Radorth

Fine Jack. I'm sorry, but your tune has changed some.

Sure if she turns out to have all the attributes of Jesus, took my sins upon herself and can do for me what Jesus has done, including imputing righteousness to me. As you know, I have very little.

Fat chance of that. As I said, I did not come to Christ with any fear, much as I knew about him already.

Rad

Yellum Notnef

Aha! I`ve seen you mention this before here,but you were not in the habit of typing out swears then. So what exactly is "green shit" and who called you it? Sure there is some shit thats green,but i suspect that whoever called you it had something else in mind. This has peaked my curiosity being the connoisseur of obscenities that I am.


I don`t believe anyone here has ever said "No Christian has ever done anything good". Accusing us of this is a bald faced lie and you know it.

What has been said here (many times) is that humans don`t do good things because they are Christian,but rather Christians do good things because they are human.

Now go sit down with some Snackwells and a juice box and try to comprehend what I just said.

Jack the Bodiless

Not a particularly informative answer, Radorth.

I have assumed, for the sake of argument, that my own worldview is false and Christianity is true (subject to the usual confusion over what "Christianity" actually entails, given the confusion in the Bible and among Christian theologians).

Now it's your turn to assume that Christianity is false and Hinduism is true.

So forget everything about "taking your sins away" and "imputing righteousness". This isn't going to happen. You're now in a scenario in which the main gods are personifications of universal forces and principles, they don't care about petty human concerns. Only the lesser ones do, and they have you slated for reincarnation as a cockroach due to your rejection of Hinduism (much stronger than our mere unbelief in Hinduism: I'm coming back as a monkey, you need to work your way back up through the animal kingdom over centuries). But you've caught Kali's eye and she's considering torturing you for a while, and maybe biting a few legs off your cockroach form.

What do you have to say to her?

(...I have a world globe on my desk, and I've just noticed that the country facing right at me is India. An omen, perhaps)

Bumble Bee Tuna

Seeing as I was making a big deal out of being civil and not insulting, yes, I'd say it's a terrible thing. What did I do to provoke that? I tried to ask why you were calling me a hypocrite, since you failed to elaborate, but I notice you ignored that request. Probably because you know it would get shot down.

Well, right now a big one (since Christianity is so preoccupied with controlling sex) is having premarital sex with my girlfriend. My conscience is loving that and thinks it's a wonderful idea. Of course, according to you my conscience is God speaking to me so apparently he's giving me the A-OK to have wild sex without abandon. Of course, I can predict the response "That's not your TRUE conscience, you're blocking out your REAL conscience, which is telling you not to". But we all know no true Christian uses the No true Scotsman fallacy! :P
My conscience also tells me not to believe illogical things, so it tells me not to believe in God...Gosh, right there my conscience is telling me to commit the worst possible sin.

OK, I can see why people hate arguing with you. Right after the sentence you replied to I explained what's wrong with this statement. Atheists do not claim God's behavior is merely "unacceptable". They say it is "unacceptable" behavior for a perfect omnimax being. It is imperfect, so it is unacceptable perfect behavior. Therefore, God is not perfect, if he exists...but he is claimed as perfect, therefore he simply does not exist. And you mistake arguing with complaining. We don't even think God exists, so of course we don't complain about imaginary things. We just use his attributes to show how improbable his existence is. No complaining.

Don't give me this crap. I didn't avoid any questions. You did avoid responding to anything I said, presumably so you could pretend I didn't say it and you could continue your charade that "nobody is answering my scenarios, they must have hit close to home, I declare myself the victor". Fine. I tried to engage in a discussion with you but you appear to like your persecution complex too much to let it go. And to think I deluded myself into thinking that if people stopped insulting you and just answered your damn questions you would actually pay attention and respond in kind.

Jayjay

Bullshit. My scenario doesn't remove free will at all, any more than not being able to fly or breath underwater does. In fact, in the world I described people would have more free will because they'd actually know what God wants from them, instead of relying on religious nutjob mediators as they supposedly do in our world.

Thank you for this mature and comprehensive response. You asked a better way for God to create willing and committed servants, I gave you one, and now you are resorting to your regular evasive manouvers and insults. Bravo Raddy.

Radorth

Gee, don't hold back for me. Say what you think man! It will leak out sooner or later. Actually now that I go back and read it, I was speaking in general, not about you in particular, so you are making a big deal out of a noninsult. Nevertheless, I consider us all hypocrites and I have never called a person anything but a fellow hypocrite.

That is a subjective, undefinable assertion used to create strawman arguments, and anyone who falls for it is not very bright IMO. As I pointed out, God doesn't have to be "perfect" to be worthy of obedience.

Anything? That's just a lie, isn't it? Well there's a pretty good example of your hypocrisy, claiming you responded flawlessly and I responded to nothing.

Rad

Bumble Bee Tuna

Yeah, you responded to nothing of actual substance, or the point flew right over your head when you did try. So I don't really see anything wrong with the "anything" comment, since your posts were the equivalent of you replying to this psot and saying

In other words, your responses were worthless for the most part.

I find it curious that you want me to be insulting to you. Mainly because I see you complaining all the time about how persecuted you are. I guess it's that old Christian "I want to be persecuted" complex. Well if you want me to call you an asshole just so you can brag in this thread "I've been called an asshole by mean atheists in this thread" then fine. Just say it. You can't have it both ways. Either you enjoy being insulted or you don't want to be. But don't claim you want to be insulted and then complain about how people insult you at the same time.

I realize that an imperfect God could still be worthy of obedience...but since God is claimed to be perfect, that doesn't really matter, does it? This is what everyone argues against: the omnimax perfect god! If you don't believe in that fella, than the arguments don't apply to you.

-B

Jayjay

I don't know about rest of you, but at least I don't think I've assumed omnimax properties for God. IMHO omnimax God is logical contradiction to begin with, and as such we're going to have to toss at least a few omnis out the window just to be able to talk about what-ifs pertaining to his existence.

Radorth

Not at all. I just don't want you to be pretentious if you are.

Yeah I'm sure you don't see anything wrong with you. It's like a judge ruling at his own trial. That's your problem. I know that because you really only see in me what is actually in you, until you have learned just how much the same we are. (Which usually coincides with seeing what Christ did and why).

What an incredibly misleading, inane statement that is. Of course not. You just assume it hypothetically to make a fallacious argument about his existence. Try to keep up.

It's a little late for that now. One discerning skeptic and I did that already. Too bad you missed it. The guy had me on the ropes.

Time for Rad to work on his "Thread highlights"

Rad

Cipher Girl

Rad you said:
Well since the only description of your deity was the attribute "love", and evil exists in the world, this deity must not be able to do anything about it. Otherwise, why would an all-loving deity allow such suffering to exist if it could do something about it?

As for name calling, where have I called you any names? Personally, I think a lot of people result to name-calling when they are unable to come up with a good counter argument. This applies to both sides of debates around here, atheist-atheist, religious-religious, and atheist-religious. I prefer maintaining my cool and watching the other person turn into a raving lunatic (perhaps overstated somewhat). This is great online but somewhat scary in real life.

As for assuming properties for gods, I have simply taken the most common one that christians seem to claim for thier god. I think the only logical form for a deity is the deist one. That a god perhaps threw the dice that started the universe and simply sits back to watch how it turns out. Of what use is such a god? It's the same result as not having a god at all.