There is an atheist argument that no Christian theist can really refute, and every time I have used it, no Christian theist has attempted to refute it successfully. He goes like this: “If I had been born and raised in a different or earlier society/culture [like that of ancient Egypt] you would be singing the praises of a quite different deity (or deities) with the same faith, belief or conviction [like Osiris] and you know that this is so. So what does that say about the existence of your Christian God?”

So how would my all-too-frequent debate colleague known as MG react to this? Well, MG raised the question of the existence of Osiris, a god within the pantheon of ancient Egyptian deities.

MG – “Atheists actually say quite often that God does not exist…”

JP – Some do, but those people are misrepresenting the accepted atheist position. That is NOT the position I take. My position is that you, as a theist, in making a positive claim, have the burden of proof to back it up. Now let’s see if you can. I seriously doubt it.

[Even though there is no evidence for God’s existence that doesn’t preclude the possibility that God exists just that the burden of proof exists with the theist making the positive claim. Can that argument be applied to the ancient Egyptian god Osiris?]

MG – “Likewise, no rational person says ‘I just haven’t seen evidence of Osiris’. No, Osiris doesn’t exist, and we all know it.”

JP – The ancient Egyptians did not know that. Was everyone delusional? If so, doesn’t that suggest that all deities are delusional since there is no evidence of any of them?

JP – And the ancient Egyptians had evidence and solid reasons to believe that Osiris existed.

JP – The ancient Egyptians were intelligent and rational people and believed in the existence of Osiris. So your argument is downright silly. No matter how you slice and dice things, many people, as rational and intelligent as you are, believed in the existence of Osiris. Who the hell do you think you are to judge them!

MG – “We have evidence and solid reasons to believe that Osiris does not exist.”

JP – Who is “We”? Speak for yourself. Regarding the ancient Egyptians and Osiris, then what makes you think you are better, smarter and more rational than them? A little yourself – yes? But beyond the point, you are an atheist when it comes to Osiris. You say that Osiris doesn’t exist, but that’s just your opinion. How do you really know that Osiris doesn’t exist? You can’t absolutely prove that Osiris doesn’t exist and you know you can’t, but if you think you can, do it here and now. Give readers your “evidence” here.

MG – “OK, I have strong reasons to believe that Osiris doesn’t exist. If Osiris did exist, then there would be a spiritual plane of existence where our own spirits are judged (our hearts are weighed against a feather). Since we do, it doesn’t have spirits, there can be no such place, and Osiris cannot exist.”

JP: While I pretty much agree with you that there is no spiritual world, millions of other intelligent and rational people would be willing to criticize you for your non-spiritual worldview of the plane of existence.

JP – Regarding Osiris: 1) Osiris may have been an actual human being whose legend over the centuries in ancient Egypt has been blown out of all proportion to the telling and retelling and retelling of his story. 2) If we are simulated beings, then Osiris had the same degree of virtual reality that you have now. 3) Osiris may have been an ‘ancient astronaut’ – he is often depicted as having green skin! 4) Osiris inhabited the underworld, so he would normally be out of sight, except for the recently dead awaiting judgment and possible resurrection to the Egyptian version of the afterlife.

Now, using this question from Osiris as an example, I am of the strong opinion that you have set yourself up as judge, jury and executioner over an entire ancient culture that despised them only because they had different belief systems than your own. So what makes you right and the entire ancient Egyptian Empire wrong? Finally, don’t bash another culture unless you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.

MG – “The Egyptians (and other ancient groups) were rational people, but they did not have enough information to realize that their gods did not exist. We have enough information to show that they did not exist, as I had in the case of Osiris.”

JP: Again, you set yourself up as judge, jury and executioner for an entire ancient culture that looked down on them just because they had different belief systems than yours by suggesting they lacked enough information.

MG – “The point is that it can be shown that the gods of ancient civilizations do not exist, but the God of the Bible is even more plausible now (with more information accumulated) than he was back then.”

JP – Regarding the evidence for God, well, the ancient Greeks would give you evidence for Zeus (and the rest of the Olympians); the Nordic evidence of Odin; the ancient Egyptian evidence for Osiris and Isis; the Aztec evidence of Quetzalcoatl; the Inca evidence of Viracocha; the Hindu evidence of Brahma; the American Indian evidence of a Great Spirit; the Australian aborigines’ evidence of their rainbow serpent and so on. He not only has to provide evidence for God, but refute all the evidence for Zeus, Horus, etc. You can probably find several other examples of deities currently believed in in other modern monotheistic religions; deities that you would also need to deny to prove that God is the only true god.

JP – Similar to the Osiris argument, since no one in the last few thousand years has proven the actual existence of your preferred deity (ie God), what makes you think you can?

JP: So even after all these posts of yours, you’re still not one iota closer to providing any evidence for much less proving the existence of your preferred deity than you were when you started. Going off on tangents about Osiris does nothing to bolster your case for his preferred deity.

JP: So let’s move on to modern times and forget about Osiris for the time being, who is after all beyond our reach and therefore his status cannot be determined. So let’s say that when you finally kick the bucket, you go to the Pearly Gates only to be greeted by the Trinity of Shiva, Braham and Vishnu. Whoops! Now you have a good billion rational intelligent people, true believers living now who accept the existence of the Trinity of Shiva, Braham and Vishnu. So why are they wrong and, again, who are you to judge?

Note: There was no response to this challenge.

Conclusion: The purpose here was not to show that Osiris actually existed, but rather that, in principle, the Christian God and the Egyptian deity Osiris are on equal theological footing, since neither can be proven to have had existence or non-existence. There is as much or as little probability for one as for the other. That contrasts with MG, who claims that the Christian God does in fact exist and that the Egyptian deity Osiris does not exist and never has in fact existed.

oooooooooooooooo

Postscript: Now, here’s one reason why I think you should find the simulation hypothesis attractive. All theologies could be ‘true’ – Osiris could have virtually ‘existed’.

Postscript: God is not a necessary being. Brahma, Shiva, Isis and Osiris maybe, but not God. Actually, in fact, there is no such thing as a necessary being since beings or entities are in no way, shape, or form fundamental to existence.

Postscript: What about personal experiences? Personal experiences are just that, personal. They do not pass on evidence related to that experience to anyone else who has not shared that experience, which is unlikely since, by definition, the experience was personal. Furthermore, spiritual experiences are not limited to God, Jesus or the Virgin Mary. All kinds of other deities have been personally experienced, from Osiris to Shiva, Apollo and Odin. That also applies to aliens, as well as having visions and communications with the deceased.

Postscript: The concept of a resurrection is by no means restricted to Jesus. The resurrection, for example, was a common theme in ancient Greek mythology. Hercules, as noted above, was also resurrected by his dad! And in Ancient Egyptian mythology, Osiris was resurrected by Isis. Also, if you read the Gospels side by side rather than consecutively, you will notice that the various accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are inconsistent and contradictory with numerous discrepancies regarding who (who differs) saw what; between what actually happened (which also differs) and when; and between when (timeframes also differ) what happened actually happened. Staff, events, and timelines are not consistent.

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