Jorge

Not so fast (and not so 'slippery'), WD.

I asked a simple question : when I provide the answer to your "contradiction/error", can I expect a recommitment of your life to Christ, or, as I expect, will I see a "yeah, but..." or a "I don't buy it" or "okay, you've answered that one, now how about answering this one?"?

As I have stated, I've been at this for a long time and a common ploy of 'infidels' is to get people like myself to jump through endless hoops in the hope of reaching an ever-receeding carrot.

You want a commitment, then let's see the same. Otherwise, you're just playing games and I do my games on the basketball court.

Jorge

Wayne Delia

So you have tarred yourself with the same broad brush of "ignorance" you've used on us, then? Then, of course, it should be a piece of cake for you to provide an example of anything more substantive than what I've characterized you as presenting. You've appealed to authority without naming any actual authorities; you've charged others with failing to hold the proper understanding, but you have failed to explain what the proper understanding actually is. As I said, your type is a dime a dozen. It's a shame that you can't even begin to demonstrate it, if you actually knew it well. You'll really have to speak up. I can hardly hear you with all the bagpipes playing in the background. (That, of course, is a reference to the "No True Scotsman" logical fallacy you've just made: any Christian who critically examines the Bible and leaves the faith because of that critical inquiry was never a "true Christian" to begin with.)

That's trivially the case, because "the truth of this world" is observable, tangible, repeatable, and reliable, but the truth of God in the Bible contains anything but those qualities. Well, yes, that and an initial reading of Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason were pretty much enough to convince me that the Bible was sorely lacking if it was actually inerrant. And as I said earlier, you can't even demonstrate that He exists, much less has any kind of authority.

WMD

Jorge

Originally posted by Wayne Delia

No, really, I'm quite happy about it. Sorry you aren't willing to take my word on it.

Correction - I do take your word for it and that is precisely why I am sad for you, WD. You really have lost all traces of Christian understanding, haven't you? Well, maybe not...

I no longer have to compromise my intellectual integrity in order to hold together a contradictory belief system, and that's a good thing.

And yet I am the one here being endlessly accused of being condescending and other faults. Don't you realize the obvious: that what you've just said is that people such as myself are intellectually dishonest, compromising our integrity in order to hold together a contradictory belief system. That is what you said, yes?

So, where are the voices calling foul? Can we spell d-o-u-b-l-e... s-t-a-n-d-a-r-d?

I'm familiar with the empty death threats of weak apologists when their ammunition has run out (or, in your case, you didn't bring any ammunition to the gunfight at all!)

Wuzever ya say, big gal.

It certainly does appear that the final argument is always a variation on "Worship my invisible sky-daddy, or He'll kick your ass!" As a result of several years of karate training, I have learned that the only threats I take seriously are those which can be demonstrated to exist.

Uh, here's a small hint: don't try a side kick on the Almighty - this could really make Him angry! Besides, it wouldn't help your case at all.

Cool! That could be part of an objective test which can measure the effectiveness of prayer! How about you pray to God that, with His help, I find my way back to Christianity by the end of the month. "With God, all things are possible," or so the Bible says. If, by August 1, I'm still an atheist, would you accept that as evidence that your God either doesn't exist, or doesn't much care if I find my way back to Christianity or not? I'm guessing you wouldn't agree to that, and am eagerly awaiting your reasoning why.

You guess right but I am willing to bet for the wrong reason.

As I said, the more I read of your stuff the more convinced I become... well, you know.

Here's a refresher (Christianity 101) : God gives us a free will. He has a Perfect Will and a Permissive Will. I can pray from here until Judgment Day but unless you decide in your heart to repent and submit to His perfect will, then you are lost and my prayers cannot help you. His will is that all are saved and come to the glory of God but He knows that many will choose to not come to Him. You have, for now, made your choice employing your free will.

That is why your challenge cannot be accepted and not for the silly reasons that you insinuate. Try harder, WD. It is by grace that salvation is attained, not by anything else.

Goodnight, it's past my bedtime.

Jorge

Wayne Delia

Obviously, that depends on the quality of the answer, which you haven't given yet, so I am unable to promise a specific course of action. If your answer, as expected, is a logical fallacy, I'll point out exactly why it is wrong. Again, speculation on the possible reaction to evidence is no excuse for failing to produce the evidence.

"Jump through endless hoops?" Personally, I'm just trying to get you to answer a straightforward question about the atrocities in 1 Samuel 15:1-3, a genocide of apparently innocent people which was ordered by your God.

Committment? I'm just asking a question about why you see the atrocities in 1 Samuel 15 only as "apparent atrocities" rather than actual atrocities. Regardless of where you play your games, you did claim that the Old Testament only contained "APPARENT" atrocities. I've given you one example, and asked for an explanation, which you are either unwilling or unable to provide. And, similar to your claim, I too have been at this for a long time and you're playing the same game of evading the tough (but simple enough) questions which would back up your assertions.

WMD

Wayne Delia

Oh. Well, in that case, you've totally missed the point, and I'm not sure how you managed to do that, unless you were brainwashed into thinking that intellectual integrity and self-esteem are very bad things. Understanding? Of course not. What I have managed to free myself from is what you see as a necessary presupposition that it's all true before one investigates whether it's true or false.Well, yes you are. Your approach certainly isn't the recommended strategy in Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. You've assumed an air of superiority and have insulted those who merely disagree with you, but you haven't backed up your own words.Yes, it is, and I stand behind those words. I can demonstrate exactly how and where you are employing logical fallacies in order to keep your belief system intact. In order to do that, you were forced to dismiss over a thousand proposed Bible contradictions, without even actually reading through all of them. Perhaps no foul was committed.Sure, I can. Sadly, I could not spell "cirrhosis" at the age of 14, which landed me in 5th place (out of 95 contestants) in the New York State spelling bee in (cough, mumble) 1971. But your claim of "double standard" does not apply here, since I can actually back up my claims, where you haven't even started to back up yours.

Have you conceded the point? If not, can you give any reason why your implied but empty threats are in any way different from the way I've summarized them here?It's way too late. A month or so after I was awarded my black belt, on alt.atheism newsgroup in Usenet, I actually challenged the Almighty to a full contact karate fight at noon on a certain day. Needless to say, God didn't show up, and lost the fight by default. That ought to look good on my resume!It would actually demonstrate my case, if the case was the question of whether God existed or not. He didn't show up to a karate fight He could presumably win easily, so although very weak evidence, it is evidence against His existence. Is it because you don't actually believe the prayer will work? I don't blame you; I believe it was Ambrose Bierce who said "Nothing fails like prayer."
Dang. You should have finished that sentence! I would have loved to have seen it: "the more I read of your stuff, the more convinced I become that my God isn't powerful enough to overcome your attitude." Again, that ought to look good on the old resume: "Although only holding a first-degree black belt, I am evidently more powerful than God Almighty." Interestingly enough, if He gives us an unconstrained free will, He has abandoned His omniscience. If God's will is so permissive that He lays down and plays dead so that I can do whatever I want.So I guess what you're saying is that prayer doesn't work, right? And even though the Bible says "with God, all things are possible," this is an example of something that God Himself can't or won't control? That brings me back to my original point: why bother praying, if it requires some effort on my part for it to work?I have seen many excellent articles on this website which actually use that assertion as evidence *against* the existence of God. Check the Library and other areas for some very cool articles. Basically, assuming God is omniscient, He knows exactly what it is that would convince me of His existence. He hasn't made that level of evidence available to me, so if I withhold belief in His existence, it's His own damn fault.Dang. There goes my assumption in my previous sentence that God is omniscient. Because if I actually had free will, I'd have the unconstrained choice among two or more logically available options to choose from. But if God is omniscient, knowing exactly what option I will choose, I can't possibly choose anything else, which would remove my free will. Since you're claiming I have free will, God's omniscience is therefore refuted.

The reason you gave apparently boils down to the explanation that your prayers won't work because I won't cooperate. For whatever reason you choose, the bottom line is that your prayers won't work. So why bother praying?The question was whether prayers worked, not what your theology claims is necessary for salvation. Evidently, you don't even have enough confidence in the power of prayer to even put it to the test. It's not God you're testing, if you intend to use the excuse of "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." In fact, any prayer of petition at all could be thought of as tempting the Lord thy God. So, my only remaining question is why bother praying for anything if you clearly don't have the necessary confidence in the power or efficacy of your own prayers?

WMD

Jack the Bodiless

Jorge:

You described yourself as a "fundamentalist" earlier. Can I therefore assume that you are a Young-Earth Creationist?

The entire scientific community has determined that creationism is bunk. Does the opinion of all those experts in paleontology, genetics, nuclear physics, astronomy, geology etc etc etc count for nothing because it contradicts the primitive myths and superstitions of a tribe of Bronze Age goat-herders who believed the Earth is flat?

Anyone who believes that the Bible is literally true is profoundly ignorant. They need to get an education.

And most competent Biblical scholars are atheists, agnostics, or "liberal" Christians and Jews. No competent scholar believes the Bible to be inerrant, because it is not.

You have it backwards. You are championing the cause of ignorance, against those whose knowledge exceeds yours.

Jobar

Jorge, you need to examine your goals, here.

If you are just trying to get the unbelievers all riled up and pissed off at you, you are succeeding admirably. However, if your desire is to engage in any sort of real discussion with us, or even to possibly convince some of us that there is some small doubt we're wrong- you're a miserable failure.

Just pontificating that we don't have the right attitude, that our hearts are not in the right place, is a really worthless tactic in actually leading us towards what you see as truth. You need to calmly demonstrate your points, show why the Bible is actually all truth despite appearing to be riddled with terrible mistakes. You are not doing that. Even your fellow Christians say so.

Tell me, are you a believer in predestination? From what you have said, I think you must be- you seem to belief that God created us with some lack in our 'hearts' which render us incapable of seeing the Bible in the same way you do. Just why do you think this? Does God not love us unbelievers, that he leaves us blind to His existence? If that's so, you can't call him all-loving and all-merciful.

metacristi

SignOfTheCross



You totally misunderstood my words.All I 'claimed' is that [according with logic] a belief in 'something' for which we can find supporting evidence [we do not need evidence beyond all reasonable doubt if science cannot settle the problem of it's existence/nonexistence for the moment] is rendered nonrational [and therefore all would be rational person is forced to disbelieve] only if there are arguments,proving beyond all reasonable doubt,that that something [a personal God (defined merely as the creator of the universe) in this case] does not exist.'Proving beyond all reasonable doubt' does not imply 'proof' in the sense of deduction or certainty,impossible in the majority of cases (yes much of our scientific 'truths' are 'fallible truths').

As I've explained,enough well I think,in another post of mine we can set such a standard even in God's case but only when science will be able to 'confirm' those requirements experimentally would naturalism 'promote' from the status of simple conjecture to that of scientific truth [albeit still fallible].Till then a stricly personal belief in a personal creator of the universe is still rational.Of course as much as positive claims are not made in exterior (of having 'proof' or arguments beyond all reasonable doubt) that belief is compelling for all would be rational persons.


Here is the standard I propose (in case you haven't read it yet):


1.A 'theory of everything'.This in itself does not give sufficient arguments because there is no reason to suppose that this theory is unique and infallible (it represents merely a fallible objective truth-there is no good reason to think otherwise) and moreover does not make 'God hypothesis' less probable but corroborated with:

2.The computational approach of consciousness (using boolean algebra) is proved beyond all reasonable doubt as being correct.
Here by arguments beyond all reasonable doubt I mean a detailed,'working',description of the dynamics of the brain,a 'holistic' view (even if we had the proof that all mental states correlate with physical states-anyway far from being achieved now-this would,simply,be not enough).Another chance is to emulate a human mind using technology:an android whose consciousness is indistinguishable from that of a human being for example.

3.'Confirming' repeatedly abiogenesis (in intersubjective experiments).

4.A multiverse hypothesis,fully compatible with alll observed facts,consistently 'confirmed' therefore,whose ontology is confirmed also experimentally (even indirectly).For example the discovery that the so called 'false vacuum' (the main theoretical 'entity' posited as existing ontologically by Guth's multiverse hypothesis) is a reality would be enough.


This approach is totally compatible with the scientific method,the God hypothesis would be proved [in case that the above requirements will be 'confirmed' experimentally] as being less probable in a sound,scientific,manner,exactly how,for example,the aether was rendered less probable 'objectively' by the Michelson-Morley experiment.

Still this does not imply certitudes,the aether or God could still exist in spite of that 'sufficient evidence',however this would entitle naturalism to 'graduate' from the status of simple conjecture to that of 'fallible scientific truth'.Which would make belief in God nonrational [according with the requirements of logic] exactly how belief in a flat Earth is nonrational.
Anyway what counts,and this is what I wanted to underline,is that till then the naturalist approach is only a conjecture,the claims that science and logic compel all rational people to be skeptical or to disbelieve in God are [still] totally unfounded.