The Nazareth Question Heats up

excavation in 1999

December of 2010 I did a piece updating a controversy from the early days (late 90s) of my apologetical life: the question of Nazareth as inhabited in the time of Christ. Of cousre the mythers say no. The Pfan excavation, which they had been sighting as documentation for their view (it was going around big time, every message board had posts on the mythers using Pfan excavation. I'm the who actually got hold of the guy to find his findings and who read his article to see they were misquoting him. Now a new gang is saying his findings were no good (now that they know he doesn't back them).

my most recent article on this topic, both on the Religious a prori and on Atheist watch is found here. My oldest article is on Doxa.

I recieved a comment to that old post from 2010:

Anne Carly Abad says:

I read this article about Nazareth: http://www.nazarethmyth.info/naz3article.html

And the author debunks the dating of some of Pfann's findings, claiming "It consists of eleven small pieces of pottery—shards to which the NVF scholars assign an early date but which the standard textbook dates as late as the second century CE. In other words, the NVF scholars were choosing arbitrarily early dates for a few objects, and resting their Jesus-case on what amounts to mere preference. Significantly, in my book I show that the rest of the material from the Nazareth basin dates after the time of Jesus. So, an early dating for the NVF objects in question is not consistent with the evidentiary profile for the area."

What is your take on this?

Looking at the sight she documents this is one of the most biased pro-myther sights.

Nazarethmyth Home

The Nazareth QUIZ

Mythicist Papers
Resources for the study of Christian origins

(American Atheist, January 2009. Used with permission.)

an article entitaled "Nazareth, Faith, and the dark option an update:"

By René Salm

American Atheist has always championed the no-nonsense view of religion, and readers may note with a certain pride that this magazine has now emerged as a leading—if not the leading—advocate for the wholesale revision of Christian beginnings. Atheists have never shirked the challenge to take on the goliath of establishment Christianity, and today that challenge must include the controversial archaeology of Nazareth, which Frank Zindler has called “the Achilles’ heel of a popular god.” Readers will recall two articles in previous American Atheist issues on this topic [1], articles which preview and alert readers to my recent book, The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (American Atheist Press, March 2008). The opposition has now responded with the literary equivalent of a scream, and I’d like readers to know that the popular Christian god is in a heap of trouble and may be teetering.

How is that for strident? There's no question these guys are in a war, they fighting an evil enemy, they are the good guys (or course) they have the truth. It's pretty clear from their article that their real arguments revolves around commercial interest who seek to make money off of the "Jesus home town" thing. That has nothing to do with Pfan's excavation. If you look at the history of this site these same guys have been spewing the same propaganda for years. they have produced a mounds of lies about it. Most of the Google picks are from these sites, the same people the same lies. They are all basically filling in the data for the two major atheist authors, Rene Salm, The Myth of Nazareth And Frank Zindler. Zindler is is currently the editor of American Atheist Magazine and Director of American Atheist Press. A member of scientific organizations such as New York Academy of Science. No indication he has any degree in Archeology. I am not able to find any credentials for Salm. The best article I've found defending the idea of habitation in the time of Christ, and arguing specifically against the original work of Zindler and Salm is an article on an apologetic site by a Kyle Butt. I'll come back to him latter in this article.

They always ignore the previous findings, they never reveal that they first used Pfan as their own before they understood him. They pretend the pot shards are the only pro Naz evidence and totally ignore the terraces, the houses, the first two excavations that are just written off because they were done by Franciscans. In the day (1930s--50s) Franciscan archaeologists were authoritative scholars. This was before the new atheist refused to believe anything a religious person says. These are the same guys and the same Orwellian movement that run around going "we don't to know what theolgoians we know they are stupid."


This is hardly scholar stuff. So who is the alleged scholar making the statements about Pfan's findings? You don't just look in a text book to determine the dating pot shards. I no longer have the original stuff I used to use on Nazareth, nor the article on Pfan's work but as I recall there's a lot more to it than just some pottery. There were prior excavations to his that arleady determined Nazareth was inhabited. Some of my research can still be seen on my old site Doxa. From that article:

First of all it's important to realize that Nazareth was only four miles from a major metropolis. It's hard to believe it wasn't inhabited until so late being that close to a major city.

There two mentions in Antiquity:

"Despite the Hellenization of the general region and the probability that Greek was known to many people it seems likely that Nazareth remained a conservative Jewish village. After the Jewish war with the Romans from AD 66-70 it was necessary to re-settle Jewish priests and their families. Such groups would only settle in unmixed towns, that is towns without Gentile inhabitants. According to an inscription discovered in 1962 in Caesarea Maritima the priests of the order of Elkalir made their home in Nazareth. This, by the way, is the sole known reference to Nazareth in antiquity, apart from written Christian sources... (next paragraph) Some scholars had even believed that Nazareth was a fictitious invention of the early Christians; the inscription from Caesarea Maritima proves otherwise." Paul Barnett[BSNT], Behind the Scenes of the New Testament, IVP:1990, p.42:

Also from my original article:

occupied since 7th century BC

"Despite Nazareth's obscurity (which had led some critics to suggest that it was a relatively recent foundation), archeology indicates that the village has been occupied since the 7th century B.C., although it may have experienced a 'refounding' in the 2d century b.c. " ([MJ]A Marginal Jew--Rethinking the Historical Jesus, (vol 1), p.300-301)...cites Meyers and Strange, Archeology, the Rabbis, and Early Christianity, Abingdon:1981. pp.56-57

Galyaah Cornfeld, Archaeology of The Bible Book by Book .(NY: Harper and Row 1976) p. 284 "What concretely about first century Nazereth? In the first two centuries AD it was a modest village built on Rocky soil in a valley far from the main trade routes [this was before Sarapis was discovered]...Two excavations, one led by Fther P. Viaud the other by Bagatti led to the discovery of the traditional site of the annunciation to Mary and the place which Jesus frequented as a growing lad...excavations of inscriptions there bear witness to a Jewish Christian cult of Mary from the very earliest times..." Some of those inscriptions also go back to the middle of the first century and identfy the place as the that of Jesus' boyhood home!

Excavations of Naz
Nazaraeth The Village of Jessu, Mary and Joseph

Franciscan cyerspot

http://christusrex.org/www1/ofm/san/TSnzarc2.html

The church of the Annunciation stands over the extreme southern end of the ancient village. Having examined the site occupied by the church of 1730, the outline of the Crusader church became clearer. In the northern nave the Crusaders had left the rocky elevation of the grotto and between two pilasters had made a stairway to the shrine. The excavations of 1955 unveiled the plan of the Byzantine church. Orientated as that of the Crusaders, it had 3 naves, with a convent to the S and an atrium to the W. It was 40 m. in length. Delving under the Byzantine construction the franciscan archaeologists found plastered stones with signs and inscriptions, which certainly formed part of a preexisting building on the site.

Excavations of the church led the pre Pfan archaeologist to conclude the place was already inhabited since pre Christian times. There's a lot about Pfan's work on that site too. I suggest the reader read the original article.


The mythers have been so anger they have over the years published a huge amount of Bull about this topic. most of what you find on Googling it is their propaganda. For example the site "Nazareth the two that theology built' is nothing but pure hog wash. The arguments on that site are so contradictory that he starts out making arguments from sensible 'the gospels don't tell us much about Nazareth" as though that disproves it's existence. then he also say the Gospels don't mention the major city it's near, Sepphoris, as though that somehow disproves its existence! Not mentioning Nazareth disproves Nazareth and not mentioning a place we know for a fact did exist also disproves Nazareth?

A source so unlikely it can't possibly be confused with Christian apologetic, the left leaning Guardian publishes an article about the discovery of Roman Baths at Nazareth, implying it was a Garrison town.

The American excavators are convinced that what Shama has exposed is an almost perfectly preserved Roman bathhouse from 2,000 years ago - the time of Christ, and in the town where he was raised. In a piece of marketing that is soon likely to be echoing around the world, Shama says he has stumbled across the "bathhouse of Jesus". The effects on Holy Land tourism are likely be profound, with Nazareth becoming a challenger to Jerusalem and Bethlehem as the world's most popular site of Christian pilgrimage.

Professor Richard Freund, an academic behind important Holy Land digs at the ancient city of Bethsaida, near Tiberias, and Qumran in the Jordan Valley, says the significance of the find cannot be overstated. Over the summer he put aside other excavation projects to concentrate on the Nazareth site. "I am sure that what we have here is a bathhouse from the time of Jesus," he says, "and the consequences of that for archaeology, and for our knowledge of the life of Jesus, are enormous."

David Hall, an amateur researcher.

Bellarmino Bagatti reported that during construction of shops along the Tiberias road there were found artifacts from the Iron, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods outside of the central Franciscan area. These finds were unpublished until Bagatti reported them Excavations in Nazareth, Bagatti, 1969, pg. 237. The Tiberias road passed by within about a couple of blocks to the north-east of the the Church of the Annunciation. A Franciscan guidebook indicated the Roman village of Nazareth was between the Church of Joseph and the Church of the Annunciation on a hill bounded by two valleys that are at this time partially filled in. Tombs were located outside of towns during Roman and Talmudic times. Hebrew tombs have been found to the N, S, and W of the ruins. Guide to the Holy Land, E. Hoade, Franciscan Printing Press, Jerusalem, 1976

Bagatti also reported Herodian lamp fragments from grottos and rock carved silos under the Franciscan churches and subterranean areas of church compounds. All types of pots, jugs, jars, plates, pans, bottles, etc. from the Roman and Byzantine periods were found on church grounds. There were also Hellenistic forms found on church grounds with photos of the Hellenistic- Roman series of lamps provided. Bagatti stated that the area was occupied before and after the first Jewish revolt (66-70 A.D.). Herodian lamps and lamp fragments were distinctive in style and part of the evidence used to date the area. The Jewish Herodian lamps were at the height of their popularity before the Jewish revolt. After the Jewish revolt the Darom type lamp that was not wheel made, but mould made like other Roman lamps instead, was popular.

In 2002 Archaeologist Stanislao Loffreda published drawings of a rare type of lamp unique to first century Galilee. The lamp was found in Nazareth, Capernaum, Magdala, and Karm er-Ras (near Cana). The lamp was found in a datable strata in Capernaum. Capernaum yielded numerous Roman coins to the excavators, thus the strata and context there was more readily understood. This is additional evidence in support of the first century habitation of Nazareth.

Kyle Butt M.A.
(Yes I see it, it's no joke)

The town of Nazareth is “located in the southern end of the hills of Lower Galilee at about 1200 feet above sea level” (McRay, 1991, p. 157). Nazareth is about four miles southwest of Sepphoris. During the time of Christ, Sepphoris was the capital of Galilee, a major center of political and economical activity, and home of Herod Antipas (DeVries, 1997, p. 318). Primary research was done on the city in the mid-1950s by Bellarmino Bagatti. He discovered that the village during the time of Jesus was “an agricultural settlement with numerous winepresses, olive presses, caves for storing grain, and cisterns for water and wine” (1969, p. 25). McRay noted that pottery found in Nazareth dates “from Iron Age II (900-600 B.C.) to the Byzantine period (330-640), including Roman pieces from the time of Christ” (p. 158). Bagatti stated:

The entire village of Nazareth has very many subterranean cavities, some used as

The Church of the Annuciation in Nazareth

stores, some used as tombs. The earliest documentation is indicated both by their form and the ceramics found therein. The latter put us in the presence of tombs already existing in the Middle Bronze Period, and silos already in use in the Iron Period (1969, p. 25).

So it was inhabited before Christ, the people went away, then came back after the time of Christ? For the atheist propaganda to be true that would have to be the case. In fact this is the theory proposed by the atheist propagandist Rene Salm, the Myth of Nazareth. He bases that on his asserton that no artifacts are found between 700bc t0 50 AD. His argument is argument from silence and it's disproved not only by Pfan but all three excavations found evidence of first century habitation. In 2009 achaeolgoical evidence of a house was found at the site.

In December of 2009, Nazareth made worldwide headlines. Archaeologist Yardena Alexandre and her colleagues uncovered a small structure that they dated to the time of Christ (Hadid, 2009). The Israel Antiquities Authority official press release hailed this discovery as the first of its kind in which a residential structure was uncovered. The announcement noted the importance of the discovery, and quoted Yardena:

The discovery is of utmost importance since it reveals for the very first time a house from the Jewish village of Nazareth and thereby sheds light on the way of life at the time of Jesus. The building that we found is small and modest and it is most likely typical of the dwellings in Nazareth in that period. From the few written sources that there are, we know that in the first century CE Nazareth was a small Jewish village, located inside a valley. Until now a number of tombs from the time of Jesus were found in Nazareth; however, no settlement remains have been discovered that are attributed to this period (as quoted in “Residential Building...,” 2009). (ibid)

Salm's book was in 2006 so he didn't know about the data. Now the problem is this data was done by pottery too but there's no reason to think Yerdena's Pottery dates are wrong.

The dating method used by Yardena and her team, of matching pottery from the site to other pottery in an attempt to properly identify the time frame of the dig, is one of the most frequently used dating methods in archaeology. McRay mentioned this dating method as one of the most effective:

The potters of antiquity were careful imitators but reluctant innovators.... At any rate style did seem to change from period to period, slowly but decisively, and we are now able to observe those changes in style and from them establish a chronology. The methodology is not exact, but within reasonable limitations it does provide a workable typology upon which to construct a fairly reliable chronology (1991, p. 32). (ibid)

Another major dating method is lamps. Salm plays fast and loose with the lamp evidence. He adopts the date range that does his theory the most good and ignores that fact that a lot of evidence exists to date the lamps at the earlier range which would put habitation in Nazareth as late as 37 bc that would destroy his theory that they went away and came back. As Butt points out, even we accept the latter range as does Salm that still implies habitation in the time of Christ.

The incipience of a village is not equivalent to the arrival of the first settlers at the site. No village springs up overnight. It requires a certain amount of time—perhaps a generation or two—to come into existence.... The presence of tombs [in Nazareth] indicates both permanence and population, and it is strongly suggestive of a “village.” Thus, the earliest tomb at Nazareth is a significant clue regarding the existence of a village. Determining its date will be an important goal of these pages. The period of tomb use can be revealed by dating funerary artefacts found in situ (pp. 156-157, italics in orig.).

There are lamps found in the tombs. These are the bow spouted lamps that indexed in dating from their use in Jerusalem.

Thus, according to Salm’s reasoning, tombs show the presence of a village, and settlers in the area could/would have been in the area possibly two generations before that village came into existence. Using Salm’s personally concocted date of A.D. 25 for the earliest date of the lamps, that means that the earliest tomb could possibly date to A.D. 25. And, if settlers were in the area two generations before that (using 40 years as a generation), that would put people in the area in about 55 B.C. Taking that into account, there is absolutely no way that Salm can prove that Nazareth was not inhabited during the time of Christ. The most he can do is suggest that, if his arbitrarily chosen dates are adopted, it seems improbable. Yet even this “improbability” does not accord well with the ranges of dates that are often adopted for such artifacts as the “Herodian” lamps. (Butt article)

I recommend Jesus and His world: the Archaeological Evidence by Carig Evans.

Craig A. Evans is Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Acadia Divinity College, Acadia University, in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada. The author or editor of more than fifty books and hundreds of articles, Evans is a regular guest on many national media outlets, including Dateline NBC, The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, and BBC. He is an internationally distinguished authority and lecturer on the historical Jesus. For more information, visit craigaevans.com.

Evens is the only real scholar in this article. His book is highly authoritative but written to be accessible tot he layman. The publisher's blurb:

In this provocative work, world-renowned scholar Craig A. Evans presents the most important archaeological discoveries that shed light on the world of Jesus of Nazareth. Evans takes on many sensational claims that have been proposed in recent books and peddled in the media, and uses actual archaeological findings to uncover the truth about several key pieces of Jesus' world. For example, what was the village of Nazareth actually like in the time of Jesus? Did synagogues really exist, as the Gospels say? What does archaeology tell us about the ruling priests who condemned Jesus to death? Has the tomb of Jesus really been found, as has been claimed? Evans's engaging prose enables readers to understand and critique the latest theories--both the sober and the sensational--about who Jesus was and what he lived and died for.

Evans article in Huff Post
Posted: 03/26/2012 7:30 am

The archaeological evidence shows that Jesus grew up in a small village, Nazareth, about four miles from Sepphoris, a prominent city in the early first century C.E. This city had a Greco-Roman look, complete with paved, columned street, but its inhabitants were observant Jews. The evidence further shows that Nazareth was linked to a network of roads that accommodated travel and commerce. The quaint notion that Jesus grew up in rustic isolation has been laid to rest. The youthful Jesus may well have visited Sepphoris, whose theatre may have been the inspiration for his later mockery of religious hypocrites as play-actors.

The evidence for the existence of synagogue buildings in the time of Jesus is now quite strong. Archaeologists have identified at least seven such buildings that date before the year 70. It is in the context of the synagogue that Jesus would have matured in the religious tradition of Israel and heard Scripture read and interpreted. Although some historians think rates of literacy in the first-century Roman Empire were quite low, archaeological finds, such as the tablets found in Vindolanda, England, near Hadrian's Wall, or the thousands of graffiti etched on the scorched walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum, suggest that at least a crude literacy was widespread and reached all levels of society. This evidence, along with the Gospels' portrait of a Jesus who debates scribes and ruling priests, asking them if they had ever read this or that passage of Scripture, suggests that Jesus, founder of a movement that produced and collected literature, was himself literate.

Lowder on Mocking Religious Ideas

Lowder is a major voice on the Secular web and their blog secular outpost, where this piece is published.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

American Atheists Billboards and Ridicule of Religious Ideas

Posted by Jeffery Jay Lowder . . at 8/14/2012 10:57:00 PM

Prior to my earlier posts on American Atheists's billboards, an atheist, whose opinion I respect, mentioned his support for the ads. To paraphrase, his argument was something like this.

Religious beliefs should not get special protection from ridicule and doubt. They have had this protection for far too long and this needs to stop. Our society needs to get used to cherished religious beliefs being subject to the same kind of criticism and ridicule as that faced by any other belief. For example, socialists and capitalists regularly use ridicule and criticism when speaking of each other.

I agree that religious beliefs should not get special protection from ridicule and doubt. If by "special protection" one means "special legal protection," I agree. I (obviously) don't think there should be blasphemy laws. My point was (and is) different. Even if/when there is a legal right to ridicule religious beliefs, atheists would be well advised to think twice about whether and when to exercise that right. If an atheist's goal is to increase the social acceptability of atheism, I'm pretty sure that mockery and ridicule of widely held religious beliefs isn't an effective way to achieve that goal. If an atheist's goal is to convince people that atheists can be just as moral as theists, then it's downright stupid to waste $15,000 on a billboard ad which, in the minds of many, will only show that atheists are rude (=immoral).

I actually agree with him that there shouldn't be laws saying "one may not mock religious belief." The way he puts it it seems like more a practical matter of rhetorical strategy not get carried away so they don't turn people off, rather than a moral stricture agaisnt being cruel, I'm sure he has that. There's more to the issue than that. I have quoted atheists from different venues saying "we have to brow beat them into submission with mocking and ridicule"

the comments in response to Lowder's statement reflect the same prudential concern about how they appear to the public not the right or wrong of mocking.

Chris Hallquist • 5 hours ago

• 
  
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The problem here is that we're trying to do several things at once.

We're trying to convince people we're not evil. We're trying to have our legal rights respected. We're trying to get people to be more comfortable being public about their atheism. We're trying to convince people we're right.

Billboards making fun of religion will piss people off. As will suing to get the government to follow its own laws. As will billboards with just the word "atheist" and the names of a few atheist groups.

But all those things have positive effects too. In the case of bilboards ridiculing religion: they tell people who've never said those things, but thought them, that they're not alone (and that's just the least-controversial possible benefit, I can think of others, but no need to debate them here).

In response to a statement by a theist "I'm tired of atheist mocking" a poster on carm says:

MFFJM2

Wow, it must really suck to be you. How about this, stop caring what other people think about you, or your religion. If you don't want to be thought of as delusional, then you should stop posting/talking about your delusions. If you don't want to be thought of as gullible, then start using some critical thinking skills and stop believing everything you're told or you read in the dogma of your church. If you don't want to be thought of as imbecillic, then don't present imbecillic ideas as objective reality, expecting the rest of us to swallow it whole just because you did. NOTE: I am not suggesting that the author of the OP is any of these things, and I am only responding to the words he used in the OP.

We see the true compassion shining through. This guy has clearly thought it out.

an atheist says:

... the fact is that as long as you're having the discussion about your beliefs in a public forum... people will comment. When those beliefs don't reflect reality or depend on blind faith, then skeptics will point on the logical fallacies. That is simply a fact of the interwebs.


If you're faith gives you some measure of peace, take comfort in that and enjoy it. If you enter into the public discussion about the rationality of your beliefs, expect to see dissenting opinion.

This is a real atheist poster who said this. It's basically saying "unless you surrender and just give in we will continue to mock you." That's a frank admission that they know they are using it as manipulation and they don't see anything wrong with it.
Deist

..., as passionate as you are in your beliefs, I am equally if not more so, passionate about my disdain for Christianity and all that it is. If that upsets you, so be it, and yoiu have to live with it. Atheists are in a stark minority in America, and if anything, they are the ones who should be complaining about the constant bombardment of Christian beliefs and dogma....

Just imagine if we told this guy the same stuff the atheists are telling Delong? how would that be? Keep it to yourself, we will mock and ridicule you if say stuff not in accord with our brain washing. that's what they think they are fighting against, yet they wont extend any compassion to people in the same boat.


See the Orwellian aspects of atheism in action? They use a word that has meaning in a clinical setting ("delusion") they alter it to imply that if you don't see things the way I do you are insane. So any view that differs from mine is insanity. The atheist brain washing is defined as "reality." one must be an atheist to be sane. Look at what they are telling him, "unless you march in lock step with us then you are a target of our ridicule.

How any thinking person be part of this hateful totalitarianism? Why should we put up with it? Why should the 90% of bleieve in God allow themselves to be terrorized by this 3% of know nothings?

(those comments were posted on CARM and have been posted here before).

from anther venue, published on the barricades and atheistwatch Originally from atheist website "dangerous talk."

by

Staks

on October 21, 2010

.

Yesterday I talked about the perception that criticism and mockery is often considered going negative. Today I want to talk about the value of criticism and mockery. Quite simply, it is how we learn.
When presented with an idea (good or bad) we have to think about the idea. Sometimes we don’t do that or we don’t think deeply enough about the idea. This is where someone else comes along and points out why the idea is poor by criticizing the idea. Their criticism may or may not have merit, but at least now we can think about those criticisms.
Sometimes however, ideas become deeply held beliefs and regardless of how valid the criticism might be, we still reject that criticism and cling to the belief. We might even insist that the belief be taken seriously and believed by others on insufficient reasoning and/or evidence.
This is where mockery comes in. When people refuse to take our deeply held beliefs seriously, we might dig in deeper in trying to get people to take our beliefs seriously. The more people mock the belief, the more we are confronted with the criticisms of the belief and he more we must try to deal with those criticism if we still expect our beliefs to be taken seriously.
Mockery is withheld as a last form of criticism for those who refuse to have their ideas criticized. It is more dismissive of the idea and usually only comes in when the particular idea is really ridiculous and worth mockery. It is a message that, “hey, your idea has way too many criticisms and is just so ridiculous that is really isn’t worth taking seriously at all.”

It's clear from what's being said that, if not all atheist, at least a segment have the idea that mockery and ridicle are valid tools for forcing people to agree with you. That's really must a matter of "brain washing." It's a matter of extortion.

Not all atheists agree of cousre. There are dissenting voices that council not to mock and ridicule. Paul Kurtz of the Free Thinking Blog (Center for Inquiry part of the atheist propaganda echo chamber) has some intelligent things to say about it.

It is one thing to examine the claims of religion in a responsible way by calling attention to Biblical, Koranic or scientific criticisms, it is quite another to violate the key humanistic principle of tolerance. One may disagree with contending religious beliefs, but to denigrate them by rude caricatures borders on hate speech. What would humanists and skeptics say if religious believers insulted them in the same way? We would protest the lack of respect for alternative views in a democratic society. I apologize to my fellow citizens who have suffered these barbs of indignity.

His readers disagree:

Randy on Tuesday September 29, 2009 at 4:10pm

Two problems I have with this post:
(1) Nazi reference, already in the second paragraph. Really, do we need to go there every time?
(2) “What would humanists and skeptics say if religious believers insulted them in the same way?” I nearly fell off my chair. This happens on a daily basis, in all media, and usually is not meant as a lighthearted joke either.

The old "they do it to us so we can do it to them." I never hear atheists ridiculed in the media. I think he's confusing general sense of disagreement and cultural unacceptability with actual ridicule.

so though I agree with Loweder in two ways:

(1) It is fair and fine to criticize ideas we don't accept. I don't expect any atheist to hold back form argument making except where it's inappropriate. For exampel I wouldn't want an atheist start bellowing about no after life in the middle of my mother's funeral. But should be no legal protection per se to prevent people from opening questioning any religious bleief. that even goes without saying becuase it's so basic to democracy (although it may be the time to start saying basic things again about democracy). I'm talking about rational intellectual arguments.

(2) I agree that there can't be legal perfection per see to prevent reducible of religion although there should be laws governing when and where and protecting privacy.

It's not just a simple matter of giving some guide lines and thinking all atheists will follow them. The segment of the atheist community (not all of them) who are carried away with hate and ridicule will not stop and will not play fair. There should be some kind of protection for people who are in danger of being extorted into beliefs or out of their beliefs. Those protections can't be just a blanket protection on ideas, they have to be protections for people. For example cyber bullying should be guarded against. Mocking and ridicule of religious belief might at times come under that heading.

one of major purposes of atheistwatch was to shame atheists into shutting up their own guys. It's worked partially but not nearly enough. We see the attitude of "we need to be cool so we don' turn people off" is known to some of them, the ideas of tolerance and fairness are known to some of them, but others don't get either idea.

the nuts on carm think they own the board. they were saying "don't come on here.," as though ti's their board. CARM is a Christian board it's not owned by the atheists. That's a matter for the administation of that particular board.

Atheism reduced knowledge to one thing: Atheism

In dealing with the WOT people I put up a statement about Atheist watch and how i have always distinguished between the hate group segment of atheism and the atheist community as a whole, which is diverse. One of them says "fundie, hate filled hate speech." I'm a fundie even though I don't accept inerrancy and have a Moltmannian view of Atonement, becuase they don't know what fundie means. They don't think of fundies as holding to certain aspect of Christian doctrine but they see it as anyone who is not an atheist.

I think atheists have gotten the terms down they have reduced knowledge to one thing: atheism. If you are not an atheist you have no knowledge; even science is worthless unless it's conducted by an atheist ideologue.

Scientific methodology is not improtant. the only way to do scinece is not spout the party line of the atheist movement, being careful not to call it a movement but foment the idea that is' real diverse all the while saying nothing but the approved opinions.

There is one thing and one thing that is knowledge that is atheism's party line. But you are supposed to call it "science."

The one and only alternative to being an atheist is being a fundie.

Atheist have called me fundie. they call atheist watch fundie. they call me a fundie. so they don't know what the word means. it's come to mean something else in their parlance, it means "you are not imitated."


Atheism is a cult int he sociological sense. If you are not initiated into the cult you are an outsider and outsiders are called "fundies."

clearly being a fundie has nothing to do with holding a particular set of Christian doctrines becuase I'm obviously not a funide that my measure. The one thing that would entail is inerreancy and I don't hold to inerrancy. First they began using the term for anyone who takes any aspect of Christianity seriously, no matter how learned or liberal one is. That's enough of a departure form the real meaning of the term. Now they begin to use it it o mean anyone who is not an atheist.

That's pretty much how I define ideology: the only alternative. Not accepting it is not a valid position regardless of the details. That's the way I see them thinking all the time.

this starched because I defended the idea that Luke's geneaology is Mary's rather than Jo's. So they began saying I'm a fundie. regardless of the reasons for saying it. they just say it.

I used Alfred Edershiem as my reason for saying so

Originally Posted by backup

Hey look there was this one guy 100 years ago that I claim agrees with me.

If you have done any sarong on Rabbis or had any dealings whit them (what am i saying?) you would know (something for a change) that they know the Talmudic stuff far better than non Rabbinical readers can. So for a Rabbinical trainee to say that it's far more important than just saying some guy.

Of course you leave out the fact that Edersheim just happens to be one of the greyest schoalrs of the 19th century who was a professor at both Oxford and Cambridge at the the same time! very rare and proves he was the top of the line scholar of the day.


Originally Posted by backup

So what?

Even if you are right about this one guy, nobody buys this idea anymore except fundamentalists.

you just prove I'm right. you don't give a damn abou truth, you admitted you don't. you only care what the cult tells you to say, you just said it.

"everyone says this." one knowledge, one pinon between you never mind the truth rep resat what everyone says.

Atheists Lauch Effective Scam Against Atheistwatch

this site is being attacked by an organized effort of atheist to drive it out of business. This is made known to me by a poster on the other blog, Dave.

This site now has a very low rating on the WOT (Web of Trust) browser ad on. Those who have the add-on are warned that it is rated as untrustworthy and asked if they still want to visit.

Looking up "wot" they have mostly stuff on detecting mal ware but they do some ratings on content. I also find most the way ratings are given is through members of their thing who vote on sites or report sites. So if we want a good rating, we organize a bunch of apologists to going wot and send in good ratings then we get the rating up.

There's no way to know if they actually go to the site and say "this is not good." Or do they just take their members word? did they actually look up the research I presented in the articles? there's no way to know. We know that atheist organize attacks. they organize to give books on Amazon low marks even thought hey didn't read them. They organize to have hundreds of roles on "read it' say "my site is stupid even they have no idea what they are talking about.

So they had a bunch of member join wot and give the site low ratings. Does that prove anything?

It prove atheists can organize and that they are vicious. It's nothing than a high class form of intimidation.

here's their page where they get the link to look at Atheist watch and see the rating on WOT.

they have their guys join WOT then give AW a low rating. wow that's a scame of their own. there's no way to know they are actually checking the research.

Join WOT and give it a good rating.

the rating for something called "vendor reliability." what does that mean? It means atheists organized a bunch of trolls to lie and say that I don't' know nothing.

here's an example o their extortion. they have a part where the site own cancer the 'charge' they are a bunch of vigilantes. but you have to join to say something to them. It's just a way to force people to join their group.

the organized atheist hate group are a gang of thugs they will stop at nothing.


WOt may be a fine thing but it looks like it's something a group could orchastrate. you can effect your site's rating when you join.

Your website's reputation rating is based on ratings from the WOT community, which tells you how much other users trust your site. A website's technical safety is an important factor when determining its trustworthiness. However, it is also a valid reason to rate a site poorly if you do not trust the content or organization behind a website. We provide our users rating guidelines, but in the end it is up to every person to decide what they consider trustworthy.

If you disagree with the rating or comments, we encourage you to do the following things:

• Rate the site and write your own comment on the scorecard. Explain that you are the owner or employee of the company and why your service is trustworthy.
• You can also ask your friends and customers to rate the site. In order to rate sites you need the WOT add-on. To comment on scorecards and post on our forum, registration is required.
• Contact community members through their boards on the profile page and ask them to review or explain their comment and rating. You have to be logged in to do this.
• Open a forum thread and ask our active members to review the site too. The more ratings your site has, the more accurate the reputation rating will be.
• To be sure nothing is wrong, check if your website has been blacklisted by Google with a free scan from StopTheHacker

they claim this:

"WOT reputations are calculated based on a sophisticated algorithm that effectively detects manipulation. Keep in mind that reputations cannot be bought, they have to be earned! If you suspect unusual activity, please report it.

Note: Comments are purely informational and have no effect on the reputation. We do not remove comments unless they contain spam, profanities or clearly illegal material."

they also say it's up the to the individual to determine what they trust so what are they really rating? the rating is given based upon members so if they have a group of five atheists as members they can just rate the sight badly and it will have that rating.

then if that's true why do they give tips?

M Scale Proved by My Own Test

The M scale (mysticism scale) is a method for determining weather or not one has had a personified mystical experience. It was invented by Dr. Ralph Hood Jr. of University of Tennessee Chattanooga. That's a secular university and Hood is a psychologist not a Christian and not a minister. The M scales gives us validty for religous experience because it enables us to know if one has really had one or is just "wool gathering." This means we now have a control for the experience so we can study it's effects. The M scale was developed in the early 70s and was re-developed in the 80s with what is called "the three part solution. " It's been used since that time and has become one of the standard procedures. Hood is a big name in his field.



Dale Caird
originally in journal for the Scientific study of religion 1988, 27 (1) 122-126

Research into mystical experience has been greatly facilitated over the last decade by Hood (1975). Utilizing the conceptual framework of Stace (1960) he devised a 32 item questionnaire tapping eight categories of mysticism. This questionnaire the M scale was shown by Hood to have respectable internal consistency and reasonable construct validity.

Michael E. Nielsen, Ph.D.
Georgia Southern University
feb 2000

Ralph Hood (1998), a major figure in American psychology of religion, suggests six psychological schools of thought regarding religion. The psychoanalytical schools draw from the work of Freud, and attempt to reveal unconscious motives for religious belief. Although Freud reduced religious belief to a natural, if ultimately flawed, attempt to cope with life's stresses, contemporary psychoanalytic interpretations are not necessarily hostile to religious faith. Analytical schools find their inspiration in Jung's description of spiritual life. Most psychologists, however, consider such descriptions to be undemonstrated by scientific research, and therefore it plays a limited role in psychology. Object relations schools also draw from psychoanalysis, but focus their efforts on maternal influences on the child. Each of these three schools rely on clinical case studies and other descriptive methods based on small samples, which runs counter to the prevailing practice of psychology in America.

Modern social scientific evidence does not refute the possibility that some mystical experiences are associated with scientifically unknown processes. Parapsychologists have accumulated a body of evidence supporting belief in paranormal phenomena (Broughton 1992). Even though their evidence has been criticized, the existence of universal features within collections of mystical experience accounts supports the argument that some forms of these perceptions are not fully cultural products but have important impacts on religious belief (Hufford 1982, McClenon 1994)

nevertheless this doesn't stop the carm atheists from slandering him.

Originally Posted by MFFJM2 View Post
The M-scale is a joke that purports to measure and determine the validity of transcendental experiences.

Deist: "the M scale is a joke, it's childish and laughable.

Of course these are people who have never read a single word about it.

One of the major issues has been weather or not a study done by surveying respondents can be valid. I quote sources to show that most social scinece research is done this way.

1) the no 1 major research mechanism in social science is written answers to pre conceived questions on a survey, studies, survey questions asked of respondents. that's how it's done! that's the 99% most used way of doing it. it's accepted ti's scientific there's unscientific about it.

http://www.gesis.org/veranstaltungen...summer-school/

GESIS-Summer School Survey Methodology
9-25 August 2012, Cologne, Germany
Objectives

Surveys are the main method of systematic data collection in the Social Sciences. Surveys provide empirical data for researchers to analyse, and are an important source of information for business, charities and policy makers. There are numerous types of surveys suited for different purposes. Given the variety and complexity of survey research, designing and conducting a survey that effectively and efficiently serves a specific purpose requires specialised expertise and skill (as well as a good team). The GESIS Summer School offers high quality training in state of the art techniques and methods of survey research. It aims to equip participants with essential skills in the design, planning, execution, documentation and quality assurance of surveys of households, individuals or organisations

writing guide Colorado State U.

http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/research/survey/

Surveys represent one of the most common types of quantitative, social science research. In survey research, the researcher selects a sample of respondents from a population and administers a standardized questionnaire to them. The questionnaire, or survey, can be a written document that is completed by the person being surveyed, an online questionnaire, a face-to-face interview, or a telephone interview. Using surveys, it is possible to collect data from large or small populations" (sometimes referred to as the universe of a study).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_sampling

Statistical survey is a method used to collect in a systematic way, information from a sample of individuals. Although most people are familiar with public opinion surveys that are reported in the press, most surveys are not public opinion polls (such as political polling), but are used for scientific purposes. Surveys provide important information for all kinds of research fields, e.g., marketing research, psychology, health professionals and sociology.[1] A survey may focus on different topics such as preferences (e.g., for a presidential candidate), behavior (smoking and drinking behavior), or factual information (e.g., income), depending on its purpose. Since survey research is always based on a sample of the population, the success of the research is dependent on the representativeness of the population of concern (see also sampling (statistics) and survey sampling).

There is no way they could lie the M scale into validating the words of Stace. What they would have to do to do that is to have read Stace, to know that Hood's scale is about validating Stace, they would have to want to give the wrong information to validate Stace in a bogus fashion, and enough of them would have to want this to do it, in other words an organized movement. The studies were duplicated in Japan, Iran, India, Sweden and other such places. Since Stace has never been translated into those languages and the peasants in Iran for example would have never heard of him (Christian philosopher form UK) why would hey do that. Stace's theory is too complex to just accidentally validate by lying.

To prove this I made up my own survey. My sruve was much more simple than Hoods. It was a one factor analysis. I had 10 questions. six of them were white rabbits and four were about real mystical experience as Underhill discusses it. The object was to validate Underhill. If anyone got the right four questions and these were obviously about mystical experience, anyone with a brain could know which four to answer if they were even thinking about it, would be scored to validate. The misleading questions were designed to make them think I was seeking to validate Pentecostalism. It worked brilliantly. They call assumed that and one answers all four of the mystical questions, although some did get three of them. It's also obvious they were lying about their experiences becuase that was part of the test (they were instructed, lie your way into validating what I"m after).

Bigthinker (so called)

It makes the point that your questionnaire is nonsense. There is nothing objective about it. Your "correct" answers are arbitrary. Meta, its nonsense.
The most important thing is that "mystic" is a meaningless term. Basically, what you are saying is that a person who correctly answers the questions is a real mystic... So what? Outside of your belief system it is meaningless.

you just proved you don't understand any of it. you don't get what it's about at all.

The M scale is about verifying weather or not Stace was right. what did Stace say? He said that mystics are people who experience cert ian things. let's call them x,y,and Z. if you want to know if people have experienced this what do you do> do you tell them You experienced this. "No you have to ask them, see.

that' not self fulfilling they don't have to say it.

you say "did you experience x,y and z they don't have to say "yes I did." they can say "no." It' open ended. not self fulfilling.

but the problem is people suspect "O they are lying." The answer is they can't lie in the right way to validate Stace becasue to do that they would have to answer a series of things exactly right and the odds re vastly agaisnt it.

I proved that this works. I constructed a much much simpler version. the people taking my test have (a) heard me talk about mysticism for years (b) know they are suppose to try and guess in such a way as to validate Underhill and they they could not do it.

So that proves that you can't lie your way to validating Stace on the M scale, which is much more complex than my thing.


The highest possible score is 60. That's because certain questions have no value. There are some questions that if you get them in the right sequence you get 60 and if you only get some of them you don't the mathematical equivalent. in other words if you got all four you get 60 regardless of what else you said but individually they only amount to 10 each. I'll explain why in a minute.



If you get over 40 and up this means you are a real mystic. If get a certain question you are an advanced mystic.

the study used the theory of Evelyn Underhill about the nature of mysticism. I said up front I was going to use a different one than Stace.


so we can remember the questions:

(1) have you had an experience in which you felt yourself as one with all things?

(2) I have had an experience in which everything seemed to disappear from my mind until I was conscious only of a void.

(3) have you ever had dreams about God?

(4) have you ever had a dream in which you saw Jesus or an angel and he told you something?

(5) Do you speak in a language you didn't understand?

(6) Have you ever felt God was very far away and/or didn't exist, and life seemed black and hopeless, after a period of intense religious and spiritual progress in which things seemed revealed to you?

(7) Have you ever heard of voice speaking to you abut god when you were awake?

(8) I have experienced profound joy.

(9) I have experienced a sense of presence as though someone was looking at me, when no one was there, and a sense of being cleaned all over and loved.

(10) have never had an experience which I was unable to express adequately through language.

the answers atheists gave on my test


questions 3,4,5 and 7 are wroth 0. They were red herrings put there to create the wrong impression and get off so they wouldn't understand what I was doing.

Backup had the right general idea but he fell for the red herring becuase he though I'm a so stupid it would easy to guess. He said I was measuring Pentecostalism becuase I mentioned tongues. that's what I wanted him to think. Although I didn't make that with him in mind. I figured someone would grab on to that and think that's what I was doing.

These are dummy questions because they are not mystical experience at all. They are marked by the use of phrases that denote that they are not mystical. Mystical means beyond word, thought, or image. These questions all entail the five senses.

Deists original statement, the reason for all this, was that anyone who prays and goes to chruch and thinks he's spiritual would score high. I know if Deist had the guts to take hte test, which he didn't, he would have answered "yes" to those questions becuase he refuses to think about the meaning of the concepts. He thinks any old dream or whatever is "spiritual" and that's all mysticism is just fake ideas about things. So he would say yes to those and get 0.

question 6 was very special.

(6) Have you ever felt God was very far away and/or didn't exist, and life seemed black and hopeless, after a period of intense religious and spiritual progress in which things seemed revealed to you?

that is the dark night of the soul. Thea's a special thing that marks the path of an advanced mystic. The Dark night of the soul is described ST. John of the Cross as is taken to be a the mark of extreme advancement such as saints undergo. Underhill writes about it so I included it. The questions assumes you are already an advance mystic:"after a period of intense religious and spiritual progress in which things seemed revealed to you?" that describes a mystical career already advanced. There's nothing like that on the M scale. on my thing, I was feeling cocky I included this chance to win with one question but it doesn't prove anything.

if you said yes to 6 you get the 60 points automatically. no one did.

A couple of people got 3 of the four meaningful questions. no one got them all. because if anyone had said all four tether they would have been given the 60 points.

1,2,9,10 as well as 6 relate directly to mystical experience. the question. anyone getting all four of those is automatically in the mystical range. Then question 8 is wroth 10 points by itself and can add to the mystical score once you are in that range.

what all of this proves is that Deist could not do a serious test and value the questions seriously and score it correctly and make a high score by second guessing what the researcher is after.

he proved this by not trying.

the mocking the version that Backup made is not anymore than the little childish glee they feelings from mocking and ridicule. proves nothing.


Origninal statment that his mock test doesn't prove anything.

Posted by backup

I think it does.

Of cousre you do. because you don't care about facts or logic.

Anyway, it is obvious not atheist would read beyond "(6) Have you ever felt God was..." before answering no.

Yes, but that proves atheists are stupid. they figure out this is research. It's not pinon it's not a debate it' a research project to determine hat percentage of anyone has had these exerciser. the issue was to determine the validity of Stace's ideas about mysticism not to give atheist a producer for mocking and bullying.

get your head out of the emotion of the moment try once to think analytically. if the questions are research then you can't contribute by making pronouncements about them. that doesn't' prove anything. the only thing that proves anything is the research findings.

All of this is bogus. Particularly calling someone a mystic if they have had a peak experience. So much of religious talk seems to be a disingenuous use of words. It seems like such an obvious trick to use words filled with so much baggage.

that's an ignorant opinion that's based upon not knowing anything about it. stop your ignorant tirade and answer logical. why is that so dumb to call someone a mystic if they fit the prediction of what mystics are like?

so puerile

here's Deist's argument when he finally showed up after his comrades did all the heavy lifting.


Originally Posted by Deist

This wasn't the M Scale, unless you contend that it

Of course it wasn't! I told you that. It's must simpler. If you can't lie your way to acing this one you sure couldn't do it on the m scale.

qualifies because the person who made it up, Meta, has the same first initial as the scale, and it is is therefore the "M"eta scale. Who was the judge of what qualifies as being a mystic on your survey questions? You!? Does that mean I can make up a deist scale, and decide on my own who is a deist? How about an atheist scale? Perhaps a muslim scale.

what!??? good God!

The whole thing about the test in the first place is that it's a farce. There are humans who have nothing better to do that study religiosity (Do that get paid for that nonsense?), who make the rules and guidelines for what qualifies as mystic, and then give the survey to people across the globe, and are mystified that everyone that professes a belief in God answers many of the questions the same!!

what you are saying is you don't have to take the test to see if I can prove Im right because you already know in advance I can't be merely becuase it's religion and religion stinks. the evdience I offer proves that it doesn't but you don't have to look becuase it doesn't matter what the evidence says right?

so in other words you have to be right because you are you? you can't see how this is circular?

What a scoop!! Call the NY Times, the LA Times, CNN, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh. Stop the presses!!We have a big story coming up. A revelation so earth shattering that it will boggle your mind.

ahahahaahahahh it's so hilarious you don't understand you just proved my point further that don't know a circular argument form a logically valid one.

"PSST, hey kid, over here, Have I got a scoop for you. People in different parts of the country who believe in God give the same answers!!!! Can you imagine that!"

EXTRA!! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!! GOD BELIEVERS SAY THE SAME STUFF!! EXTRA!! EXTRA!!

ahahahahaahahaha this guy he loves to make a fool of himself! what do you say to guy who thinks he's scored a prefect victory by arguing in a circle?


answers on my my test

Just a quick post because it's amusing: What's so Funny about Atheism?

from Nomail a Christian on CARM

Originally Posted by noemail001 Where shall I start... hmmm... Maybe I could start with all the times on OTHER forums -- NOT CARM of course -- where I have observed stuff like revising reality. Take, for example, the hilarity I see when some of those atheists claim to hate hate-speech and then tell how much they hate religion, hate religious folks, hate customers of Chick-Fil-A, hate the Bible, hate believers in the Bible, hate churches, etc... I find that hilarious.

Oh, and then there are those funnies -- NOT on CARM of course -- who claim to love empirical evidence. Then they claim that everything was spontaneously created by nothing. I LOVE that fantastic joke of theirs.

I love this one too. They claim to be grounded in history. Hahahahahahaha! Then their most brilliant heroes twist and revise history and spontaneously create strawmen from their twistings and distortions!

One kind of joke similar to the others above is when they speak for their opposition. They claim lies and libels against the positions stated by their opponents and then pretend they pummeled that false position. On those other websites -- not CARM of course -- those happy revisionists, those lying & libelous atheists, those sodomite-and-child-pornography-&-pederast-promoters, are entitled to fantasize that their opposition agrees with them! How funny is that? Very funny.

I've got to run now

If I find time I'll post some more funnies from that other side of the tracks -- NOT CARM, of course.

In the meantime, just to let you peeps know, I put some jokesters on Ignore. Why? Because they are way too funny -- they crack way more jokes than I have time for.

Buh-bye.

Reflections upon Methodology and Science

I don't think atheists care about evidence. Evidence just means that one has something to reason from. What atheists demand is absolute proof, and at a level that can't be given for anything. I would bet that if for some reason atheists didn't like science, no amount of scientific "proof" wood suffice to prove to them that science works; because they would demand absolute proof, which can't be gotten.

In thinking about the two other threads I initiative over the last few days, and the atheist take on my arguments and their 'dicing' of my thought processes, and their refusal to acknowledge standard responses that I give all the time, I find the following state of affairs to be a good description of the current state of dialectic between atheists and theists on the boards:

(1) Theists have a vast array of knowledge and argumentation built up over 2000 years, which basically amounts to a ton evidence for the existence of God. It's not absolute proof, because true, sure enough, actual absolute proof is just damn hard to come by on anything--even most scientific things; which is why they invented inductive reasoning. Science accepts correlation's as signs of caudal relationships, it doesn't ever actually observe causality at work. But that kind of indicative relationship is not good for atheists when a God argument is involved. Then it must be absolute demonstration and direct observation.

(2) This double standard always works in favor of the atheist and never in favor of the theist. I suspect that's because Theists are trying to persuade atheists that a certain state of affairs is the case, and at the same time we are apt to be less critical of our own reasons for believing that. Atheists make a habit of denial and pride themselves on it.

Why is it a double standard? Because when it works to establish a unified system of naturalistic observation the atheist is only too happy to appeal to "we never see" "we always see" and "there is a strong correlation." We never see a man raised from the dead. We never see a severed limb restored. The correlation's between naturalistic cause and effect are rock solid and always work, so science gives us truth, and religion doesn't. But when those same kinds of correlation's are used to support a God argument, they are just no darn good. to wit: we never see anything pop out of absolute noting, we never even see absolute nothing, even QM particles seem to emerge from prior conditions such as Vacuum flux, so they are not really proof of something form nothing. But O tisg tosh, that doesn't prove anything and certainly QM proves that the universe could just pop up out of nothing!

(3) "laws of physics" are not real laws, they are only descriptions, aggregates of our observations. So they can't be used to argue for God in any way. But, when it comes to miraculous claims, the observations of such must always be discounted because they violate our standard norm for observation, and we must always assume they are wrong no matter how well documented or how inexplicable. We must always assume that only naturalistic events can happen, even though the whole concept of a naturalism can only be nothing more than an aggregate of our observations about the world; and surely they are anything but exhaustive. Thus one wood think that since our observations are not enough to establish immutable laws of the universe, they would not be enough to establish a metaphysics which says that only material realms exist and only materially caused events can happen! But guess again...!

(4) The Theistic panoply of argumentation is a going concern. Quentin Smith, the top atheist philosopher says that 80% of philosophers today are theists. But when one uses philosophy in a God argument, it's just some left over junk from the middle ages; even though my God arguments are based upon S 5 modal logic which didn't exist even before the 1960s and most of the major God arguers are still living.

(5) They pooh pooh philosophy because it doesn't' produce objective concrete results. But they can't produce any scientific evidence to answer the most basic philosophical questions, and the more adept atheists will admit that it isn't the job of science to answer those questions anyway. Scientific evidence cannot give us answers on the most basic philosophical questions, rather than seeing this as a failing in science (or better yet, evidence of differing magister) they rather just chalice it up to the failing of the question! The question is no good because our methods dot' answer it!

(6) What it appears to me is the case is this; some methods are better tailed for philosophy. Those methods are more likely to yield a God argument and even a rational warrant for belief, because God is a philosophical question and not a scientific one. God is a matter of faint, after all, and in matters of faith a rational warrant is the best one should even hope for. But that's not good enough for atheists, they disparage the whole idea of a philosophical question (at least the scientistic ones do--that's not all of them, but some) yet they want an open ended universe with no hard and fast truth and no hard and fast morality!

(7)So it seems that if one accepts certain methods one can prove God within the nature of that language game. now of course one can reject those language games and choose others that are not quite as cozy with the divine and that's OK too. Neither approach is indicative of one's intelligence or one's morality. But, it does mean that since it may be just as rational given the choice of axioms and methodologies, then what that taps out to is belief in God is rationally warranted--it may not be only rational conclusion but it is one rational conclusion Now I know some of the more intelligent atheists will say "hey I'm fine with that." But then when push comes to shove they will be back again insisting that the lack of absolute proof leaves the method that yields God arguments in doubt, rather than the other way around. I don't see why either should be privileged. Why can't we just say that one method is better suited for one kind of question, the other for the other?

and if one of them says 'why should I ask those questions?' I say 'why shouldn't we leave the choice of questions to the questioner?