Barry Lyons
4 min readDec 23, 2019

--

  1. Evidence would be something that exists outside of the Bible. Let’s say you had a biography of Beethoven. Is that biography by itself and on its own evidence that Beethoven existed? No, it is not. Evidence would exist outside of the biography: the manuscript scores, the contemporary music reviews, the letters to friends and other composers, etc. So what evidence is there outside of the Bible to show that an Unseen Celestial Being created the Universe? There isn’t any. To cite a passage from the Bible is nothing more than saying “The Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true.” That’s called circular thinking.
  2. Science can change in light of new information. Scientists are always eager to accept new information that could potentially toss aside older ideas. Yes, what’s true today could change in light of new information. That’s exactly how science proceeds and grows. If evidence emerges that Earth has existed for less than 10,000 years, scientists will gladly accept that evidence. Why wouldn’t they? Evidence is evidence! In the meantime, the world’s oldest musical instrument (a flute made from bone) is about 40,000 years old.
  3. I never said carbon is enough for life, but carbon is certainly an aspect of life. Nobody knows how life emerged. There are several hypotheses. You can explore them yourself if you’re interested. Just do a search for “abiogenesis” and you’ll come across a ton of stuff. Here’s good essay that examines some ideas.
  4. Seeing that you’re so vexed about the idea of morality existing without a god, you could always read The Moral Animal by Robert Wright. It’s an excellent introduction to the subject. In the meantime, the onus is on you to show that our moral proclivities can be traced back to a supernatural cause. There’s no evidence to support this claim. You might tell me again that xyz can’t exist without god, but telling me this isn’t the same as presenting evidence.
  5. The errors and lack of logic are wholly yours: You keep assuming that a god is responsible for everything, not just our moral behavior. “It can’t happen without God.” That appears to be your standard response. You have no evidence to support this assertion. Hence your lack of logic here because no logical “equation” has been provided by you to support your contention that some Unseen God is responsible for everything.
  6. How do I know the Jonah story is fiction? Easy: Any human being would experience asphyxiation if such a person were enclosed inside an animal. What’s fascinating here is that you want to believe this inane Jonah story. Never mind that you do believe the Jonah story is true. That’s not what interests me here. What interests me is that you want to believe this story. Note the difference: between that which you believe from that which you want to believe. What you believe and what you want to believe are two different things. You want to believe in Hell. You want to believe in “angels” (I presume). You want to believe in “sin” (I presume). Once again, my point here isn’t that you do believe in these things, it’s that you want to believe in them. Why anyone wants to believe that a certain person lived inside an aquatic creature when it’s easy to understand that no such event could ever occur is baffling.
  7. You’re dodging my point, which, again, is this: if a Celestial Being were to create a place of torture, it logically follows that the Being intends to put that place to use. Hence the reason why this atrocious Abrahamic God is a psychopath. It’s an obscene idea, of course, but, thankfully, this idea of People Roasting in a Fiery Place Forever is just something that some humans invented. “Hell” does exist but only in the minds of people who want to believe in it. Ah, see my use of “want” again? It’s not so much that believers believe in Hell, they want to believe Hell exists. Fascinating, to quote Mr. Spock.
  8. You keep dovetailing back to morality being objective when there is no evidence for this belief. Morality is an “emergent property” of evolution. If you were to read Robert Wright’s book (I suspect that you won’t) you will begin to get an idea of how moral feelings and actions, such as altruism, could arise or emerge without the alleged assistance of a Supernatural Lawgiver who has supposedly handed us rules of behavior. Hint: Certain animals other than humans — and, of course, humans are animals (we’re apes)— exhibit a low level degree of moral behavior. Some animals are known to be altruistic, and some animals will even help others of other species. Why is that? The answer has all to do with evolution.
  9. My Satan question is a fun one for believers. If Satan is said to be The Great Deceiver, well, how do you know that everything you associate to be good and important about following Jesus blah blah isn’t just a clever ruse by Satan? You don’t know, of course. But to make your life easier, just stop believing in Satan and Hell and accept them for the fictions that they are. I like this guy’s tweet:

When all is said and done, the conflict between people who believe in God (and the attendant ideas: sin, angels, souls, risen corpses, Heaven, Hell, etc.) and those who don’t forever rests with the inability of believers to substantiate their claims. God created the Universe! Humans have souls! Heaven and Hell exist! To which nonbelievers forever ask: What’s your evidence for that? They never provide any. They only and always fall back on telling us what they believe. If I believe that fairies live in my garden, and if I believe this with all the strength and conviction that I can muster, then it must be true! Gee, I had no idea.

--

--

Barry Lyons
Barry Lyons

Written by Barry Lyons

Lives in New York City, owns too many books and CDs. But then again, there's no such thing as "too many" books and CDs.

Responses (1)