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How to Argue for Atheism Effectively

If I make any presupposition, it would be that God exists, as all other things would necessarily emanate from the omniscient mind.

As he told you, that is nonsense. There is no objective, reality-based evidence for your God than for any other. You are welcome to promote your particular figment of imagination, but don’t expect us to buy your snake oil.
 
God by necessity has no creator.
The universe by necessity has no creator.

This isn't me being flippant. It is definitional. The universe is the set that contains everything, therefore there cannot be a higher order set that contains it.
 
Yes you are, because this is what your complaints about empiricism revolve around.

Nope. I've only ever claimed (and demonstrated) that empiricism is insufficient for all forms of knowledge.

Perhaps you are the one who is confused. Can this be empirically determined?

Can what be empirically determined? Whether or not I'm a solipsist?

You don't think you are, but you are. This is your basis for criticizing empiricism. "It's possible time doesn't exist" and "it's possible a flying spongecake dreamed you into existence" are equally useless discussion points. Time clearly does exist. Everyone experiences it. Claiming otherwise depends on the possibility of the brain in a jar.
You're just shamelessly strawmanning me. I've never made these arguments dude.

Knowledge is a broad enough concept to say that, yes. I know the light outside my hotel window is green, and I did not empirically determine this. It is green because that is the wavelength of light that my brain interprets as green. I also know that author Terry Goodkind has some grotesque and violent fetishes that show up in his writing, and has a real chip on his shoulder about communism for some reason, and yet I did not empirically determine this.

Yeah, the more you speak the more I'm realizing you don't even understand the argument I'm making. I'm not criticizing whether or not we can know there are Cheetos in my pantry. I'm not even necessaryily criticizing that the empirical method can be useful when observing matter. I am pointing out that the empirical method is insufficient in providing justification for our presuppositions about transcendental categories and immaterial objects.

We cannot empirically prove induction is true. We cannot empirically prove numbers are real or have meaning. Same goes for words, the laws of logic, etc.

You spin a lot of words around but absolutely none of them have philosophically determined that any god exists, much less yours. You even admitted it yourself: you have presupposed that God exists. Your entire argument is circular, designed from the start to point at a specific conclusion. You can enjoy doing that all you want, but the rest of us are not required to accept your presuppositions.

I don't presuppose God's existence. God proves God's existence. You're correct that it's a circular argument.

Once again, I'm not sure how far back you've read in this thread or how familiar you are with metalogic and worldview/paradigmatic arguments, but circularity is permitted when we're discussing paradigms. In fact, circularity NOT being permitted in traditional empiricism is one piece of proof I would bring up against the true-ness of empiricism. We can demonstrate that there are logical foundations (such as a number and words) cannot be proven without first assuming them. Numbers prove the existence of numbers, words prove the existence of words. Circularity is permitted at the metalogical level.

I exist. Time exists. I know these things.

You might. How do you know I know them? "I exist" makes some of the presuppositions I mentioned earlier. Are you a solipsist? Can you clarify what philosophical tradition you hail from?
 
You might. How do you know I know them? "I exist" makes some of the presuppositions I mentioned earlier. Are you a solipsist? Can you clarify what philosophical tradition you hail from?
I don't actually care whether you know that you exist. Philosophical tradition? You wildly misunderstand my purpose here.
 
A single observation that differs from the null hypothesis would be a start.

I mean you appear to believe my foundational claim is that "maybe nothing exists", which it isn't. I won't provide observations for the strawman you created.

The universe by necessity has no creator.

This isn't me being flippant. It is definitional. The universe is the set that contains everything, therefore there cannot be a higher order set that contains it.

Where can I find the laws of logic in the universe? Where can I find the matter that composes the “past” and “future” in the material universe? Out of curiosity, are you familiar with thinkers like David Hume?

Really because you just ****in said that you did
This actually isn't true. If I make any presupposition, it would be that God exists, as all other things would necessarily emanate from the omniscient mind. Doesn't matter because you don't understand my argument and you butcher my premise horribly. I'm not implying "maybe nothing exists" lol.

Here's what I actually said. I didn't presuppose God's existence in my original syllogism provided pages and pages back. The context of my reply here was that you accused me of making a dozen presuppositions, which isn't true.

I don't actually care whether you know that you exist. Philosophical tradition? You wildly misunderstand my purpose here.

Maybe so. You pretty much came into this thread, accused me of representing some vague form of solipsism, repeatedly state Descartes' cogito without offering justification for your presuppositions, and now refuse to elaborate on your own position so that I may understand what you would consider actual evidence to even be.
 
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I mean you appear to believe my null hypothesis is that "maybe nothing exists", which it isn't. I won't provide observations for the strawman you created.
Incorrect. You're very confused about my point. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, not claiming straw man here.
Where can I find the laws of logic in the universe? Where can I find the presuppositions for induction in the universe? Are you familiar with thinkers like David Hume?
Why would I care what David Hume thinks?
Here's what I actually said. I didn't presuppose God's existence in my original syllogism provided pages and pages back. The context of my reply here was that you accused me of making a dozen presuppositions, which isn't true.
"If I presuppose anything..." so what that was a literal if? Your beliefs and claims are now a probability function? And you can't figure out why nobody seems to understand your point? LOL!
Maybe so. You pretty much came into this thread, accused me of representing some vague form of solipsism, repeatedly state Descartes' cogito without offering justification for your presuppositions, and now refuse to elaborate on your own position so that I may understand what you would consider actual evidence to even be.
Again, I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt instead of calling this a straw man. You do not understand what I'm saying.

So, let's try again. Do you understand what a null hypothesis is?
 
As it relates to this specific argument, most (not all) dissenters in this thread literally do not understand basic philosophy, have not thought about what grounds or justifies truth claims in their own worldview, and do not seem to understand what justification for a claim actually is. I don't expect to convince people of anything if they're committed to fallacious argumentation and sophistry.

You can’t imagine the number of people who have come into this forum with their own claims about God and then use variations of this very same excuse. What you don’t seem to realize is that if that is truly the problem, then perhaps it is on your end by not clearly explaining your claims. I know I’m mixed up because you go here and then you go there and it just seems that there is no continuity. That’s also why I keep asking you for definitions, because I’m just not sure that you are not playing a bit fast and loose with your claims. Perhaps if you would spend less time telling the atheists how dumb they are and spend more time explaining yourself that things would go smoother. If you think that someone doesn’t understand, wouldn’t the proper course of action to be try to explain it to them. There is no requirement to have studied philosophy in order to participate in this forum.
 
Incorrect. You're very confused about my point. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, not claiming straw man here.

Clearly.

Again, I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt instead of calling this a straw man. You do not understand what I'm saying.

So, let's try again. Do you understand what a null hypothesis is?

Yeah, although I can't say that I've seen people explicitly mention the need for a null hypothesis in argumentation related to metaphysics and epistemology.

In any case, I'll humor you to see where this goes:

For the context of my transcendental argument, the null hypothesis posits that aspects of human experience (such as meaning, rationality, intelligibility, moral values) do not require any necessary foundation or a precondition beyond what can be explained by naturalistic or materialistic explanations. It would be suggesting that these aspects of human experience can be accounted for (and justified) without invoking the existence of God or any other transcendent entity.
 
Clearly.



Yeah, although I can't say that I've seen people explicitly mention the need for a null hypothesis in argumentation related to metaphysics and epistemology.

In any case, I'll humor you to see where this goes:

For the context of my transcendental argument, the null hypothesis posits that aspects of human experience (such as meaning, rationality, intelligibility, moral values) do not require any necessary foundation or a precondition beyond what can be explained by naturalistic or materialistic explanations. It would be suggesting that these aspects of human experience can be accounted for (and justified) without invoking the existence of God or any other transcendent entity.
Correct, or as a person with better communication skills might put it: if the hypothesis is that god exists, the null hypothesis is that god doesn't exist.

You keep asking about what evidence would look like to demonstrate god's existence, it would be evidence that differentiates from the null hypothesis in some way. If I hypothesize that cigarettes cause lung cancer, I would surmise that the supporting observation would be higher lung cancer rates among smokers. Finding no change in lung cancer rates would support the null hypothesis. In this way, I have two possible observations that differentiate between my hypothesis and the null hypothesis.

So: "A universe created by God should have observation X, and a universe that was not created by God should not have observation X." (or, naturally, an inverse)

You will need to define X, and then demonstrate the observation.
 
The problem of induction. We must assume a past and a future, but these concepts cannot be verified using the empirical method. The Atheist world view just has to "assume" a past and future exists, which is being arbitrary and ad hoc. It's an assumption that isn't backed up by any form of empirical reason.
The status of immaterial objects. If a past and a future do exist, where are they located in the material universe? They need to exist in a mind, yet they would be true even if no human minds existed to conceive of them.
No properly basic beliefs. Empiricism does not allow for circular argumentation. Yet properly basic beliefs (such as numbers and words) cannot be proven without engaging in circularity I.E numbers prove the existence of numbers, words prove the existence of words. There is no possible way to prove numbers without invoking numbers and words without invoking words, demonstrating that empiricism is lacking here.
The problem of the external world. How can we know that our perceptions accurately represent reality? If our access to the external world can only be via sensory experiences (which can be subject to error), how can sense data alone be the basis for knowledge about the external world?

These are 4 off the top of my head, but in my mind they are critically damning of philosophies providing a framework for an Atheistic worldview.
I would say that these are not particularly good reasons for rejecting even materialism or empiricism, let alone other possible atheist perspectives:

The problem of the external world - All knowledge is subject to error or uncertainty, so what? That's a brute fact whatever worldview one adopts, but the fact remains that empirical information has so far proven to be by far the most reliable way of knowing about reality we have.

No properly basic beliefs - I'm not sure this one even makes sense; observing the utility of words and numbers demonstrates the utility of words and numbers. How is that circular?

The status of immaterial objects - This seems to depend on the assumption of a strictly linear, non-relativistic view of time. If instead we live in a four-dimensional spacetime and our passage through time is not fundamentally different from our passage through space, it would be perfectly coherent to suppose that all past and future moments do materially exist. Ironically many if not most theists hold quite a similar view in terms of their gods' omniscience; the view that God is 'outside time' would require that our passage through time is passage into something that exists and is already observed. For this to be a valid criticism, you'd first have to prove that a linear, non-relativistic view of time is correct or at least probable.

The problem of induction - Past and future cannot be directly observed (regardless of the nature of time), but at most that's only a problem for the narrowest caricatures of empiricism. Empiricism might be roughly described as the view under which things are accepted only on the basis of convergent observations by oneself, or other reliable observers, or things which are necessary to explain such observations. For example it's likely that virtually all empiricists accept the existence of neutrinos, even though they can't be directly observed, because they have observable effects on experimental wossnames which otherwise cannot be easily explained. Similarly, the reality of the past, of previous futures and of the remaining future are necessary to explain direct observations of reality now and in the future.

To be fair to your point on induction, when they think it's situationally convenient to do so many debating atheists do readily indulge in the narrow caricature of empiricism against which it would be effective: Some common theist arguments such as cosmological and fine-tuning posit that a deity is necessary (or at least most plausible) to explain our observations about reality, and in order to both uphold the "no evidence for theism" doctrine and also avoid the hard intellectual work/onus of explaining our observations by other means, it's obviously quite common to see atheists insisting on an empiricism which rejects inference, on those occasions. In fact they often go even further (again, when situationally convenient) and reject even that middle clause of 'other reliable observers'; called "testimonial evid claims" or "hearsay," when they choose to take that approach.

But I don't think that undermining the inconsistencies, arbitrary rhetoric and special pleading of one of the lower tiers of atheist thinkers (I've taken to thinking of this as the NONENB, no onus/no evidence/no belief trend of mostly-internet atheism) really constitutes a viable reason for rejecting atheism in general.
 
I would say that these are not particularly good reasons for rejecting even materialism or empiricism, let alone other possible atheist perspectives:

First off, I want to thank you for actually providing a reasoned counter argument and analysis of the problems I'm presenting. It's helpful for me when a reply isn't pure obfuscation and sophistry.

The problem of the external world - All knowledge is subject to error or uncertainty, so what? That's a brute fact whatever worldview one adopts, but the fact remains that empirical information has so far proven to be by far the most reliable way of knowing about reality we have.

That's not exactly what I'm claiming in this argument. I'm making the claim that sense data alone cannot account for a coherent ontological basis for knowledge. Not only is it subject to error, but what is the bridge between the chemicals in your brain and the chemicals in the brain of someone else? Moreover, I'm claiming that knowledge exists outside of just sensory experience if we assume something like induction is even possible.

No properly basic beliefs - I'm not sure this one even makes sense; observing the utility of words and numbers demonstrates the utility of words and numbers. How is that circular?

I might be confused. "observing the utility of words and numbers demonstrates the utility of words and numbers" is definitely engaging in circularity, which is not permitted in a empiricist/evidentialist worldview or normative logic. Presumably you would say that it isn't circular because we can demonstrate these abstract concepts have utility past the argument your posing, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

The status of immaterial objects - This seems to depend on the assumption of a strictly linear, non-relativistic view of time. If instead we live in a four-dimensional spacetime and our passage through time is not fundamentally different from our passage through space, it would be perfectly coherent to suppose that all past and future moments do materially exist. Ironically many if not most theists hold quite a similar view in terms of their gods' omniscience; the view that God is 'outside time' would require that our passage through time is passage into something that exists and is already observed. For this to be a valid criticism, you'd first have to prove that a linear, non-relativistic view of time is correct or at least probable.

So I can understand the confusion here because when I initially posed this question, I was talking about a past/future specifically which would be subordinate to what I would consider to be a transcendental category such as time and space. The problem of the status of immaterial objects has more to do with the status of those transcendental categories (space/time, the "self", the past specifically, etc.). A materialist worldview cannot provide a justification for abstract concepts it presupposes in order to make pretty much any truth claim, but if these abstract categories do exist and they can be used to apply truth, then where do they exist in a material universe?

The problem of induction - Past and future cannot be directly observed (regardless of the nature of time), but at most that's only a problem for the narrowest caricatures of empiricism. Empiricism might be roughly described as the view under which things are accepted only on the basis of convergent observations by oneself, or other reliable observers, or things which are necessary to explain such observations. For example it's likely that virtually all empiricists accept the existence of neutrinos, even though they can't be directly observed, because they have observable effects on experimental wossnames which otherwise cannot be easily explained. Similarly, the reality of the past, of previous futures and of the remaining future are necessary to explain direct observations of reality now and in the future.

I might be missing something, but it seems like you're saying that we then must assume some of the presuppositions we make in order to make induction possible. David Hume (who I consider a huge inspiration and a consistent skeptic) points this out when he says there is no empirical basis for assuming the future will necessarily resemble the past.
 
You keep asking about what evidence would look like to demonstrate god's existence, it would be evidence that differentiates from the null hypothesis in some way. If I hypothesize that cigarettes cause lung cancer, I would surmise that the supporting observation would be higher lung cancer rates among smokers. Finding no change in lung cancer rates would support the null hypothesis. In this way, I have two possible observations that differentiate between my hypothesis and the null hypothesis.

So: "A universe created by God should have observation X, and a universe that was not created by God should not have observation X." (or, naturally, an inverse)

You will need to define X, and then demonstrate the observation.

Yeah, this is the problem with your framing of the argumentation and why generally no one explicitly states a null hypothesis in a debate relating to metaphysics and epistemology. I'll be good faith and assume it isn't your intention, but this could appear as a trap for me to be confined within a box of argumentation that is similar to that which would be used for empirical research. Proving and providing evidence for God (or any other abstract concept) is not done in the same manner as conducting experimental testing or hypothesis formulation using the empirical method.

I'll give an example as it relates to my form of apologetics and the transcendental argument. The fundamental claim of the transcendental argument is that transcendental categories are necessary for knowledge and experience to even be possible. As a result, all worldviews require the existence and true-ness of transcendental categories because they are presupposed. Abstract concepts such as the laws of logic, time and space, the self, words/meaning, and the past are a few examples of transcendental categories that are presupposed to make a worldview coherent. The argument I'm making specifically critiques the naturalist/materialist position because while those position believe in these categories implicitly (for something like induction, as an example), it cannot account for or justify their true-ness within a purely empirical framework. So if we were forced to put this critical flaw into your crude framework, it would be that a universe created by God has justification for transcendental categories, a universe without a God does not. I'm arguing that it is more coherent that these categories emanate from a transcendent source and a divine intellect rather than that some disjointed ether or human brains alone.

As for how this relates to the mind of God - how do the different transcendental categories I listed relate to one another? Our experience of the world is not chopped up into only having spatial-temporal relations without a self, because a spatial-temporal experience assumes a self that is having spatial-temporal experience. When we speak or write words that have meaning to convey that meaning to another chunk of gray matter in somebody elses head, it assumes that they have a self and it assumes that meaningful words are entering spatial-temporal relations to convey that meaning, acting as a medium.

Lastly, it would be absurd to assume that these transcendental categories are floating around in some ether (be it material or immaterial) but had no relation or grounding with one another. This interconnectedness suggests a deeper underlying coherence in reality, which I argue supports the existence of a transcendent source - the Logos or the Divine intellect.
 
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I love their thinking, they want me to prove to myself there is no god. Common sense tells us that the stories in the bible are a bit far fetched putting it nicely. Living in the belly of a fish for three days, right.
A common overlooked aspect of the Jonah fish story is found in Jonah 1:17

“Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”

This fish was "prepared", meaning it was not an ordinary fish. God could easily create a fish in which Jonah could be swallowed and exist in for 3 days and nights. It easily could have been done by a God capable of creating the universe.
 
A common overlooked aspect of the Jonah fish story is found in Jonah 1:17

“Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”

This fish was "prepared", meaning it was not an ordinary fish. God could easily create a fish in which Jonah could be swallowed and exist in for 3 days and nights. It easily could have been done by a God capable of creating the universe.
Uh huh, do you believe that's what happened, I don't. Was it a magical fish like your magical god? When all you have to support your bible stories are your bible stories, I need a bit more proof of the stories.

This god can do anything argument is really lazy with no proof to back it up other than 'the bible'. Do you have proof your god created the universe?
 
That's not exactly what I'm claiming in this argument. I'm making the claim that sense data alone cannot account for a coherent ontological basis for knowledge. Not only is it subject to error, but what is the bridge between the chemicals in your brain and the chemicals in the brain of someone else? Moreover, I'm claiming that knowledge exists outside of just sensory experience if we assume something like induction is even possible.
The bridge? Chemicals in both brains are triggered by the same external phenomena. I'd agree with both of your claims, but what are those claims arguing against besides some kind of absolute or hard empiricism? A more soft empiricism would be one which views empirical data as our most common and most reliable source of knowledge, and that even our rational thinking and inferences are ultimately derived from or couldn't exist without empirical experience. But empiricism of any kind isn't necessary for atheism, let alone in an absolute form. As I noted it's not uncommon for debating atheists to demand answers in a format of absolute empiricism, but your post seemed to be about alleged general problems with atheism which led to your rejection of it, rather than specific criticism of the low-hanging fruit. That seems like it would be loosely comparable to a Christian coming to the reluctant conclusion that there are real factual errors and contradictions in the bible, and therefore deciding that there is no God. Happens quite a lot of course, it's just not very reasonable.

I might be confused. "observing the utility of words and numbers demonstrates the utility of words and numbers" is definitely engaging in circularity, which is not permitted in a empiricist/evidentialist worldview or normative logic.
Is concluding the existence of the sun from observation of the sun circular? A circular argument is one in which the conclusion is contained in the premises. If we put this into the format of an argument it would be something like 1) something has utility if it helps produce a desired end, 2) we can see that use of words and numbers often help produce desired ends of communication and measurement, C) therefore words and numbers have real utility.

So I can understand the confusion here because when I initially posed this question, I was talking about a past/future specifically which would be subordinate to what I would consider to be a transcendental category such as time and space. The problem of the status of immaterial objects has more to do with the status of those transcendental categories (space/time, the "self", the past specifically, etc.). A materialist worldview cannot provide a justification for abstract concepts it presupposes in order to make pretty much any truth claim, but if these abstract categories do exist and they can be used to apply truth, then where do they exist in a material universe?
Where is space? It's every where :sneaky: Space and time aren't particularly abstract (let alone transcendental) concepts at their core, they're direct and inescapable inferences from our constant daily experience. It can obviously be tricky trying to really wrap our minds around them, like trying to describe the box we're inside, but the bare fact that the box is there isn't obscure or confusing. The modern discovery of relativity is confusing, but from what I gather it pretty conclusively demonstrates that spacetime actually is a real 'thing,' not just an inert backdrop but something which actually interacts with mass and energy.

I might be missing something, but it seems like you're saying that we then must assume some of the presuppositions we make in order to make induction possible. David Hume (who I consider a huge inspiration and a consistent skeptic) points this out when he says there is no empirical basis for assuming the future will necessarily resemble the past.
Your post (and the conclusion in your expansion in #443) was all about the 'existence' of past and future, which is a direct and more or less necessary inference from observations in every present. As to the problem of induction itself, Hume actually claims that "All these operations are a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning or process of the thought and understanding is able, either to produce, or to prevent"; he makes it as much a problem for rational as empirical approaches. But that doesn't mean that probabilistic induction is or depends on mere or arbitrary presuppositions; as Hume's description implies, it could be an inherent characteristic of the functioning of our minds, something we no more decided to suppose or could choose to not 'presuppose' than basic logical principles like non-contradiction.
 
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Uh huh, do you believe that's what happened, I don't. Was it a magical fish like your magical god? When all you have to support your bible stories are your bible stories, I need a bit more proof of the stories.

This god can do anything argument is really lazy with no proof to back it up other than 'the bible'. Do you have proof your god created the universe?
I’m not interested in proving God’s existence. You missed the point I made regarding what is recorded in the Bible. If you’re going to be critical of the fish story, at the very least get the type of fish correct. The Bible is the only place you’ll find the story and in that context, the fish that swallowed Jonah was one prepared by God.
 
I’m not interested in proving God’s existence. You missed the point I made regarding what is recorded in the Bible. If you’re going to be critical of the fish story, at the very least get the type of fish correct. The Bible is the only place you’ll find the story and in that context, the fish that swallowed Jonah was one prepared by God.
It must have been a blowfish? Once again, you, like so many others use the bible to prove your bible points. And if the bible is god's words, why do men decide what goes in and what doesn't?
 
It must have been a blowfish? Once again, you, like so many others use the bible to prove your bible points. And if the bible is god's words, why do men decide what goes in and what doesn't?
I’m, like you, are discussing the contents of a book. Just because the cover states it’s the Holy Bible doesn’t mean it can’t be evaluated like any other book. Its contents can be discussed like I’m attempting to do. Jonah’s fish, according to the book, was prepared by God, based on the contents of the book. You can’t discuss biblical stuff without referring directly to the book.
 
I’m, like you, are discussing the contents of a book. Just because the cover states it’s the Holy Bible doesn’t mean it can’t be evaluated like any other book. Its contents can be discussed like I’m attempting to do. Jonah’s fish, according to the book, was prepared by God, based on the contents of the book. You can’t discuss biblical stuff without referring directly to the book.
All well and good but basing all of your arguments on a book that we can't actually check on, in my mind makes it a novel, not a fact filled tome. Again I will say, there is no physical proof that jesus/god ever existed on earth except for words in a book. A book that describes the impossible unless you give the hero supreme powers to accomplish the impossible, like living in the belly of a fish or parting the red sea, raising people from the dead, the loaves and fishes and on and on with the fantistacial stories. Why do we see none of these things happening today?
 
All well and good but basing all of your arguments on a book that we can't actually check on, in my mind makes it a novel, not a fact filled tome. Again I will say, there is no physical proof that jesus/god ever existed on earth except for words in a book. A book that describes the impossible unless you give the hero supreme powers to accomplish the impossible, like living in the belly of a fish or parting the red sea, raising people from the dead, the loaves and fishes and on and on with the fantistacial stories. Why do we see none of these things happening today?
Imho, it’s because many in the Church (the Body of Christ) have been seduced to believe the miracles seen in the first century are no longer needed. In the first century many were converted because of miracles/healings observed by the masses. Today, despite wanting to see a miracle, there's very little faith for such things to happen on the scale seen in antiquity. They saw and believed. Blessed are those that have not seen and yet believe.

John 20:29
“Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”
 
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