Johnny Skeptic

Regarding "Is God's stance in this case morally justifiable? That's a separate question and a full answer might see us debate metaethics till the cows come home," if you mean that there will always be debates about God's morals, my reply will be that there will always be debates about Biblical criticism and history too, and about Islam, Hinduism, and many other worldviews, and that in many cases, Christians given up Christianity, which means that in those cases, they did not argue until the cows came home. The point is, there are various ways to convince people to give up Christianity, or to not become Christians, and guestioning the morals of the God of the Bible has proven to be most effective way, if not the most effective way, to accomplish that.

I joined the IIDB in June, 2005. I have made about 12,000 po
sts. If you check my viewer profile, you will see that I have started many dozen of threads at five forums, more at the GRD Forum than at any other forum. I have had lots of debates with fundamentalist Christians, and have had good success questioning the morals of the God of the Bible. I have debated the arguments that you mentioned on many occasions, and I have adequate rebuttals for them as long as my audience is open minded. Many Christians have given up using the arguments that you mentioned when I debated the arguments with them.

Johnny Skeptic

Not about the existence and the character of the God of the Bible.

2-J

I don't care how many posts you have, it's completely irrelevant. It's slightly pathetic to even bring postcounts into this, isn't it?

My point was that you have NO good reason to think that God would not choose to communicate with mankind through texts rather than directly and personally to each one of us.

Many theists are prepared to accept one of these premises: 'God's ways are not man's ways' 'God's good is not like exactly the same as man's good', 'we cannot see the full picture because we are finite, whereas God can see the whole picture because he is infinite'. If one accepts any of these, as many do, then arguments about God not being good (by human standards) if he doesn't communicate with us all directly, become irrelevant. It's possible there could be a being who was omniscient, omnipotent, etc, who additionally felt it was morally right to communicate through texts as opposed to with all of us directly, telepathically say. So your claim to know what it is 'likely' about how God would communicate with us is unfounded.

Roger Pearse

Quite so. It is mind-numbing to see all this theological speculation from people who themselves believe that what they are saying is twaddle.

I cannot resist this quotation, which I have just come across while scanning Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on Luke:

I really don't see the point of all this hand-waving. If someone wants to tell us what God is, or does -- only knowable by divine inspiration -- I want to see his credentials, or his evidence.

Anyone who deposits miraculously $1m in my bank account will be listened to very seriously.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Jeffrey Gibson

Even if we admit that communicating through a text in an ancient language is a poor method for any god to have chosen should he/she have wanted everyone always to know his/her will, it still doesn't mean that he/she has not done so in an ancient text.

But the issue of whether god inspired the Bible -- as well as the issue of whether or not the Bible is inspired and what the best means of communicating for a god who was intent to communicate his will to human beings might be -- is irrelevant to, -- and goes not a whit, whatever the answer is, towards -- determining what the authors of biblical books were saying with the books they wrote.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Which is not the issue you asked me to speak upon. You asked me whether I thought a god who had characteristics X would do Y & Z and whether he would be engaged in a contradiction of those characteristics if he did so.

So don't excoriate me for not fulfilling an obligation that you never placed upon me and that was not mine in the first place.

Jeffrey

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Roger Pearse: If you wish to believe that a loving, rational God exists who has chosen to use copies of copies of ancient texts as a primary means of communicating with humans, thereby needlessly causing dissent, confusion, and wars, sometimes even among his own followers, instead of discouraging problems telephathically or verbally by communicating the same messages to everyone in the world, go ahead, but please do not expect rational people to agree with you.

Even if a being inspired the Bible, there are not any good reasons for anyone to assume that he is a God, that he created the universe, and that he should be trusted. The Bible contains 100% disputable prophecies. No loving, rational God would make 100% disputable prophecies when he could easily make 100% indisputable prophecies. If Jesus had predicted when and where some natural disasters would occur, month, day, and year, very few people would have disputed that he could predict the future. What benefits would a loving, rational God derive from making 100% disputable prophecies? What benefits would anyone else derive?

In my opinion, the lack of any reasonable motives regarding why the God of the Bible does what he does easily outweighs all Biblical evidence, and evidence that the early church fathers wrote, meaning that it is very probable that the God of the Bible does not exist. The Bible says that God is not the author of confusion. If a God inspired the Bible, that claim is false, which indicates that if a God inspired the Bible, the Bible writers misrepresented what he is like.

You obviously know the problems that you would have debating philsophical and moral issues at other forums. That is why you limit your debates to this forum. That greatly limits your ability to adequately defend the Bible. You are indirectly debating God's motives at this forum by implying that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, the early church fathers would not have written what they wrote. That is what you are implying, isn't it?

Johnny Skeptic

On the contrary, I said:

You replied "I have no idea." Your reply is not consistent with the commonly accepted definitions of agnosticism. Agnostics do not preclude a reasonably possibility that a god exists, but as far as I know, all agnostics preclude a reasonable possibility that the God of the Bible exists, and that the vast majority of agnostics believe that if a being inspired the Bible, he does not have good character.

The interests of many skeptics at this forum are entirely academic, but that is not true regarding Roger Pearse and other conservative Christians. No person can ever become a conservative Christian without approving of God's motives. Roger has said that his main interest is the writings of the early church fathers. That indicates that his main interest is trying to convince people to believe that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, the early church fathers would not have written what they wrote. That issue surely also deals with the motives of the early church fathers, and most importantly with the motives of God.

2-J

A standard theistic response is to argue that if God was too clear in how he revealed himself to us, this would take away our free will (free will to freely come to him and believe in him). It would be gravely wrong to remove our free will. Therefore God does not reveal himself completely clearly to all people in all places.

And to add to that; even if you, Johnny Skeptic, do not regard that as loving behaviour, many theists do. So they can quite consistently argue that God is loving in not revealing himself to us at all times completely clearly.

Jeffrey Gibson

Umm, you are in touch with the vast majority of agnostics, are you?


Jeffrey