Johnny Skeptic

There is no doubt whatsoever that a tangibly present God who was available for everyone to see and talk with would be much more helpful to mankind than the situation that we have at present. This is good evidence that a moral God does not exist.

achristianbeliever

Okie dokie so Johnny's point here is two main things:

1. God should show himself on a regular basis so everyone quote "knows" he is real.
2. God should make the Bible easier to understand.

If this is what Johnny wants then God can do that. BUT!!!.....there is a catch.

To explain the catch I need to go back to the book of Genesis and go to a time when God did indeed do what Johnny said and quote, "appeared to everyone in the world and made things easier to understand".

Remember before the eating of the tree God spoke directly to Adam and Eve. (Well there is some debate over whether he ever spoke to Eve maybe only Adam but the point is he did speak to the whole world at some point.) And his rule was, "Don't eat from tree". You couldn't possibly get more simpler to understand. (Some people even complain that God made it too easy and thus too tempting thus creating entrapment but that's another topic altogether.) So when Adam and Eve failed God punished all mankind.

Next now assuming that God didn't speak to anyone again for hundreds of years, (personally I'm under the assumption he did since he did specific actions such as taking Enoch away) the fact is Adam lived for over 900 years. Which meant he could even speak to Noah's grandfather about history. They didn't need a Bible since they could get all their information straight from the horse's mouth thus once again making things as Johnny puts it easier to understand.

So man falls away again and God punishes all mankind. Wipes everybody out and only Noah and a few others survive. God once again speaks to everyone in the world since Noah's family is all that's left and he gives them the covenant. (ex. No more world floods, no killing, be fruitful and multiply) It was a covenant for God to establish with man and himself. But not only did Noah and his kids screw up thus punishing all of Ham's children but then we get the tower story and everybody screwing up again and God punishes everybody with the language thing.

So God goes what the Hell is wrong with these people. Establishing a covenant and communicating his message to everyone didn't work. More than once. So he changes his strategy and this is why I think God is absolutely brilliant. Instead of communicating with everyone he uses a single person to be his representative who would bring his message to everyone. Abraham became this representative and through him all men would be blessed. And it was through Abraham's children that the Old Testament was written. Thus God appears tangibly to only a select and then gets them to bring his message to others.

The point is that speaking to everyone didn't work. It blew up in God's face. But having a representative did work and over time this representative eventually led to Jesus Christ thus bringing about the opportunity for man to finally get the relationship with God that failed when he did show up tangibly. I think what God did is brilliant showing up tangibly screwed things up even more so a representative is so much better.

Now here is the catch I was talking about. Johnny wants God to show himself tangibly to everyone but doing that also means one thing. Not only does God reveal himself to everyone but God curses everyone as well. We all share the same punishment because we all received the same blessing in terms of getting this tangible God.

God shows himself tangibly but that means if we turn away from him he punishes all mankind in one single worldwide calamity such as the fall of the garden or the flood. Now consider that wrong of God if you want I personally don't but that doesn't matter. The point of this thread is not is it wrong for God to punish the world just because we turn away from him the question is why doesn't God reveal himself tangibly and this is the answer. This is the catch that comes with God revealing himself tangibly to everyone.

So then Johnny has to make a choice and I'm asking him right now. If it comes to a choice between God showing himself tangibly to everyone but if people reject him he punishes everyone both in this world and the next or he chooses a representative to bring his message to everyone and then the blessing or curse becomes more individual which would you choose? Personally I like the latter better but hey I'm very curious which of the two Johnny prefers.

Lugubert

Not only is this one of the many problems with the Bible, there's also the case of the very first written communication.

In what script were the Commandments engraved? IIRC, there was no written language, Hebrew or other, known to the people supposed to be at Sinai who received the tablets.

You could argue for processes that made all other remains of the gigantic trek miraculously disappear, but there should be stone fragments from the original Commandments left somewhere.

justthefactsplease

Being a Christian, what other viewpoint could you have? And I have a hard time believing you when you say that the Bible was meant to be difficult to understand so that certain things could be understood later. This is simply begging the question.

How is the creation of everything "small scale"?

Johnny Skeptic

Well, you have got your work cut out for you using the story of Adam and Eve as evidence. Why should anyone take the story literally? How do you even know that the story belongs in the Bible?

If you are an inerrantist, what evidence do you have that the Bible is inerrant? You might want to start a new thread at the BC&H Forum regarding that issue. That should be fun. Past threads on that issue at the BC&H Forum have been a lot of fun, at least for the skeptics.

Your problem is that no one knows what, if anything, happened.

There is that inerrancy problem again, plus the problem that you do not have any credible evidence that the stories belong in the Bible.

Same as before.

That is simply ridiculous. For many centuries, a large percentage of the people in the world died without ever having heard about the God of the Bible, or Abraham, or his descendants. Human effort alone could never let everyone know about the God of the Bible. You ought to know that.

I will grant you that God is brilliant enough to create hurricanes and kill people with them, including babies. So, God gets an A for physics, but an F for morality.

Who says that those are God's only options? God does not have to curse some people. He could provide everyone with better evidence than they have now, which would result in more people becoming Christians. Under such a scenario, why would God have to curse some people?

God could be, and should be more merciful. Eternal punishment without parole is not a merciful and moral concept.

It all gets down to the following questions: What gives God the right to enforce rules of his own choosing? What evidence do you have that God is perfect? What evidence do you have that the Bible is inerrant? What evidence do you have that God chose which books became the Bible?

Please be advised that when Christians choose to claim that the Bible is inerrant, it is incumbent upon them as the claimant (analogous to court trials) to reasonably prove that the Bible is inerrant, not incumbent upon skeptics to reasonably prove that the Bible is not inerrant, so I will not try to prove that the Bible is not inerrant.

Do you mind telling us why outside of the Bible there are not any credible historical records regarding the Ten Plagues? If the Ten Plagues occurred, it would have been the end of Egypt as a superpower, but as history shows, that did not happen. In addition, stories would have been passed down orally from generation to generation, and would have been recorded by a number of historians. If the Ten Plagues occurred, they would have easily been the news story of the millennia, and there would have been hundreds of thousands, if not millions of eyewitnesses.

gracebkr

Well, your first question is why did God send His message in a book. I suppose because it is written down, it is unchangeable. This is His word, read it for yourself. So when people try to pervert it, you know, because you were able to read it.

I think the word of the Bible can change with the times, which is why it needs to be interpreted. It makes sense for all generations, if you can interpret it correctly.

The Bible doesn't require faith. You should read for a good read, and if you understand it correctly, it will lead you to faith.

I believe God works through the people, which is why He choose people to send His message. If God is our Father, and we are His children, then the message we send to each other about Him, is essentially from Him. Think about the age of the book, why didn't end up an a bookshelf somewhere? Why did His word continue to spread, is it possible He is working through us?

Just my humble opinion though.

Johnny Skeptic

But do you really know that the Bible is, or rather was? The Bible was a collection of original writings. No one knows which writings comprised the originals, exactly how the writings were chosen, what disagreements there might have been regarding which writings to choose, and how many times the originals might have been changed.

One problem with the Bible is that people interpret it in so many ways, often causing doubt, hatred, and wars, even sometimes among believers. How could it be otherwise? If some people know how to interpret the Bible correctly, how can people know who they are? Pascal believe that only Roman Catholics will go to heaven. John Calvin endorsed the murders of Christians who disagreed with his religious teachings. Martin Luther did not believe that the book of Revelation belonged in the Bible. Only God showing up in person could effectively deal with these kinds of problems. The best evidence always comes from the original source, tangibly, in person, for everyone to see and talk with.

Djugashvillain

Here, and in other places on this forum, your arguments concerning god have been predicated on the assumption that there is one correct interpretation of Christian scripture. What you consistently fail to do is provide sound argument and evidence for why any particular interpretation is superior to all others, because, as you know, there are a great many, and they are largely incompatible (if there weren't, there wouldn't be Catholics, Protestants, Latter Day Saints, and so on).

Saying that people who do not believe in Christianity do so because they fail to 'understand [scripture] correctly' without giving any indication why your particular method is correct is a pretty flimsy argument, and one that proponents of other theological schools advance just as emphatically as you do.

gracebkr

I agree, how do we know? As I stated though, don't believe in the Bible, read it for a good read and if you find it to be a mass conspiracy, then that is your conclusion. If you find it to hold truth, then that is your conclusion. I don't think we should rely on other's views to determine what we think. For example, where does it say in The Bible only Roman Catholics will go to heaven? (1) If you read Christ's words, he says nothing of the sort. He says the opposite. I think this shows mass killings for differences would not be what Jesus wanted, so some (2) misuse the religion for their own gain.

(1)
Luke 9:49-50

49"Master," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us."

50"Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."

(2)
1 john 4:1-3

1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.


Martin Luther did not believe Revelations should be in the Bible? Shame on him enough of the Bible is missing already.

bleubird

When you realize that the shaman/priesthood figured out they did not have to work if they told the ignorant that god wants sacrifices it all becomes clear. Than the RCC codified and enforced it.
Simple.


bleu