DMC

Quite simple actually: Divine fiat

DMC

You cannot subtract one from infinity, because there would be one less, yet still infinity. Infinity minus one is infinity, so the same number of possibilities would still exist. I prefer to avoid using the term "infinite". I would say "a great number". A great number minus one is still a great number, but less than the number it would have been. One less than infinity is the same as 5 trillion billion billion less than infinity.

Yahzi

So police shouldn't stop criminals?

Oh, that's right... limited power means you have to use all of it to stop evil, but inifinte power means you have to use none of it to stop evil. Right.

This is the fallacy known as "argument from fictious history." It involves supreme disregard for the actual facts.

Crucifixation is a nasty death, but it is nowhere near as bad as a cancer death without painkillers or loving caretakers. Crucifixation kills you in hours. Cancer can take months of agonizing pain and disabilty, while you shit yourself because you can't help it and have to lie in it because no one cares enough for you to clean you up.

Perhaps you are unaware that Romans occasionally contracted cancer, lacked effective painkillers, and sometimes died lonely and unloved.

Your complete and utter ignorance of the facts of life does not constitute an argument. So no, it is not arguably one of the most painful deaths carried out in his time.

No one who has ever stepped foot into a cancer ward would ever put crucifixation in the top ten list of bad ways to die. The fact that so many Christians make this argument suggests more Christians should spend more time in cancer wards.

This is like a rich white kid with a trust fund sleeping on the floor one night in a cheap hotel in Harlem, so he can know what growing up black and poor is all about.

Johnny Skeptic

My current position, which is addressed towards Christians who believe that God will provide them with a comfortable eternal life, is that there are at least four possibilities, that 1) God will provide believers with a comfortable eternal life, 2) an evil God is masquerading as a good God and will send everyone to hell, 3) God is amoral and it is unknown what he will do to believers and everyone else after they die, and 4) there are no credible means by which we can choose which possibility is most likely.

Chili

There is nothing nasty about Crucifixion because the ego deserves to die (if only in the name of cancer prevention). It's cheap too.

Chili

God is looking for sinners, Johnny, who's sin will be the cross they suffer under.

D2_Supreme

You still didn't admit that it would negate free will...


I apologize and concede here. My point was comparing a crucifixion to a bruise.

Oh yeah, great analogy. I'd say it'd be more like a rich King who inherited the throne and has seen/had nothing but the best all his life who decided to spend 33 years of his life with the lowest of society, having nothing--all out of compassion for those who aren't as fortunate as him.

(now that analogy was said with "earthly" terms, if we inserted God in there phrases like "as fortunate as him" wouldn't work)

Johnny Skeptic

Compassion? Now please, let's not get ridiculous. Consider the following scriptures:

Exodus 4:11 And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord?

Revelation 9:1-6 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.
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. 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. 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. 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. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

Revelation 14:9-11 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, 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: 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.

God killed unborn babies in the womb in the great flood, in Sodom and Gomorrah, at Tyre, and in a host of other instances.

The point is, why do you believe that God is not an evil God masquerading as a good God? I am willing to be neutral on this issue.

MrDarwin

Well, let's see. By the Christians' own account, an omniscient and omnipotent deity created a creature that turned against it and went and screwed everything up. In other words God created Satan knowing full well even before creating Satan what Satan would do and had created the universe in such a way that Satan was able to screw it up quickly, easily, and thoroughly, and God knew all along exactly what would happen. Draw your own conclusions.

Jobar

Mr. D, I made that exact argument the very first time I argued in a religion forum, using a Commodore 64. Back in '92, I think.

And I've yet to hear a theist of any sort answer it, unless they just deny Satan (and evil) exists.