Atheism - Rant 1

I have a confession. I doubt this comes as a shock, or even a surprise to any of you, in fact I don't even think many of you didn't already know this, but I am an atheist. In fact I would go as far as calling myself an anti-theist, seeing as I not only disagree with religion, but find the entire concept butt-clenchingly dishonest, arrogant and repugnant. Don't let that stop you from believing though. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but everyone is NOT entitled to their own facts, which is why you might want to take my opinion into consideration even if you can feel the love of God before you go to sleep at night, every night, and can't wait until you will finally meet him in Heaven.

 

Anyway, being an anti-theist comes with a few perks, as well as a few disadvantages. You get to be fascinated by knowledge and debate, but conversely you get to debate complete and utter morons. Now before I offend you, if you are indeed a moron, stop being a moron (unless you enjoy being a moron), and if you are not a moron, then you have no reason to be offended. In fact if you are indeed a moron, I am glad I offended you, but you have no reason to be offended seeing as you will at no point admit to being a moron, even if you were one, and again, if you weren't, you wouldn't be offended. So I guess we can conclude that I am pretty much covered in terms of not being accountable for the level of offence you may take by reading what I am writing. Obviously the previous analysis applies to me as well (for all I know I may very well be a moron, if that is of any comfort to you).

Now one of these morons, which we have agreed that neither of us are, I managed to stumble upon on YouTube, because I like browsing the controversial God-loving videos on the Internet to debunk morons (sometimes mormons, but I save time by removing a letter and just shoving them under the more accessible word "moron" - it means more or less the same thing anyway, although technically a mormon is always a moron, even though a moron is not always a mormon, so pardon my generalisation). One of the common arguments is that because we have no reliable or signed accounts of Gaius Julius Caesar (the Roman guy who beat up Vercingetorix of Gaul), and we freely accept said guy's existence, the same applies for the existence of Jesus Christ (the gay Jewish rabbi that nobody is willing to admit is gay, not that there is anything wrong with being gay ... unless you are God, how ironic). Well the problem is ... no, that wouldn't necessarily justify the claim that God incarnate (Jesus) existed, but luckily we do have signed copies and contemporary documentation and evidence of the existence of Gaius Julius Caesar, so problem averted.

If you want, now that I am done insulting you (if you are indeed a believer), you can read my conversation with this moron. I included his last argument, and my response (which was kind of long so I had to make several comments and fill in the captcha multiple times). I thought it was pretty well written, and I hope you like it. Who knows, it might even make you think for a brief moment before going back to the more comfortable state of existence that is being thought-free and filled with divine purpose. OK, now I am done insulting you, sorry for lying the first time. Here's a link to the video whose comments the conversation can be found in, not that I watched the video before commenting, or that the identity of the video is relevant to the argument below.

Can you still be an Atheist after watching this? Overwhelming Evidence for Jesus Christ!



"Do we have any copies of Caesar's "Gallic War" or "Civil War" that are signed? I bet you believe that Caesar conquered Gaul and Pompeii despite that fact. Many things that Paul says about Jesus pass all the criteria of historical investigation: contextual credibility, independent verification, and dissimilarity. Paul met with Peter in Jerusalem in about 36. Paul met Jesus' brother there. So Paul met Jesus' closest disciple and his brother only a few years after his death. That is evidence!"
- mandalago18 in reply to Alexiaden93 (show comment) 17 hours ago.

"Caesar never wrote a book called "Gallic War", that's just the war he waged at some point in his life. You are most likely looking for "Commentarii de Bello Gallico" which was written by him (Julius Caesar), and the last part was written by Aulus Hirtius. Especially in Caesar's case, we have massive amounts of contemporary evidence, including especially archaeological findings that all point to the events written in the books. Extremely many events in the Bible are indeed very questionable.
     To answer your question, ignoring your false premise (the names you cited are wrong), yes we do have signed copies. Not only are these books commonly referred to by other Roman scholars (in the same era, during Caesar's life), but the events themselves are widely documented both by literature and archaeology. Not only that, but these events do not claim to be inspired by God, nor do they describe any supernatural occurrences. As such, we wouldn't even need much evidence to accept them as valid.
     Now, as soon as a book claims to contain information that is impossible with our view of the world, we need to be far more critical and skeptical, and I assume you would agree. If you find a diary saying "Today I ate two sandwiches", you would accept it provisionally, given your view of the universe, but if you read another diary saying "Today I made a house levitate with nothing but my mind", the evidence for the event required to accept the text as fact, would be multiplied.
     Not only would you want to see if other people described this event, and maybe you would try to look for more objective sources such as archaeological finds, but even this would not be enough. You know as a human being in the 21st century that people claim to witness extraordinary events ALL THE TIME. People levitate, people rise from the dead (including Elvis Presley according to some), in fact levitation is easy to reproduce with illusion.
     Now the odd part is that you agree with me. You frequently reject claims to supernatural power even if they use exactly the same arguments as you do for the resurrection of Christ and the fulfilment of prophecies. You reject these claims even if they are more heavily documented than your Biblical claims. The only difference is your confirmation bias when it comes to things that confirm your faith in the God of Christianity.
     And it is for this reason, and I assume you have enough reason to understand this reason, that you are even more gullible than the masses of people who willingly buy into all the crap on paranormality and supernatural powers. At least these people have witnessed the events with their own eyes. All you have is some irrational confirmation bias when it comes to the Bible, and the same attitude as I have towards your faith, towards other faiths (you don't believe in the Quran).
     When you start questioning your own faith for once, and put things into perspective, once you realise how many people have exactly the same level of conviction as you, with completely contradictory religions, perhaps with even better arguments, and you still do not accept their religious views as being valid or accurate. When you realise what an intellectually dishonest life you are living, and how much you sacrifice knowledge at the whims of your emotions.
     When you go through this quest for knowledge and certainty, and intellectual honesty, you might be lucky enough to laugh at your own past, give up your irrational beliefs, and move on as an honest human being. Until then, have fun living your deluded, discriminatory, gullible, arrogant, intellectually dishonest, pointless life among the rest of the flock. I "PRAY" you will find the light of reason."
- Alexiaden93 in reply to mandalago18 (show comment) 1 hour ago