You can’t prove anything to be definitively true. Materialism especially.

Your worldview is just as unporven.

Thank you for demonstrating you are not here for a rational conversation. Now everyone knows why you’re here.

Goodbye.

You can’t make anything true through argument. Spiritualism has a burden of proof that has never been met. There are no excuses for this, and until you can meet that burden, there is no further discussion to be had.

Much of the church’s insistence that there has to be a god to explain things is based on Aristotle. He gave them the tools to construct logical constructs in which faulty assumptions about reality are used to say “I want there to be a god, therefore this thought process is all the proof I need.” For example, Aquinas’ “Five Ways” are a classic demonstration of how to misuse Aristotlean physics to justify belief in a god.

I’m definitely not going to debate philosophy with you. It’s a waste of time.

I will continue to challenge the validity of spiritual thinking until such time as anyone can objectively demonstrate the existence of anything spiritual. I will follow the evidence, and complaints about how evidence doesn’t allow for spiritual answers just reaffirm the conclusion that it’s not based on reality. It’s just an irrational perspective with no basis beyond wishful or magical thinking.

How is a religious experience not a physical phenomenon? Define it for me, please, with sources where possible. How did you eliminate brain activity, such as with the god helmet?

The Greek tradition of physics that Christianity adopted was established by Aristotle, not Epicurus. If they’d chosen to follow the evidence instead of inference, the world would look very different today. You can’t think anything into existence the way Aristotle proposed. He had good ideas, but his approach to physics was completely wrong.

That’s because we’re conditioned to turn to religious explanations when we don’t understand, and that’s fallacious thinking. It’s called the argument from ignorance.

At no point at any time in all of history has a religious answer to physical phenomenon been validated as the correct answer. It has been accepted as the default assumption because of the dominance of religion in society, but that doesn’t make the answer true. No answer is true just because it’s popular or traditional.

I don’t have an account. I simply don’t believe theirs. You can’t use “I don’t know” to then say “therefore this is the answer.”

What miracles? What supernatural?

These are all things we don’t understand. They literally mean we don’t know how or why things happened the way they did. You can’t use “I don’t know” to claim you therefore know the answer.

When someone claims a god is responsible, the only appropriate response is “how do you know that?” When the answer comes back “what else could it be?” I respond with “literally anything else.” They must still meet their burden of proof before they can claim victory for their answer.

I was fortunate that my father was still agnostic at the time and wouldn’t allow my mother to force me to church after I decided I wasn’t going. He later converted after he was diagnosed with cancer, so had that happened earlier, I probably would have been shit out of luck.

As it was, my mother still harassed me for years after, until I finally cut contact.

They know. I stopped attending church in my teens, and my mother never stopped looking for opportunities to re-convert me. I no longer take her calls.

If you don’t have anything to offer, don’t waste my time. I’m not interested in someone else’s explanation, and I know the definition. I want to see how you justify the claim. I’ll bet a thousand dollars cash that you can’t back it up. I’m confident in making that bet because if you could, you’d be the first.

Okay, I’m listening. Show me the evidence. Explain the supernatural to me.

Why would I be interested in alien ghost stories? Cattle mutilation and alien abduction aren’t credible examples of the supernatural.

I’ll believe anything you tell me, including gods and magic, as long as you can present evidence appropriate to your claim. Anyone who wants me to believe what they’re saying about anything divine or supernatural had better be able to back it up, or else I’m going to laugh in their face.

To record their version of “truth.” There was no distinction between fact and fiction, they were written to establish the “official” history with the political and religious (again, no distinction) agenda they wanted people to follow. The idea that history should involve accurate facts of what actually happened is a relatively new phenomenon in human culture.

Did the people of the time understand that nuance? I honestly don’t know. I assume most of the uneducated masses didn’t, which is why the elites wrote that way.

Right. I don’t believe is my position as an atheist. I don’t know is why.

How is this so difficult for you?

That’s pretty weak tea, especially considering how so many Christians (but not all, I know) insist that Jesus and Yahweh are the same person, just different aspects.

Sure, but the text claims he was already dead by that point. So we’re back to my original claim.

You’re using the modified definition of “agnostic” that believers favor. We have no reason to accept that.

“Agnostic” literally means “I don’t know.” “Atheist” means “I don’t believe.” I don’t know that gods are real, and I have no reason to believe they do.

No faith required.

When it comes to the Christian God, that’s easy.

https://biblehub.com/judges/1-19.htm

The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had chariots fitted with iron.

https://biblehub.com/1_kings/6-7.htm

In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.

While the Bible never says what was used to fix Jesus to the cross, tradition says it was three iron nails. There are two reasons why the account of the crucifixion is atypical of normal Roman executions: first of all, they didn’t usually waste good iron nailing victims to their crosses. They tied them to the posts. Secondly, crucifixion victims normally took days to die of dehydration and suffocation, which is why the Romans did it that way. But Jesus allegedly died in hours, not days.

So clearly, Yahweh has a weakness to iron. I fear no gods I know how to kill.

Religious indoctrination doesn’t promote progress:

This paper studies when religion can hamper diffusion of knowledge and economic development, and through which mechanism. I examine Catholicism in France during the Second Industrial Revolution (1870–1914). In this period, technology became skill-intensive, leading to the introduction of technical education in primary schools. I find that more religious locations had lower economic development after 1870. Schooling appears to be the key mechanism: more religious areas saw a slower adoption of the technical curriculum and a push for religious education. In turn, religious education was negatively associated with industrial development 10 to 15 years later, when schoolchildren entered the labor market.