Thank you for your response, CaptainHaplo. Though I will submit that it is not me laying logical traps, but rather you falling for logical fallacies. And to clarify: In one of your later responses you said to SailorSteve that for the sake of argument I would assume that the God of the Bible is real. That is not quite so, or this discussion would be pointless.
It is rather like that: "You" (the believer / proponent of that) are telling me that it is so. You are making the positive claim. I'm in the neutral position initially. I look out the window, or up into the sky, and I don't see him. That doesn't prove anything either way, of course. So, I look at why you are making the claim, and one of the things you (the proponent) does is pointing to a book compiled of a number of 2000+ year old scripts from the Middle East. You also tell me that this God you are referring to is not only real, but he is a perfect and benevolent being with perfect love, perfect justice, that we all should strive for him, and indeed, must strive for him or at the end of our days, we will not only die, but after that end up in a terrible place for all eternity, because he has a certain ruleset and if you didn't obey it you are doomed. These are all bold claims and since when I look out the window I see nothing indicating this specific figure with these specific properties, I then decide to take a look at the book you are referring to and are basing your claims on.
What you then did for the most part of your response, was that whenever I pointed out logical inconsistencies, or evidence for actions that are not only not lovely, and not just, but appalling in the highest degree to any sentient moral and emphatic being, your response was that there is mistake on my part to approach your claims with logic, since the figure, by its nature, cannot be understood by logic. There are a number of severe problems with that response though:
- You yourself are applying attributes to the figure like love and justice. These are concepts that are known and knowable to man. So when man looks at the book and points out the many instances therein that are in gross violations of these concepts - like ordering the slaughter of baby childs and raping of women - you say that these are not violations of the concepts of love and justice, but instead God's concept of love and justice is beyond human comprehension. So, what you are basicly doing there is completely remove any meaning from the words love and justice. When a sign of love and / or justice can at the same time mean giving food to someone and ordering the raping of women or slaughter of children, then "love" and / or "justice" do not have any consistent properties by which they could be described, thus these words become completely meaningless.
But, tracking our steps back to the initial position, remember that it was *you* (the proponent) who decribed your God to have these properties / characteristics. So, you either stand by the terms love and justice as concepts where certain outcomes must and must not follow, or you didn't describe your God AT ALL. Which begs the question of: If you didn't describe him at all, what are you talking about in the first place? If your God cannot be subject to logic, then there is no possible way for man to talk about him and the discussion must end instantly, or actually, cannot even begin.
If he is not subject to logic, we could as well discuss "Red triangles in my head above the sand, but brighter, together with the pink unicorn, are slow, but fast, and will judge you at the end of days." Which also begs the question, why do you apply logic to EVERYTHING else in your life, but when it comes to your GOD, you totally surrender logic. Which then begs the question, why would God, *now* assuming that he exists, present himself in such a way as to be not understandable by logic, which must lead to many humans, who are surviving in their world by applying logic everyday, to not be able to believe in him and thus be lost and damned in eternal hellfire ultimately? Is that, too, a question that is not applicable? Do you need to disable your brain, that God gave you, and become "retarded" to be saved? This is not meant as an offense, but instead it is exactly what must follow if God is exempt from logical inquiery.
- Your response is a severe case of circular reasoning, or rather, a non sequitur. You are saying: "There is a God, he has a book, which is either his divine word and / or the records of him revealing himself to man, and he has properties X, Y and Z, and you should worship him because he is real". When I say: "Actions x, y and z described in his book are in contradiction to properties X, Y and Z, so who is he again (what are his properties again), so whom should I worship and why?" You say: "Don't ask questions, silly, just do it. You not understanding him with your "human" logic is proof that he is real, and God." Taken further, you could as well say: "You not seeing him is proof that he exists." Do you apply that reasoning to anything else in your life? Probably not, because you recognize it as a logical fallacy. Except when it comes to your God. Because he is beyond logic. But so is the Pink Unicorn. Why do you not worship it? Because it doesn't have a book? Suppose it had one, would you worship it? Why do you worship the desert God of an Iron Age Middle Eastern tribal nation of goat herders, who - if the Bible is historically correct - commited gross attrocities on neighbouring tribes, justifying them by reference to him, instead of Vishnu or Zeus? Are you worshipping him BECAUSE he is beyond logic, or inspite of it? Would you worship Vishnu rather than the desert God if you were born in India, or Zeus if you were born in ancient Greece? What makes you assume you got "the right deity", when this deity cannot even be understood by logic??? And remember, "logic" is not just a word you can discard, it is the very means of reasoning. Without it, I would continue with saying that alkdhjbzlfkhg----------34jwghliw4zhi4lkdfsgnhgia8.
- There's another thing about this "Because he is God, us humans cannot understand his ways". There is an interesting story in the Bible in the book of Job. It exactly deals with "Making NO sense whatsoever for YOU, silly!"
From Jobs perspective, all of a sudden - out of the blue - so to say, he gets hit with a lot of very very bad things. His sons and daughters dieing, he losing all his wealth, getting severely ill, his body degenerating grossly. He doesn't understand it, because he was the most upright and God fearing man under the sun, not according to his own views, but according to God.
Yet he gets smashed. Some friends come along to talk to him. They suspect that maybe he wasn't all that good after all, and he should repent, then all will be good again. But Job insists that he was indeed perfect unto the Lord, but God smashed him anyway, but also says that's OK after all, because God is great and who knows his ways. Later, when God speaks out of the thunderstorm, he indeed confirms that Job's friends are talking out of their behind with their blame game and Job was indeed speaking rightly (so, he smashed him for no earthly discernible reason). Then he restores everything Job had before, and then some, including a new family (I wonder if Job was still a bit bothered though that God stopped at the restoring thing when it would have meant to resurrect his dead former children. Or maybe you didn't care back then and children were interchangable, cultural background and all that...).
What is quite kind of God about this story is that he lets YOU, the reader (not Job, mind you! He had to just suck it up), look behind the scenes. What infact transpired in HIS realm to cause so much grief to Job. God gives the reader THE REASON for it. Let's see what it was:
Turns out that one day, "the Sons of God" (whoever that is, theologians frequently cope out with calling them "heavenly beings" - though the Sons of God at one point in the OT also came down to earth and had sex with humans, which resulted in the tribe of giants, so whatever) walked up to God, and Satan "was also among them." The Lord asks him "Where do you come from?" Satan tells him he just returned from a roundtrip on the earth. Then the Lord asked him "Did you see my servant Job? He's the most upright of them all." If this is not a friendly conversation, and we must assume it can't be, then it means God is boasting unto Satan. And indeed, Satan responds with "Yeah, big deal. You think he is so upright unto you for nothing? You made him most rich and gave him a happy life. Take that away from him and see how it works out for you!" And the bet is on. God does exactly that. Well, actually, not he himself. He let's Satan actually do the dirty deed. But first, he forbids him to touch Job's body. So, Satan goes ahead and destroys Jobs wealth and kills his children. But Job's response to that is not that he is falling off from God, but instead he says "The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Praise the name of the Lord!". And did not sin and did not rebel against God.
Then, some other day, again the Sons of God, with Satan among them, walk up to the Lord. Same story with the roundtrip. Then God asks: "Did you see my servant Job? He is the most... etc. and he still keeps to his piety, yet you brought me to ruin him for no reason / on no basis."
Satan says "Ha! Taking away his wealth and children wasn't enough. Touch his body and he will denounce you!" So God agrees to Satans proposal of raising the stakes in that little game and once more gives Job into the hands of Satan, this time his health.
And God wins the second round, too, since Job doesn't turn away from God.
OK. So what was happening here? God was playing what amounts to a perverted betting game with Satan, which entailed unimaginable suffering and grief to a human being on earth. THIS is all there is to it. Why would he do that? Is he doing it because he is insecure himself? If he knows the future, and in many parts of his book he says he does, he must have known that Job will not fall away from him. So if this can't be the reason, he must be doing it to spite Satan. The Satan that he himself created and that he is going to destroy at some point after the end of the world. What is the point of spiting him, especially if it entails severe human suffering? Does that mean God is bored sometimes so that he takes delight in spiting Satan from time to time, and the price for that is human suffering? Or does God indeed NOT know the future, which would severly contradict other stories in the Bible, albeit this story here would make a lot more sense if he didn't and if he isn't omniscient, and which would indeed be indicated by the initial question of "Where do you come from (Satan)?" If he doesn't know the future, he indeed did take the bet out with Satan because he was curious himself. Either way, if God is playing games with Satan that entail severe human suffering, either out of curiousity or out of spite, in a universe that HE created, where the ultimate price the human subject in the petridish might even pay when he fails the test is eternal hellfire, what does that make God? What the hell is this?
Now, think about it. What makes more sense: Is that the description of a real God, of the creator of the universe, who came up with things like e=mc^2 (actually, Einstein "came up" with it. I wonder if it turns out to be false, then you'll never hear a believer say that again...), a God of love and justice, as Christians would have you believe, a benevolent being, your personal friend, or is it rather that what we have here is a primitive story made up by simple men to explain suffering when it doesn't make sense to them, especially when they feel they did nothing wrong towards their God, of men who also had the luxury of not having to bring all of this to terms with hundreds of different other stories, even some about a man who claimed he was God himself, or his son, or both (as did many other men) and acted quite differently to the ravaging, petty, jealous, cruel and genocidal God of Old, and which would some thousand years later be compiled into a single book and still make any sense and be coherent. But this is what "Christianity" is trying to sell you. They are telling you that the reason your child / mother / husband whoever died tragically in an accident was because the invisible man in the sky is playing betting games about your soul with the devil! Oh, and btw. he also made the universe and intelligently designed DNA and what not, when he was not just busy playing poker. Give me a break, man.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo
First question - How do you know he didn't answer the prayer of a starving child in Africa? Do you know what the child prayed for? Perhaps not to be hungry anymore? So the Lord, in his mercy - chose to call the child Home where he or she would never suffer hunger again. A prayer answered - just not in the way you thought "it should be". As for how God answers prayer - it can be either through natural or supernatural means.
|
If I were to answer as an atheist, I would have to say that this is response is hideously cynical and inhuman. But since you are arguing from a certain proposition and because I made the same kind of mental acrobatics when I was a Christian, I know that it is not meant cynical at all. But it is intellectually dishonest. Actually, it's absurd and another logical fallacy. Here's why: If God would have thrown something like mana from heaven, you would have said: "See, this is proof of the Lord!" And when NOTHING
AT ALL happens and the child just DIES from HUNGER, you say "See, this is proof of the Lord! He mercifully let the child die".
Wow. You see any problem with that? Also, should we try and stop fighting hunger via charity, since God mercifully takes care of that for us by letting the people die?
Quote:
|
However - your questions also make assumptions that are designed to "load" the question. How many miracles are listed in the Bible? How many people lived during those times - compared to today? Who is to say that the Lord is not performing miracles every day (like curing "incurable" cancer") just as many as before? With the population what it is - it simply doesn't "register" on your local news.....
|
Cancer just disappearing is an observed medical phenomena that is not yet explained. Like when we didn't understand why the sun wasn't falling from the sky. Maybe, as we did with other things, we should go ahead and continue investigating phenomenas such as this by scientific means, so that maybe some day, we will be able to cure cancer, like we were able with many other diseases, instead of ascribing it to the Desert God because we do not currently understand it. And rest assured, if science will
ever find a cure for cancer, it will be Christians like you who will say "God gave the scientists the cure for cancer!", while today you say "It's a miracle!". You contributed nothing. And neither did the Desert God. Actually, you might have been in the way of science by probably proposing to teach the "Controversy" at centers of education, i.e. Science vs Intelligent Design, Science vs. the Magic Spells of the Desert God.
Quote:
|
As for why certain miracles don't happen - again your asking for an explanation of the mind of the Almighty.
|
Oh yeah, my fault, sorry. Let's just stop talking at all then. About anything. If that makes more sense.
Quote:
|
Still, if you choose to believe the Biblical history - there were many times when the Lord provided only to have people turn from Him. Now if you had experienced the same thing over and over - why would YOU continue to provide knowing that it will not bring the people closer to you? Why would you give knowing it would be unappreciated and taken for granted in a short time? Most people wouldn't. Your saying that you expect God to do so - even as you question who and what God is.....How can you have an expectation of something you clearly say you don't understand?
|
So, God is sulking?? Here we have the inefficient God again. Not knowing how to properly show the humans that he is the creator of all things, trying out different means and then abandoning them again when they didn't work for those pesky humans. At some point, he must have been quite convinced that it'll work, since it is what Jesus used to establish his authority for
claiming to be God. He also said that his followers will be able to do wonderous things in his name, like drink deadly poison and live, heal the sick etc.
Also, there is a number of things God, the creator of the Universe, could have done to ensure that people in 2000 years wouldn't just have to rely on a 2000 year old compiled and contradictionary book that describes fancy magic tricks by an obscure figure in the middle east, magic tricks you will find in ANY number of other religions, like walking on water, curing the sick. Here might be some suggestions:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NonStamp...35/zOfjkl-3SNE
Quote:
Its good because it fits with His will. The problem here is your trying to apply your limited perspective and ethical view to something much bigger than you. You see the trees, but not the forest.
Emphasis added to specific portions.
Pharoah was given numerous opportunities to let the Israelites go. In Exodus 4, the Lord instructs Abraham to tell Pharoah what the ultimate cost of his rebellion will be if he does not let them leave. This is before any of the plagues. 6 times in Exodus did Pharoah harden his own heart and refuse - even given supernatural signs and wonders - that he was outmatched on every level. He was warned - and he chose multiple times to disobey. The Lord is not a liar - His judgement upon Egypt was as He said it would be. The Lord does not threaten - He promises. Once the line was crossed then the full gamut of His righteous anger was kindled and would be seen.
|
No no no. You know better than that, when you are a pastor. Let's keep honest here, shall we. There was no imaginary line in the story crossed by the Pharao. You just made that up. I grant you that not after every single plague it said "The Lord hardened his heart". It sometimes says instead "His heart was hardened", which can very well mean, and probably does mean, by the Lord, if the Lord did it after the plague before or the plague thereafter. At one point it also said "The Pharao hardened his heart" -
which however does not exclude God's manipulation, especially if it was established in the very BEGINNING of the story, when God tells Moses of his PLAN, that "I (the Lord) will harden his heart, so that he will not let you go." This is pretty damn clear man. There is no imaginary line anywhere in the story that if Pharao had not crossed it, God had not "hardened his heart". You made it up to get something like reasoning into the story, to make it look like God first gave a shot across the bow, while in the
real story the Pharao and the Egyptians are nothing but a tool to God to demonstrate his power and bring exactly ten plagues upon them and the ten plague was exactly planned to be the murder of every single firstborn in all of Egypt, human and animal.
This, my friend, is a story and a picture of God primitive men would come up with, in a time where there was still at contest going on among different desert tribes and people, about who owns the land and on what authority, about MY God is bigger than YOUR God. And because that is so, you need to do mental acrobatics and invent imaginary lines that were crossed by the Pharao to make God look more humanistic in nature. The God of love and Einstein and all that. Which would fail even if there had been an imaginary line: Why the hell kill the firstborn, including baby childs, of EVERYBODY?
Btw, do you know what your Bible says about those who "change the word of God"? Repent!
Quote:
In the OT this was a demand of law upon the government. Such activity threatened the bloodline of Christ. While the individuals were free to reject salvation to come - their actions could not be allowed to toss it for everyone. Thus the law. In the NT, read Romans 1:26, 27 - since the Christ has come, the Lord allows nature to take its course and afflict the sinners with the natural outcome.
And people wonder today why AIDS (which initiall primarily afflicted gays and drug users - another group that defiles the body) has proven so hard to eradicate....
Rebellious teenagers: Context is important. Read Deuteronomy 21 - starting with verse 10. It tells a man the cost of what he can endure and must do in some cases should he choose to take a wife as spoil from a victory in battle. It lays out the costs long term. It is a warning and advisement. It is also important to realize that nowhere does it is say "teenager". Moses - who is credited with writing the Book, died at 120yrs of age. A "son" often lived with the family for most of their life - well into adult years of 40 or more. This is dealing with the rebellion of an adult son who continues to violate the Law. It is a matter of sooner or later with such a person. If the parents don't do it first, the Law will end up doing it later, after others have suffered the consequences of the rebel's insubordination.
|
OK, this is just too absurd to warrant much further comment, especially in light of all I wrote above. But since I can't hold me back:
- Why is the salvation of man by an all powerfull God dependent on who has sex with whom, so that at some point some special person can be born, who is actually God incarnate, who will take all the sin of the world upon him while being totally innocent himself, thus being the only proper (and human) sacrifice that God himself can accept (God is quite bloodthirsty even in the NT, isn't he?) so that he can forgive all the humans, which were all born with original guilt for something 2 people did at
the beginning of the world. And btw, he also designed DNA sometime before all that. Before he intelligently designed the humans to fall for sin. Who btw also have some parts in and on their body that would indicate animal ancestors, and DNA itself, just to confuse those humans into the false religion of "Evolution", I guess, so that less be saved. Hello?
Or, short version: God could only come into the world if some gay people died first. I see.
- Context is not important when someone proposes the death penalty for teenagers being stubborn. Also, the text doesn't speak of ANY age limitations. Are you making things up again? And even if it did, from which age on do you propose does stubborness warrant the death penalty?
- AIDS. Aside from what has already been pointed out to you, that AIDS does not just befall evil gays and drug users, I wouldn't try to build a case for the Desert God on that one if I were you. Totally aside from it showing another case of gross cruelty, I wonder what people like you will say when at one point in the future we might find a cure for it. It hasn't been around that long, and there were cures found for sicknesses that were around much longer. Have we then won against the Desert God, by breaking another tool of his wrath? Or did he then mercifully decide at that point that now, after millions of death, including thousands of children in Africa who were neither gay nor drug users, we may find the cure? Or should we stop looking for it so that your Desert God can go on with punishing those whicked people? I think I now understand why the Pope is against the use
of condoms.
Quote:
|
Good? Depends on the perspective. From the Lord's - obviously yes. Just? Well, the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt for how long? Killed or sold as cattle? A few deaths in recompense are more than called for in the judicial view of the time - and the one espoused by God.
|
Yes, it always depends on the perspective. Since I do not want to be the one to summon Godwin's Law, I leave you to decide what would be written here now if I did.
And yes, I guess a few deaths of 2 month olds etc. are more than called for. Especially if you are an all powerfull being that could have just prevented the Israelites from becoming slaves in the first place, or do any number of things INSTEAD OF KILLING, among others, baby childs. Jesus Christ, really. Also, "a few deaths" - I will leave the mathematics to you to figure out the number when it says "EVERY FIRSTBORN IN ALL OF EGYPT". And why the animals, too? Because the question of guilt didn't even matter. It was a power demonstration of a blood-thirsty and genocidal God which is in line with other actions he did either himself or ordered his people to do.
So there. This is what I can discern just from the book you told me is of the one who created the universe. We don't even have to talk about absurd claims of intelligent design or historical accuracy of the Bible, because both these things would just fly into your face, and might neither prove nor disprove the Desert God anyway, because that would depend on how literal the proponent's Christian flavor takes the Bible.
Sorry for the long post. On the upside, I guess this is all I have to say about that.
Also, these videos pretty well drive home my points, so I want to link them here:
Morality:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NonStamp...12/zXO26pObTZA
And on a more funny note:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NonStamp...33/Pt66kbYmXXk
http://www.youtube.com/user/NonStamp...58/QecUUnLNSiY
Intelligent Design:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NonStamp...32/4_G9awnDCmg
http://www.youtube.com/user/NonStamp...39/wKtuk0ZpnbY