“So why don’t you believe in God?”
“I just don’t see any evidence for it.”
“What are you looking for? What would it take to convince you that God was real?”
“I dunno. What would it take to convince you that the sun sets in the north?”
“The sun sets in the west.”
“I know. But what would it take to convince you that it sets in the north?”
“It doesn’t set in the north, it sets in the west.”
“So your mind is made up? There’s nothing I could say that would convince you that it sets in the north?”
“Of course not.”
“So you’re closed-minded then.”
“I’m not closed-minded! That’s just the way it is!”
“Suppose I told you a really convincing story about the sun setting in the north?”
“It wouldn’t be a true story.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the sun sets in the west.”
“What if you saw it setting in the north. Would that convince you?”
“Ok, if I saw it actually setting in the north, that would convince me. But that will never happen, because the sun sets in the west.”
“So it’s a pointless question then?”
“Pretty much.”
“Then you can understand why there’s not much point in asking me what it would take to convince me there’s a God. If God actually showed up in real life, that would be a much more astonishing event than the sun setting in the north. And if He loves me enough to die for me, then He ought to be willing and able to show up in the real world where I can see Him. Unless and until He starts behaving like a real, loving God, I have no reason to believe He exists.”
“The thing is, though, He actually did show up in real life.”
“So men say. I’ve heard that story too, and I know that a lot of people think it’s a convincing story. But like you said, the sun sets in the west, not in the north. No matter how convincing the story is, if we don’t see it happening in real life, it’s not a true story. The only reason it’s convincing is because Christians have spent 2,000 years finding out what it would take to convince people. And that’s not a good reason to believe that it’s really true…”
Very good! I like the sun setting in the north analogy. I just might use that someday.
but its still very flawed. sure you can say about the sun but you arnt looking at why we would have trouble believing the sun sets in the north. we see it every day set in the west. so there is proof that it sets in the west. if no one saw the sun or where it sets then yeah telling people it sets in the north, alot of folks will believe. just as with god. people knew he was real because of the expirience they had when god was active. that is our proof of existance, we have no proof that says otherwise, the absence of something doesnt mean it doesnt exist. if you havent been to germany, why should you believe that its there. just like with the world being flat they had no proof otherwise so they went with it. its all very easy to go back and forth, but when someone says that his absence is lack of love, you need to read the bible because he wants faith to gain admittance to his love. if he came down and showed himself then yeah you just believe and thats it, there would be no point to an afterlife if he was here. technicaly if you read the bible he was here he walked and talked with us as friends or family, then something happend that we had done that was against him. we disobey him all the time and constantly try to overcome him or beat him or make ourselves godly over him. and wouldnt it make sence that, a being that is supposed to be all knowing and wise beyond anyone here, would have a plan that we wouldnt understand. i mean scientist go threw alot of crazy ideas and thoughts to get the end result. they talk about things that make no sence to a normal person, but after all is said and done they have in fact created something we wouldnt realise was possible. sorry for ranting with my sparadic thoughts and gramatical errors, just felt like contributing. o and having an “open” mind goes both ways.
bob – you said…
The conflict with your argument is that you base everything on the teachings of the bible and the church. The origin of the legends in the bible are based on tales told for millenia. Like most tales told over and over, passed from father to son, family to family, through the years they become twisted and changed and embellished.
The Greco-Roman mythologies, the Egyptian mythology, and Arabic/Palestinian legends are all bases for the tales in the bible. Much of what is in the old testament and some of what is in the new testament all can be easily traced back to legends and tales of gods and holy men and healers and experiences that occurred more than a thousand years before the purported existence of “Christ.”
You must acknowledge that taking the bible verbatim is delusional and ideological foolishness. The original stories have themselves been altered by the teller of the tales through the generations. The transcription of the tales into workable stories written in the Vulgate, the Torah, etc. and later appended and edited by the various popes and holy leaders in the churches, who had blood-soaked agendas of their own, and finally into the abridged and reconstructed King James version of the bible… Countless alterations and modifications and MIS-INTERPRETATIONS have taken place every time someone translates or revises the series of tales found in the bible.
For example, simply hold side-by-side any King James bible with a New American Modern bible. So many verses, words, and even subtle meanings are lost as the Olde English words have been re-interpreted into something newer and easier to read and comprehend by American English readers who have no interest in attempting to sort out the odd turn of phrase in the Olde English version.
The point here is — The bible is as valid as one believes it to be. The stories and “histories” and verses within have been altered countless times and for anyone to use the bible as basis for determining the presence and proof of existence of a so-called God or Son of God is absolutely ludicrous!
good point, bob, we can prove that the sun doesn’t set in the north because we see it set in the west. however,
people *believed* he was real because of the *stories* they had *about god being active.* there is no proof that the stories ever actually happened, and there were thousands upon thousands of those kinds of supernatural stories throughout human history that claim the same kinds of things, but you don’t believe in them. that’s because those stories are *not* proof of existence, and the reason we have no proof that says otherwise is because it is impossible to prove a negative. the absence of something doesnt mean it doesnt exist, but it does leave us without any actual reasons to believe that it does. even hermione, the character in the children’s book “harry potter” addresses this point:
“you could claim that anything’s real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody’s proved it doesn’t exist!”
so good point about the analogy, but you’re under misapprehension about the burden of proof.
it’s funny that the more we learn about how the brain works, the harder it is to come up with what would be convincing evidence for the supernatural. For now all I can say is that the invisible and the non-existent tend to look a lot alike. Not original but if I cannot measure something or interact with it in any way, why should I dedicate the hours of my life to it.
But in all reality…………the sun NEVER actually “sets”, at all. It makes a pretty picture though.
You hit the nail on the head I would say!
What’s more likely, that the sun set in the North or that someone gave you a dodgy compass?
Good one.
If you stand at the South Pole in Autumn the sun does set in the north 🙂
Sorry.
Ah, if you stand in the south pole at ANY time of year the sun sets in the north XD
No, if you stand at the south pole in summer, the sun doesn’t set at all.
If you’re standing at the south pole, every direction is north. This is where the metaphor becomes increasingly strained.
I promise, the next time I’m arguing apologetics while standing at the exact south pole, I’ll say “sets in the east” instead of “sets in the north.” 🙂
Sorry, that fails when you are standing on the West Pole.
Now, THAT was funny! Nice…
Nice analogy. I’ll have to remember it.
I like it.
“No matter how convincing the story is, if we don’t see it happening in real life, it’s not a true story.”
I’m not a fan of this line. There are plenty of facts that haven’t occurred in my life, but are still true. I’m younger, so one example would be the Moon Landings. Another example would be the Big Bang Theory. A Creationist would jump at the opportunity to say “Well, we weren’t there, we didn’t see it, therefore it didn’t happen”. A third example would be anything else that happened in History.
I like the rest of the analogy, just be careful with some of the wording.
“You’d have to take me to northen Europe or Canada in midsummer, since the sun sets in the north there. Rises from the north too, IF IT SETS IN THE FIRST PLACE.”
Cute story, but fighting ignorance with ignorance isn’t my cup of tea.
Of course, if you got a really big rocket, placed it pointing downward at the north pole, and moved the earth down*, the sun would set in the North.
Once.
*(Discounting wobble. I believe one of Stanley Schmidt’s stories, Sins of the Fathers, ends with the sun setting in the south for similar reasons.)
I like it too.
I’m agnostic, but I could easily say evolution doesn’t exist because I’ve never seen it in real life, but I’ve heard pretty convincing stories from teachers and scientists.
Who’s to say there isn’t some supreme force that we can’t possibly conceive of behind the universe. A scientist’s gods are just quarks and electrons at the time being. That being said, IMHO believing in a personified god is pretty low level thinking with the info we have to work with today.
You raise a good point, but my response would be to point out the difference between something you don’t see because it is invisible by nature, vs. something you don’t see because it isn’t real. Evolution is, by nature, a process that happens too slowly to be readily visible under normal circumstances. If the apologist wants to make the same claim for God—that His appearances are inherently invisible and indetectible—then that rules out pretty much every divine manifestation in the Bible, including the Incarnation. Yeah, you’ve rationalized away God’s failure to appear, but in the process you admitted that the Bible is more or less entirely fictional.
The examples of comparing history and evolution to not being there to see the story and so not being true are bad. For history, everything that happens in the past is history. People are still alive that served in the first world war. For other events evidence is left behind. With regard to evolution, the evidence is shown in the features and the characteristics of the animals including us and how those features enabled them to adapt and survive in certain environmental conditions as opposed to others that would soon die off. Cockroaches are an excellent example of evolution. When a poison kills several of them off, certain ones are inherently immune to it. Those then pass that gene on to the next generation and then the next time the poison used before will not work on them. They evolved by survival of the fittest to their environment.
There is evidence of evolution. Scientists have noted some bacteria that has evolved over the past few decades. They have evolved to the point that they are no longer affected by antibiotics.
HIV evolves in the body in a matter of hours and days.
But you can observe the necessary and sufficient prerequisites for evolution: children are not exact clones of their parents (descent with mutation), and siblings have different skills (selectability). Given which, evolution is inevitable.
I absolutely LOVE this analogy.
Allow me to take it further, to deal with the most common response to the demand for actual evidence:
“Oh, so you want the sun, a giant ball of hydrogen THOUSANDS of times larger than our own planet to bow to your will? You want the sun to jump in a test tube for you?! Arrogant little human!”
“No, I don’t demand it – that’s simply what would be required for any reasonable person to believe the claim.”
Now this isn’t a fair comparison.. because the sun is NOT a conscious thinking being which is both willing and able to let me know it sets in the North, and knows exactly how to convince me and the majority of the world who don’t believe such a thing. The Christian God, on the other hand, IS described as a conscious thinking being with both the will and ability to let me and the majority of the world (who don’t believe in it) know it exists.
(This leads us to the argument from non-belief; it makes no sense that a God like this could exist and yet most people don’t know it. The sun analogy not only explains why belief isn’t justified, but it leads us directly to an argument AGAINST belief.)
The problem with your whole way of thinking is that you believe god wants to make you believe in him. If god wanted to he could come to earth and force himself upon every single person on Earth making you believe. But that’s not what he wants. He wants people to make a conscious decision to believe in him and accept his love.
You argument that he isn’t real because he hasn’t specifically proven to you that he is real is ridiculous. I’m sure you will try to bring up a stab at blind faith so to that I want to ask you if you have ever seen with your own eyes evolution. Truly evolution and not survival of the fittest, such is the case with bacteria, HIV and cockroaches. if evolution were so prominent to create all living creatures then don’t you think scientists would have found the missing links between humans and primates? Wouldn’t they still be alive?
Hi Graham,
The problem with this approach is that you’re saying that God wants us to be gullible. He doesn’t want to give us legitimate evidence that would be consistent with actual existence on His part. Instead He wants us to choose to believe what men say about Him even though it’s not consistent with the evidence.
So why not decide to become a Mormon? Or a Jehovah’s Witness? If our faith is going to be based on simply deciding to believe what a bunch of men say about God instead of being based on real-world truth, then why not make a decision that is as inconsistent with the evidence as you can find?
I’m all for conscious decisions provided they’re informed decisions based on real-world truth. If you’re going to argue that God deliberately chooses not to be a part of real-world truth, so that we have no rational basis for making an informed decision to believe in him, then the only alternative you have left to offer is gullibility.
You need to read up on evolution. The argument that there are “missing links” between primates and humans (which there can’t be, by the way, as humans are primates) is incorrect. There is no missing link between what we are now and what existed, say, 50,000 years ago. The evolutionary lineage is pretty complete.
Further, the idea the God wants us to simply accept that He exists and trust, believe, and worship Him based upon a semi-accurate 2000 year old set of writings seems pretty silly to me. Even if we discount the people who won’t believe in the Christian God simply because they were born in the wrong place, even if we take away the people who never even heard of the Bible or Christianity, there’s still the problem that the Christian God didn’t seem to have a problem showing himself in Old Testament times. Why should now be any different?
“So men say”… So you don’t believe in Isaac Netwon or oxygen? You have only heard of them from other people and have not seen them yourself.
Horrible broken analogy, the likes of which the wrong side of any argument always clings to when they’ve run out of straws to grasp…
The analogy of the sun setting in the north is based on EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE of the sun actually setting in the west. Ok if the analogy is fair then where is the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that God doesn’t exist? Ya that’s what I thought. Way to fail…..
It’s in the same place as the empirical evidence that unicorns, fairies, trolls and goblins don’t exist. It’s in the same place as the evidence that Odin and Venus and Quetzalcoatal don’t exist.
It’s the lack of evidence FOR the existence of these things which suggests that they do not exist. And that goes equally well for your god.
You could claim that anything does not exist. All I need to prove its existence is to show the evidence. So where’s the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that God DOES exist?
Yeah, I thought so!
actualy, there have been several small signs and documentation that suggest that the bible is based on factual events. sure there is no footprint of god or anything other than maybe the Shroud of Turin, which is debateable. but scholars have found lots of little things mentioned in the bible that turned out to be true to the letter. even people like Steven Hawking have been quoted as saying that the vastness of the universe and the fact that all life is placed so delicatly in an order that is also very complex and very precise would make more sence that a being of a complex nature created what we have. its like expecting to throw a deck of cards on a table and them landing perfectly in a house form. that just doesnt happen without something knowingly setting it up in that way. notice how all the laws god put forth, have some sort of reaction in life. weather you believe or not god said no sex before marrage. when that law isnt followed you have heart ach, you expierience a false love based on lust, you get disease among other things. god said dont drink the blood of any creature. if you drink blood you can get a number of diseases, aids, stds, madcow, worms, parasites. it makes more sense to me to believe the 10 possible proofs of god then the one possible proof of his nonexistance. especialy when the only disproof you have is no proof.
Sorry Bob, but you’ll need to provide a quote from Hawking to back that up. The quote I remember reading was “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” he writes. “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.” And scientists have actually demonstrated spontaneous creation, in an experiment you can do yourself with the right apparatus.
The Shroud of Turin has been conclusively proven to be a fraud from the 12th century. No debate left there, except from people who are willing to ignore solid scientific evidence.
As for “God’s Laws” all having real-life consequences, can you tell me the problems with wearing clothes of mixed fibers? What is the consequence of eating cooked pork, or shellfish if you’re not allergic? (I’m not) Or for that matter, marrying your gay partner?
Good point! Exactly! I have been worshipping my closet leprecorn (half leprechaun/half unicorn that lives in my shoe closet) for years. Where’s the empirical evidence that my unichaun (you see what I did there, genious right?) does not exist? Conclusion: it’s real. Ya, that’s what I thought. Way to fail…..
I’d like to see the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that god DOES exist.
Something is only true once it has been proven, such as the sun setting in the west. And since there has never been any proof that god does exist…
noname: No so. Even if you’ve never seen the sun set, and simply see it directly above you in the sky, you’d need the exact same evidence that it sets in the North. And if you want an example that doesn’t include evidence to the contrary, you could ask “What would convince you that the Earth has a 2nd sun?” Same deal.
[excessively long explanation]
The analogy of North/West fits the type of world we expect to see if a personal God exists VS the one we expect to see if it doesn’t. The type of world described by ancient Greeks about their gods, or in the Bible, or the Quran, is NOT the world we observe in real life. There are no gods stomping around, telling us how not to boil animals, participating in battles, shooting fireballs at cities, etc etc. So it’s a good analogy. However..
..if you really want to be picky, you can replace the analogy with “What would convince you that the Earth has a 2nd sun?”, since this is simply a positive claim which requires positive evidence. And different types of claims require different evidence. But what if the 2nd sun collapsed into a black hole and is invisible? Now we need to see effects, IE gravitational lensing and movement of planets matching a 2nd body. This variation of the analogy fits things like tectonic plate theory, germ theory, etc. Or the fact that we have good reason to believe that Julius Caesar existed, but NOT to believe that he descended from the gods as he claimed.
But what if you REALLY want to play games and say that a wizard cast a spell on the 2nd sun, so now it’s not only invisible but has no gravity, and thus there can NEVER be any evidence to distinguish this claim from fantasy? Well, now there can never be evidence, and no one can be justified in believing such a thing. But if there can never be evidence, why ask “what evidence would convince you”? It’s just a game to make reason sound unreasonable.
[/excessively long explanation]
I like it. Nice alternative to Russell’s teapot. Gives them something more concrete.
No Godbot is going to cooperate by giving the right responces so many times in a row.
I can prove to you the sun sets in the North: your compass is sideways. It’s not the universe that’s wrong, just you.
They might argue that the sun only sets in the west because God wants it to. After all, he can stop it in the sky:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/jos/10.html#13
Reminds me of How Many Stars Are Not the Sun?
there is physical evidence that the sun sets in the west. there is no physical evidence that says a spiritual god can not exist. the god of the christian bible is not governed by the absurd whims of humanity demanding that he make himself known or not exist. your comparison does not work; your argument is invalid.
Hi Daniel, thanks for stopping by. I thought at first you were saying there is no physical evidence that a spiritual God can exist, which would have been a remark I think anybody would have to agree with. I would point out, though, that nobody is demanding that God make Himself known. I’m merely pointing out that when men describe God in a certain way, and then real-world observations are inconsistent with what men say, we have good reason to conclude that what they are saying is not true. The Christian description of God is that He loves us enough to die for us so that we can be together with Him forever. Well, forever started quite a while ago, yet there is no sign that God is willing and able to show up, in person, to participate in the relationship Christians say He wants so badly. That’s a good reason to regard the Gospel as a false teaching.
A rather silly remark, actually. There is no physical evidence that ANYTHING can NOT exist! Fairies, unicorns, The Flying Spaghetti Monster COULD all exist: there’s no evidence that they don’t! The point is, there’s absolutely no evidence that they DO exist, just as there is no evidence that your god exists.
Actually, since humanity invented the gods as explanations for natural events, they are ALL “governed by the absurd whims of” their creators. That is why there are so many different religions, and so many schisms within religions. People invent, define and redefine their gods to match their own personal beliefs. That is why religions have been forced to change over the centuries to encompass the changing beliefs of people. Otherwise, we’d still be burning witches at the stake!
the problem with this story is that there is proof that the sun sets in the west. so you can disprove that the sun sets in the north because you can prove that it sets in the west. you cannot prove or disprove the existence of god because god cannot be seen. therefore this analogy is wrong. sorry athiests
@Court
The problem with this rebuttal is that it means the Bible is lying every time it talks about God showing up in real life and/or doing anything that would demonstrate His existence. “God cannot be seen” means Jesus was just a man.
Thanks, theists.
god didnt want to be seen. he wanted us to worship him not his image. if god shows himself people will take pictures and paintings of him take them home and start praying and worshiping inanimate objects. it makes that pretty clear in the old testimate.
The best way to accomplish that would be for God to show up in real life so that He would be there for us to worship. Remember, according to the Gospel, it’s God who wanted to be with us for all eternity, not men who wanted to be with God. According to the Gospel, He wanted that badly enough to die for it—literally. So it’s not skeptics “demanding” that God show up, it’s Christians describing God in terms that make it clear He should be here because it’s what He wants. It’s not the skeptics’ fault He fails to do so.
Court suggested that God does not show up because He is not able to do so. You’re suggesting that He fails to show up because He’s just not willing. The one thing you both agree on is that He does not show up in real life. And that’s the main point here.
There’s an empirical explanation for everything. A belief in a non-existent being is a virus of the mind. It takes over the host and destroys it whilst attempting to spread to other minds.
All theists should, therefore, be culled. For the good of us all. We can call it rapture if it’ll make you feel any better.
actualy, take a look at alot of the people who are “cured” by sugar pills. the mind has alot of effect on the body. believing in a higer power isnt a crutch, if anything its a driving force. sure it doesnt work for everyone but, there are records of people using faith as strenght and it works. so what if they believe in something you dont, as long as they are striving to be better, work harder, be nicer. it can give people the strenght to overcome fears and sorrow. anything can be percived as good or bad. its all about how you look at it.
Actually, no one is “cured” by sugar pills. Placebos, like prayer, can make someone feel better, but don’t actually cure anything
If that’s all they are doing, there’s no problem. But in far too many cases they are using their faith as a weapon to oppress those who don’t believe as they do, preventing those others from having the same privileges and rights as the believers enjoy. And all so they can convince themselves that their “sugar pill” will actually help them.
Umm, I guess no body thinks of the south pole as part of the Earth. The sun DOES set in the north there. And on the north pole the sun sets in the south.
So, the real problem is your thinking.
Matthew 7:7,8 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Hi Earl, thanks for pointing that out. Out of curiosity, what would it take to convince you that the sun sets in the east?
I would be convinced if it did. I’m not against that fact that it COULD. In reality, the sun doesn’t do anything. The Earth spins and we perceive the sun as falling; and based on one’s point of observation the sun “falls” either in the north, south, or west.
I don’t know which, but I’m sure that on one of the planets in the solar system the sun is perceived as setting in the east.
I’m open to possibilities. I’ll hear and consider anything, but I will also question without discrimination. And should I find myself concluding something, I’m humble enough to acknowledge as a human that I have a very finite understanding because of my ignorance and weak perceptions.
We all believe what we like, because being humble and patient enough for the truth is so damn hard.
Bingo. The problem isn’t that you’re unwilling to consider the evidence, the question is whether or not the things we see in the real world are actually consistent with the conclusion. We don’t have people running around believing that the sun sets wherever they like on the grounds that it’s “too damn hard” to discover the truth about sunsets. What we believe about sunsets is and should be based on what actually happens in real life.
Just a note: you are missing the t in front of the he in “But like you said, he sun sets in the west, not in the north.” Last paragraph.
Fixed, thanks.
So you don’t believe in the sun setting in the north but you believe in the sun and know what it does. Tell me what god is and how you can’t believe in something that you don’t understand.
Easy! God is an imaginary being invented by men to ease their fears of the unknown. It’s very easy to NOT believe in imaginary beings.
Now, you tell me what YOU think God is, and how you can believe in something which is not real.
So you say that there is no evidence for God. It makes sense because you can’t define what “it” is that there is no evidence for. I presume you refer to scientific evidence. There is scientific evidence of God and this is based upon the state of the art, the cutting edge, of physics; M- or Brane- Theory derived from String Theory. Perhaps you might familiarize yourself in these regards. The implications of the theory come to the same conclusions that Buddhism does. The Mind of God is the vibration of the membranes of the multiverse; the music of the 11th dimension. Perhaps you don’t believe in Physics or scientific evidence either.
While I don’t claim to understand these particular sciences, I do know that CLAIMING they describe God, whether the Buddhist or Christian or Islamic gods, is a far cry from proving it. Where is the evidence for this “Mind of God”. Just because your imaginary being is malleable enough to squeeze into any tiny hole you choose to place him in, doesn’t make him any less imaginary.
Show me the evidence!
The more educated a person is, the more they won’t believe fantasy. The less educated a person is, the more they will believe in fantasy. This has been factually proven. This therefore means that people who believe in fantasy simply need to be educated. As a corollary, the more advanced the society, the less reliant the society is on fantasy. What one can surmise from this is that those that believe in fantasy are uneducated and primitive. Welcome to reality, it is a harsh mistress.
I’m an atheist; but this is a really stupid analogy…
Words words words
I see these arguments all over the net. Mostly all the same when you stand back.
The whole point of MY argument is that it is absolutely useless for an atheist/agnostic to be arguing with any religious person because its oranges and apples.
Belief and logic have NO compatibility. Atheists always try to argue from logic and believers always defy (or twist) logic or deny it (as in scientifically proven truths)
Give it up atheists, believers will never be swayed because its what they BELIEVE.
As “House” once said “If you could reason with religious people then there would be no religious people”
Your arguments are non productive and always will be because belief is not reasonable and doesnt have to be.
Hi Connor, thanks for sharing. There’s a flip side to your point: because religious people are persuaded by factors other than logic, my words don’t need to be logically persuasive in order to be effective. Nor do yours. There’s a certain amount of influence to be had just by repetition, and by the number of people who pick something up and pass it on. So I’m glad to keep on preaching, despite the apparent doom and gloom.
Besides, it’s kinda fun.
Connor,
You have to understand that our comments and arguments are not intended to convince the hopelessly hardcore fanatics, of either side. They are to provide information and food for thought for those who are on the edge, not sure of what they’ve been taught all their lives and can no longer accept blindly.
As has been said many times, by many people, you cannot reason someone out of a position they did not come to through reason. But for those who are, perhaps for the first time, applying reason to their belief systems, these comments and conversations can provide valuable material for them to contemplate. These are the people we are trying to reach. To do so requires negating all of the unreason we see coming from the religious.
Besides, it IS fun!
The sun sets in the north at the north pole.
sorry 🙁
I think you mean south, but you’re right. The point is that what it would take would be for the real world, somewhere, to match the claim that was being made. When we allow ourselves to be convinced by anything less than reality, we make ourselves gullible.
except the sun does set in the north at some altitudes at some times of year…
I think you mean “at some latitudes,” but yes, for anyone who happens to be observing the sunset from those locations, the sunset is indeed more northerly than westerly, and at the south pole itself all directions are north. The original story was written with the northern hemisphere in mind, but feel free to substitute “south” for all sunsets observed south of the equator.
So I guess Zeus is true, because millions of people believed in him too, and there are bibles that describe him as well.