rhutchin

Fine. Then you are able to make a decision and that decision is that you will not love God. Given that a person must love God (i.e., obey Him) in order to enter into heaven, your decision not to love/obey God has eternal consequences. You could rationally choose to obey God (i.e., love God) and refrain from stealing, murder, lying, etc. in order to enter heaven. I do not see where God's character enters this decision. You should be able to refrain from stealing no matter what you believe God's character to be and even to do any of the other things that God commands. Even if you were convinced that God was a liar, I do not see where that should affect your decision to obey God's command not to lie.

I don't think God intends for it to work that way. My understanding is that the person with all his limbs should daily ask God to take care of him less he be in an accident and lose a limb.

I understand that many churches sought to help the people in Ireland during the famine and the politicians got in the way.

Sounds like pure foolishness to me. You have a vivid imagination.

I think we should petition Congess to declare a week of fasting and prayer prior to each hurricane season to petition God for mercy and protection in the hurricane season.

Yes. People know what God requires (10 commandements, etc), so each person could decide that they would obey God and the world would become like the Garden of Eden.

Yep. Nonetheless, any person can recognize their sin and admit to it. They could then repent of that sin and ask God for forgiveness. I don't see that sin is a real problem here.

Johnny Skeptic

What seems plain to you, that people should accept Christianity, or that people should accept skepticism? Actually, do you really care what people accept? If there is insufficient information to judge a deity one way or the other, then that is sufficient grounds for people to be agnostics pending the availability of additional information.

Not likely. Your approach is usually, if not always, to assert nothing at all and question what other people assert, for some strange reason, usually what skeptics assert. You don't want to have to defend anything, but yet you ask other people to defend what they claim. Why is that? Why don't you question any of rhutchin's assertions?

hatsoff

Neither. You claim that not questioning God is senseless. I disagree, at least to some extent. I don't think it's fair to question that which is beyond human understanding. While I may be mistaken about that, it does make a good deal of "sense."

Yes, it is sufficient. But it is also sufficient grounds to make judgments about that diety. See, if you can't make a truth claim, agnosticism cannot be said to be logical, because that is a truth claim. And although Christianity involves truth claims, rejecting it for that reason is unacceptable because the rejection is a truth claim.

I am agnostic not for any logical reason. I'm simply agnostic.

Hopefully that will begin to answer your question about why I'm not Christian.

Johnny Skeptic

God's character is the fundamental issue. Jesus said that in order for a man to become saved, he must love God with all of his heart, soul, and mind. If you believed that God told lies, you would not be able to love him. Choice would not be involved. God has committed numerous atrocities against mankind that are much worse than lying is. The Bible does not teach that good moral conduct alone will enable a person to become saved, so your mention of stealing, murder, and lying are irrelevant unless a man also loves God with all of his heart, soul, and mind. Many skeptics oppose stealing, murder, and lying.

The Evil One

I wish I was surprised that for rhutchin, love = obedience. However, somehow I'm not.

It's quite sad really.

Johnny Skeptic

As an agnostic, I believe that when in doubt, it is best to withhold making any conclusions one way or the other about the origin of the universe pending the availability of more information. Do you believe that Christianity, atheism, and agnosticism are equally valid? Regarding "And although Christianity involves truth claims, rejecting it for that reason is unacceptable because the rejection is a truth claim", if that is true, it logically follows that rejecting skepticism in favor of Christianity is unacceptable because the rejection of skepticism in favor of Christianity is a truth claim.

If you are really a skeptic like you claim you are, you surely are not trying to convince anyone to become a Christian. Why don't you ever question rhutchin's many truth claims? You usually prefer to question what skeptics say. I find that to be quite strange for a supposed skeptic. You typically enjoy picking apart what other people assert, while refusing to make any assertions of your own. Why is that? What benefits do you derive from disagreeing with skeptics?

While Christians claim that they have a preponderance of evidence on their side, which is quite an assertive truth claim, an an agnostic, I am not nearly as assertive as Christians are, and yet, you prefer to question my approach instead of the appoach of Christians. In rhutchin's opinion, it is a virtual given that the Bible is true.

Edit: I just took a brief look at all of the threads that you have started, and nowhere in your opening statements did you try to convince readers that the Bible contains lies, errors, or contradictions. You do believe that the Bible contains lies, errors, and contradictions, don't you? I wonder which skeptic you will disgree with next, and if you will ever strongly oppose anything that a Christian has to say.

djrafikie

According to the bible they were also without any idea of what sin was, and had never been lied to or mistreated as they lived in the garden of eden. For the FIRST TIME IN THEIR LIVES someone misleads them and they fall for it because they are innocent. And because of this we have to suffer in life, and in eternity if we don't start grovelling pretty quick. Don't you think thats a pretty cunting way to behave? I forgive my friends when they fuck up, I don't try to make the rest of their lives misery because of it, and believe me, I've forgiven some pretty big things.

So, I can forgive, but god can't?


HELLO, THIS IS A PHILOSOPHICAL DICUSSION. WE DON'T WANT TO GET INTO HEAVEN.

You mean, you don't know.

You don't have much faith in humanity do you? I pity you.

Johnny Skeptic

God's many sins are a real problem. If God decides to repent of his many sins, including his hypocrisy, then you will have something to talk about. As long as he doesn't, you lose.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to rhutchin: Do you believe that people who have cancer should ask God to heal them? If so, would you be surprised if God healed some of them? Do you believe that amputees should ask God for new limbs? If they do ask God for new limbs, would you be surprised if God gave some of them new limbs? If God distributes tangible benefits, he frequently distributes them to people who are not in greatest need, including to some evil people who never become Christians, and frequently withhold them from people who are in greatest need, including some of his most devout and faitfful followers. This suggests that there is not a reasonably provable correlation between receiving tangible benefits from God and what a person's worldview and character are. If that is true, then no one should ever expect God to provide them with a tangible benefit based upon their prayers and/or their good character.

hatsoff

In an empirical world, I would agree. However, agnosticism intrudes on the realm of the metaphysical, which is not dependent upon or necessarily in agreement with empiricism.

I believe I am equally unqualified to judge how valid or invalid each of them are. I believe you are, too. Of course, every belief I have is in question, so that doesn't mean much in the end.

Except that your argument involves another truth claim. We can't escape truth claims, unless we can. Or maybe the two are not mutually exclusive. Or they definitely are. Or they definitely aren't. Philosophical skepticism is a sort of radical idea that nothing can be known to be true, including the idea that nothing can be known to be true--unless it can....

And so on.

I'm a skeptic to *some degree*. I very much doubt I'm a skeptic after the same manner as yourself.

First of all, I have, if you would read over the thread (pg. 2, I think). Secondly, I usually enter into areas of discussion where I feel like I would enjoy myself. My enjoyment can be derived from several types of discussion, including defenses of my own beliefs, attacks on others', or a pursuit for knowledge. It really depends on my mood.

That's just not true. See, since you and I meet only at this forum, it is natural that it would appear as it has; for there are, quite simply, comparatively few Christians to question. And when one pops up, there are a thousand other non-Christians who usually beat me to the punch. At predominantly Christian forums my discussions follow radically different trends.

Again, that's not true. I think it would be much more accurate to say that I typically enjoy testing the veracity of my own beliefs. This can be accomplished through either making bold statements which are sure to be attacked, or addressing where other folks' opinions conflict with mine. I have to be more careful with the former, because I don't want to be trapped into a situation where I might cling to an argument out of frustration. I find it much easier to change opinions as I learn of new evidence or arguments if I haven't already declared something to be true. If you disapprove of that behavior, you're welcome to tell me why. But I caution you not to jump to unwarranted conclusions about it, as you seem to have done.

And in your opinion it is a given that it is not. I don't see how either of you are more or less "assertive" than the other.

That's a weird thing to do. Well, now you've got me curious. Let's go through my last (and apparently only) thirteen threads:

The "common knowledge" principle. (Nov 22)
--I was really, really drunk when I started that thread, and I don't have any memory of what I might have been thinking at the time. I think it had something to do with being unsatisfied with larger arguments based on a smaller core argument from silence. As you can see, I must have passed out and never pursued it further.

A silly transliteration question (Nov 17)
--This is one of my many "quick question" type threads, in which I was curious if there was some unknown design to corruption of transliterated words. As I suspected, there is none such.

Is Paul's "Cephas" the same person as Mark's "Peter"? (Nov 15)
--As the OP indicates, I had never realized "Peter" and "Cephas" were different words in the original Greek. I wanted to know if it was proper to suppose they refer to the same person, since I had grown up believing that way.

Quick question: Is there real evidence Islam precipitates violence? (Nov 13)
--This is another "quick question" thread about studies on religious-related violence. It was answered and that was that.

The implications of epistemological differences on supernatural probabilities (Oct 28)
--This was my first try at a philosophical pursuit. I still hold to what I said here.

Quick question: Epiphanius passage lookup (Oct 11)
--Yet another "quick question" thread where I wanted to read the original Epiphanius passage about Cerinthus and the Alogi. Nostri and Ben C. Smith were both happy to oblige.

Is the Trinity Biblical? (Oct 8)
--Or, more accurately, did the authors of the NT intend to talk about three separate persons or incarnations of God? It would certainly appear that Paul at the very least had something like that in mind.

what is the origin of the "holy spirit"? (Sep 25)
--Basically, I wanted to know if Jews prior to Jesus' time believed in the so-called Holy Spirit as a separate entity or person from God the Father. Apparently no one can say for sure.

Armenian translation of the New Testament (Aug 14)
--For some reason I had misread or misremembered some web page which claimed the Armenian translation was useful for reconstructing NT autographs because, although the Armenian mss. were later than the earliest Greek mss., the translation was made in the mid-second century. Apparently that was not the case.

Evolutionism is a religion! (Jul 11)
--At the time I made this thread, I didn't realize there was a "Creation v. Evolution" forum (I mostly limit myself to this forum), so I thought it would be a bit of a departure from the ordinary. Boy was I wrong! It turned out the last thing this site needed was another evolution thread. Oh, well.

Help with 1 Peter (Jun 8)
--Of all the rejected NT writings, 1 Peter I understand the least, hence the request for assistance.

Origin, dating and meaning of P66 and P75 (Feb 6)
--This was an effort to learn more about the science behind dating mss.

The Synoptic Problem. (Jan 18)
--This should give you an idea of how new I am to all this. As early as January of this year I had no idea Markan priority was so universally accepted.

So, in conclusion, of the thirteen threads I've made here, only four were the sort where I had a point to make. The other nine were all requests for more information or help in a certain area. And of the four where I wished to make a point, one was in defense of Christianity, one was attacking it, and two were unrelated. That doesn't strike me as particularly biased in either direction.

Of course. But I also believe there are no contradictions which cannot be reconciled with a belief in the supernatural. Furthermore, I find it quite pointless to challenge inerrantists with the contradicitions, as they've already made up their mind about it.

If I will ever? Oh, man... If you only knew!