rhutchin

Your basic argument is that God MUST do that which you dictate He do. This is the same reasoning as the universalists.

If you allow for free will, then your arguments fail because you can no longer argue that God MUST behave in a certain manner apart from the ability of a person to choose to act as he desires.

Not endorsing universalism does not prevent you using the same basic arguments as the universalists.

This is foolishness. Anyone can observe that people fight when they don't get their way. It happens with children and adults. Religion may be an excuse for people to fight but is not necessarily a cause. Political entities have not been shy to hide behind religion to get their way.

This position depends on people not having free will and not being used by God to reveal Himself to others. Paul argues in Romans 1 that God has revealed Himself to all.

Romans 1
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

If that were the true situation, then all fathers would tell their children about God but they don't. This is your universalist argument, that God must save all.

rhutchin

Nice opinion. Good example of an ad hominem fallacy in argument.

If you have a legitimate argument, maybe you could actually present it. Start with Johnny Skeptic's original statement and work forward.

Johnny Skeptic

My position is that God is not merciful and compassionate to everyone. If you have any evidence to the contrary, please post it. You have a habit of starting theads, or participating in threads that other people start, both at the EofG Forum, the GRD forum, and at this forum, and conveniently vacating them when you know that you are in trouble. For instance, you were quite content to reply to my arguments in the thread on Christianity and homosexuality until I posted my post #429, and then, probably after reading my arguments in that post, you vacated the thread. Will you please pick one thread and not vacate it until you have won, or until you concede defeat?

rhutchin

If God told lies, then nothing, presumably, in the Bible could be trusted. In that situation, no one could love God because (1) they would not know what to love or (2) believing the Bible to be true, they would love that which God was not (so they would not love God).

God would know what is best for all people. However, under free will, God can be omniscient and still allow people to choose that which is not best for themselves.

rhutchin

So, what does that have to do with Julian's comment??

Julian

Like I have said before, I have no interest in debating with you as I see no challenge there. Your reply here is a perfect example. You start out with, "Nice opinion," when it is clearly not an opinion but a basic analytical statement underpinned by evidence in the form of your post to which I replied. I pointed out that the statement "0 or 1" does not relate to existence of god in terms of a statement of probability. Since you didn't use the language of probability correctly, I assumed that you didn't know probability math. If you think I am wrong, please provide evidence to discredit my position. Good luck with that. I also claimed that your post was a basic tautology, a logical fallacy, which leads me to believe that you do not understand the term. In what way is "Either god exists or he does not, " not a tautology? Please explain for our edification.

A common theme in your posts is that you do not seem to understand the nature of evidence, probability, logic and, most importantly, scientific methodology. Why do you think opinion, anyone's opinion for that matter, is useful in any way in trying to make a point? Show me where I am wrong in my comments. If you can demonstrate my errors, using proper methodology and reasoning, I will certainly accept that fact, publicly, right here.

Julian

rhutchin

Just as an aside, does anyone know why only the first sentence seems to appear in JS's original comment, but when I select "Quote" a more expansive message appears?

Reagrdless, only the first sentence is substantive. To this it may be said that God provides sunshine and rain to all people. In this and many other ways, God shows that He has mercy on all and is compassionate to all.

rhutchin

Apparently because JS edited his original comment and I got caught in between.

Johnny Skeptic

Well, here is some more editing. If you have any evidence that God is merciful and compassionate to everyone, please present it. If you say that your evidence is the Bible, I will ask you why anyone should pay any attention to what the Bible says, in which case you will probably bring up Pascal's Wager. If you do, I will use the following argument that you conveniently refused to reply to in the thread on Christianity and homosexuality:

Message to rhutchin: Getting back on topic, why should anyone pay any attention to what the Bible has to say about homosexuality? If you mention Pascal’s Wager, I will tell you that it is impossible to convince someone to love you based upon threats.

God has sinned according to his own moral standards, so he does not have the right to judge anyone. Decent people do not have a choice whether or not to love a God who has committed numerous atrocities against mankind. Your definition of the word "atrocity" is much different than decent peoples' definition. A web definition for the word "atrocity" is "the quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane". God is definitely shockingly cruel and inhumane. Consider the following:

God makes people blind, deaf, and dumb, reference Exodus 4:11.

God punishes people for sins that their ancestors committed, reference Exodus 20:5.

God killed babies at Sodom and Gomorrah

God kills people with hurricanes, including some of his most devout followers. Even Attila the Hun did not kill his own followers.

God empowered a savage Devil to help him attack mankind.

God is willing that some people starve to death even though he has food in abundance. In the Irish Potato Famine alone, one million people died of starvation, most of whom were Christians. It is probable that many if not most of those Christians desperately asked God to provide them with food, but to no avail. In the KJV, James says that if a man refuses to give food to a hungry person, he is vain, and his faith is dead. This makes God a hypocrite. Human effort alone could never feed all of the hungry people in the world. Lest you say that the Christians who died in the Irish Potato Famine may not have been righteous, I will tell you that James said that Christians should feed hungry people, not just righteous hungry people. What is your definition of a righteous man? Are you a righteous man? One of the best ways to get an unrighteous hungry man to become a righteous man is to give him food. It is a matter of how badly God wants to prevent people from starving to death.

How do you suggest that we prevent God’s killer hurricanes from seriously injuring and killing people, and destroying their property? Is it your position that God has made it possible for the world to become a Garden of Eden if everyone acted like they should act? If so, I find your position to be quite strange because ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, somehow, whether through genetics or through some other means, God has ensured that everyone commit sins at least some of the time, meaning that it is impossible for anyone to always acts like they should act. Otherwise, some people would be perfect and would not need to be saved.

God injures and kills innocent animals.

Today, it appears that all tangible benefits are distributed entirely at random according to the laws of physics. This is to be expected if God does not exist. If he does exist, then he frequently distributes tangible benefits to those who are not in greatest need, and frequently withholds tangible benefits from those who are in greatest need, and with no regard for a person’s worldview.

Do you believe that hurricanes do or do not operate in a random manner?

God deliberately withholds information from some people who would accept it if they were aware of it. It is not likely that a loving God would reveal information to people who he knows would reject it, and withhold information from people who he knows would accept it if they were aware of it. If God exists, there is no doubt whatsoever that he could easily decrease the number of people who go to hell, but refuses to do so. Decent people are not able to love a God like that. The main question is how much does God really want to keep as many people as possible from going to hell? Obviously, not much. If God exists, he is much better able to keep people from going to hell than anyone else is.

God endorses unmerciful eternal punishment without parole. If mercy is anything, it is forgoing eternal punishment without parole even when justice, in this case, God’s justice, requires it. Otherwise, mercy is meaningless.

No rational being, whether a human or a God, ever intentionally does anything without the hope of benefiting himself and/or someone else at present, or in the future. It is a virtual certainty that no God could derive any benefits whatsoever from making people blind, deaf, and dumb. It is most certainly not necessary to make a man blind, deaf, and dumb in order to convince him to become a Christian. In fact, one of the best ways to convince a man not to become a Christian would be to make him blind, deaf, and dumb. Another good way to convince a man not to become a Christian would be to kill his child with a hurricane. It most certainly is not necessary to allow a man to starve to death in order to convince him to become a Christian. If God had always provided all of the hungry people in the world with food, and had always told everyone, tangibly, in person, that he was the source of the food, the Christian church would surely be a lot larger than it is today.

In the Old Testament, God ordered the death penalty for a Jew who killed a Jew, but not for a Jew who killed a slave. In addition, the New Testament does not clearly oppose slavery, even though it easily could have if God exists.

The Bible is a hateful book. Consider the following Scriptures:

Revelation 14:9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

Revelation 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

Mark 14:21 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.

Johnny: Such vicious hatred could only have come from the mind of man. No decent person could love a God who inspired writings like that. The writings describe a being who is much worse than Adolf Hitler.

If you have children, if they were drowning, would you be willing that any of them perish, or would you try to save all of them?

He who is best able to help people is most culpable of refusing to help people. Since God is much better able to help people than anyone else is, he is much more culpable of refusing to help people than anyone else. True love will always provide help when those who ought to provide it refuse to provide it. Since God refuses to provide help when it is not available from any other source, rational minded and fair minded people have no choice but to reject him.

Is it your position that hurricanes selectively seek out unrighteous people to injure and kill?

If God were mentally incompetent, how would he act any differently than he acts now? The correct answer is, not any different at all. No mentally competent man or God helps decent people AND kills decent people.

The best decisions are the best informed decisions. Science and education provide better informed decisions. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the part of the 1800's, advances in science and education have closely paralleled a growing lack of interest in religion. Today, even some evangelical Christians geologists admit that a global flood did not occur. Young earth advocates have become increasingly scorned by leading scientific organizations. Historically, 100 years is a very short time. During the last 100 years, dramatic changes have taken place regarding how people feel about religion. If current trends continue, in another 100 years, there will be much less interest in religion than there is today. What I am getting at is that the jury is still out. There is a lot of information that we do not yet have that we need to have in order to make better informed decisions.

What are the chief factors that determine religious beliefs? Some of the answers can be found in Kosmin and Lachman's 'One Nation Under God'. The authors provide a lot of documented evidence that shows that in the U.S., the chief factors that determine religious beliefs are geography, family, race, ethnicity, gender, and age. Those factors are entirely secular, and do not indicate divine involvement of any kind. Now why in the world would a loving God go out of his way to make it appear to millions of people that the chief factors that determine religious beliefs are entirely secular?

If the God of the Bible exists, either he is never involved with the distribution of tangible benefits, or he is sometimes involved with the distribution of tangible benefits, in which case no one would be able to determine when he does that. If the former, then no one should ever expect to receive a particular tangible benefit from God. If the latter, then God frequently distributes tangible benefits to people are not in greatest need, including to some evil people who never become Christians, and frequently withholds tangible benefits from people who are in greatest need, including some of his most devout and faithful followers. One thing is for certain, no Christian can ask God for a particular tangible benefit in this life and be assured that he will receive it. That is to be expected if God does not exist. Any loving God would be concerned with peoples’ spiritual needs AND their tangible needs, just as any loving human parent would.

Many skeptics are loving, kind, and forgiving people. It would be out of character for them to reject a loving human, or a loving God. Human oversight is a good thing. Without it, there would be anarchy in society. Divine oversight would be much better than human oversight if it was fair. It is already well-established that God is not fair. If God’s chief desire is the save the elect, there is most certainly no need for him to beat up the elect with hurricanes, plagues, and starvation. In your opinion, what is God’s chief desire(s)?

Now you can claim that I have not provided sufficient evidence of atrocities that God has committed against mankind if you wish, but rational minded and fair minded people know that if God exists, he is either evil or mentally incompetent. Under our legal system, many of God’s actions and allowances are punishable by life imprisonment or death. If refusing to feed hungry people is wrong, it is wrong no matter who refuses to feed hungry people, including God. If killing people is wrong, it is wrong matter who kills people, including God. If hypocrisy is wrong, it is wrong no matter who is a hypocrite, including God. If God told lies, you would consider that to be an atrocity. Are you actually going to tell us that telling lies is worse than killing people and allowing people to starve to death when you have plenty of food?

The Bible says that God is loving. Since the best evidence indicates that that is not true, it is a virtual certainty that he does not exist. If he does exist, no decent person is able to love him.

rhutchin

From Wikipedia on "Probabilty"

In probability theory, the basic elements are a set of elementary events, and a random variable (function) mapping the occurrence of each event in the sample space of events to the interval [0,1]. The probability that an event occurs is expressed as a real number in the interval [0,1] (inclusive). The value 0 is generally understood to represent "impossible" events, while the number 1 is understood to represent "certain" events (though there are more advanced interpretations of probability that use more precise definitions).

That seems to me to substantiate the existence of God as being 0 or 1, since that existence is either certain (1) or impossible (0).

Maybe you can demonstrate the proper manner in which to express the probability of certain events and why the existence of God (a certain event in the past) does not fit.