yours you have a 1 in 6 chance of Heaven and a 1 in 3 chance of Hell. In fact there are an infinite number, so you're even worse off.

Taking the Blasphemy Challenge, therefore, is not a reckless act. It publicises one's acceptance that Christianity is a poor choice, and there is nothing to fear from renouncing it in what's intended to be an irreversible way.

I'm not offended by prayer, because I think it has no effect except a psychological one, and it mostly affects the praying person anyway.

This is a site built for answering questions, so go ahead and make more questions for us. If you have responses to the above, post a comment under this one. Keep in mind that formatting doesn't work in the question field, so it pays to keep new questions short.

- SmartLX

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Mon, 2009-06-15 11:36 — TRUTHSEARCHER

Sorry, I wasn't meaning for

Sorry, I wasn't meaning for those percentage to mean exact ones. I was just saying you just lost that percent, whatever it may be.

How can I get that dvd. I am interested in what it has to say, can you download it anywhere?

Why does the Islam religion believe Jesus existed? Wouldn't it just be easier for them to say that he never existed instead of adopting them into their religion?

Can you explain how morals are products of natural selection?

My last question is about Evolution, yay! Ok, I totally believe the macro part but when it gets to micro it just doesn't jive with me. Now I hear people say all the time that this process is not random, only small bits are random. The problem is Science says that everything started from randomness and according to entropy it only gets more disordered. So, just explain this random/non-random ordeal? Thanks again.

Mon, 2009-06-15 18:27 — SmartLX

TS

Hi TS.

I know you didn't mean the probabilities to be exact, but it doesn't change my point. Atheists give up the chance of picking the real god, if any, but they give up a much greater chance of picking the wrong god and incurring the full wrath of the real god, if any. It's like pulling out of a demolition derby because one's more likely to crash and die than to win.

If you really want, you can google "The God Who Wasn't There" and get a pirate copy or watch it online for free, though you'd be breaking a commandment. The promotion that gave free DVDs to those who took the Blasphemy Challenge is long gone. The only honest way to get the thing is to buy a genuine DVD from the source.

I've covered your other questions before, if you care to have a look through Recent Posts. I'll answer them briefly anyway.

Muslims denying Jesus existed would be like Christians denying Moses existed. The Quran follows on from the New Testament the same way that follows on from the Old Testament. It's not about what's easier for them. They must adhere to their dogma and their scriptures, and much of both overlaps with yours.

Natural selection favours any feature or behaviour which helps a creature to live longer, survive better and breed more. Our ancestors who looked after the needs of others as well as their own were well liked, so they got along more easily without having to fight others so much. This has happened for millions of years since primates first became social animals, so the urge to help others was reinforced and eventually became an instinct. Our morals today are far more codified than our basic empathetic instincts, but we made them because they encourage what we feel on a primal level is a good way to behave.

Not everything gets more random and disordered as time goes on. Entropy in a complete closed system can only increase, but within that system you can have decreases in local entropy, and therefore increases in local order. The Sun generates vast amounts of entropy as it generates its energy (it runs on explosions, after all) and sends some of the energy our way. This makes it part of our closed system. It does not therefore contradict the Second Law of Thermodynamics for order to increase on Earth, because it's balanced out by the Sun.

To address randomness directly, mutations are random and they can be beneficial, harmful or ineffectual. Natural selection causes the beneficial mutations to be passed on more than the other two, which is the non-random part of the process. It's like rolling thousands of dice and then keeping only the ones which come up fives and sixes in the hope of getting higher scores next time. Random action, then non-random action.