Jedi Mind Trick

Yes, this is a horrible argument.

I used to use it myself, but it really is nothing more than an intellectually vacant, last ditch, position. It recognizes that the physical evidence is against the Christian position so it throws out a diversionary mind-fuck that turns the loving god into more of a monster.

So, God is doing this to sort out the true believers from the fakers? Boy that Yahweh, what a brilliant strategist. He must be trying to impress his Asherah by tying his omniscience behind his back and coming up with this plan to “out� the real sinners.

Spherical Time

I have to say that I think that the Bible would be God's test. After all, would He rather see his people get all of their knowledge from a book or from nature? The lies aren't the dinosaur bones, they're the words of the Bible that seem to contradict that evidence.

Perhaps He respects it when His people use their own minds to figure out the world around them.

PoodleLovinPessimist

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." -- Thomas Jefferson

TomboyMom

Let me get this. God created everything, and he put stuff in there to make it look one way, when it's really the other way, to see if he could get his believers to believe him despite the evidence? That's what they're saying? Well:
(1) You're absolutely right. People who believe something despite the all the evidence being to the contrary are probably Christian. Faith is believing in spite of the evidence. I prefer to go with the evidence.
(2) If I wanted someone to believe something that was not true, this would be a convenient way to do it.
(3) What a weird God!
(4) I believe this position is impossible to disprove. However, it would leave you unable to rely on science at all, which seems kind of inconvenient and dangerous.

tentative

Thumper,

Perhaps within your particular religious beliefs your statements make 'sense'. And they may even be 'true' for others in your epistemic community, but the reaction you've received is justified in that you offered no rational explanation of your position, or even a description of the path that led you to your non-rational conclusion. The right/wrong issue could be debated, but you must present some 'anchor point' to be taken seriously.

JT

Rameus

Here is what I ask them:

"If God wants us to believe in Biblical creation and the inerrancy of scripture, why then did he leave us so much evidence to the contrary? Does he want the intelligent, rational, objective human beings to suffer eternally in Hellfire for merely exercising the intellectual gifts that he (allegedly) gave us?"

At the very least, you will get back amusing responses that you can use to demonstrate the ever present theme of anti-intellectualism in fundamentalist Christianity. A theme that I have noticed they are trying to debunk in various forms of popular media as of late.

Rameus

MsChutzpah

I just read the "On Christian Scholarship" by Plantinga. It is easy to see how the creationists "think" the way they do.

quote:

Dawkins once made a telling remark to A. J. Ayer at one of those candle-lit, elegant and bibulous Oxford dinners: "Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin," said he, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."[17] And here Dawkins seems to me to be quite correct. I don't mean to endorse his claim that it is possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist; I myself believe that claim to be false. The point about evolution, however, is that it is a plausible effort to remove one of the major embarrassments for the atheist. Evolution is an essential part of any reasonably complete naturalistic way of thinking; it plugs a very large gap in such ways of thinking; hence the pious devotion to it, the suggestions that doubts about it should not be aired in public, and the venom and abuse with which dissent is greeted. In contemporary academia, evolution has become an idol of the tribe; it serves as a shibboleth, a litmus test distinguishing the benighted fundamentalist goats from the enlightened and properly acculturated sheep. It plays that mythic role.

I see this [quote: "it plugs a very large gap in such ways of thinking; hence the pious devotion to it, the suggestions that doubts about it should not be aired in public, and the venom and abuse with which dissent is greeted.] <<~~~~as describing THEIR own Christian viewpoint!

Shattered00

Thanks for the replies. I greatly appreciate it.

mirage

I hate Plantinga so much! I have never read a sentence of his that has not increased my contempt.

What a snide, self satisfied construction. Was Plantinga at this dinner? I suppose he doesn't need to be, we all know what those leftist atheist intellectual elite get up to. They drink!. They indulge themselves! Obviously they do, or why would they invent atheism as an excuse to sin? And here, whilst at ease in the elegant surroundings he is so at home with, tongue perhaps loosened by fine vintage wine from the college cellar, Dawkins makes his telling admission that evolution is just part of this giant excuse!

This snide and patronising propaganda wouldn't be so intolerable if he could string two thoughts together.