Kvalhion

No matter how much you sugarcoat it, the reality of the situation is that there is no good reason to believe any kind of reality affecting deity exists. All the posturing and apologetics make sense if God exists as merely a human concept. Yet try to actually have God do even the simplest task is unaccomplishable, since a concept cannot do anything without someone doing it for them, then in hindsight attributing it to God.

Apikorus

Risk involves uncertainty. If Gideon had absolute faith in God, then he had no uncertainty that YHWH would do as he promised. There would then be no risk. Of course, Gideon evidently did not have absolute faith, which raises another issue.

While one can of course point to differences between the case of Gideon and the case of a modern atheist, they seem rather irrelevant. The point is that God did provide a sign - two signs, even - to Gideon. If Gideon had absolute faith in God, he would not have had to ask for even a single sign. Therefore, there is precedent for God providing multiple signs to those of weak faith.

I, too, have weak faith. Presumably God wants me to live according to his laws, just as he wanted Gideon to attack the Midianites. Like Gideon, I would like a sign or two.

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>

sotzo

Hi HRG!

You wrote:

I'm afraid that you suffer from a misunderstanding. It is quite legitimate to ask a question under the temporary assumption that a statement X is correct, without having to accept X uncritically. Such an assumption may even be the start of a reductio ad absurdum argument against X, if one follows by showing that the consequences of X are absurd or not present in the real world. X in our case is "There is a God who cares about each of us individually and wants to contact us" (a standard Christian claim, BTW).

Your point is well-taken. However, I was not disallowing Baloo to make his assumption for the sake of argument. What I was doing was anticipating his objection to my reply that miracles occur within the context of Biblical redemption.

If he were to reply, as many an atheist does, that the theist is not permitted to use the Bible in the context of discussions such as these (due to circular reasoning), then my reply is that Baloo cannot assume God's goodness/salvific desire for mankind as the basis of his challenge, since that assumption is founded on the Bible as well.

Cheers

Joel

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: sotzo ]</p>

KillerBob

AWESOME!!! Just have to work on getting those other 31 digits right and....I AM GOD!!!


Wait a sec, you said we only get one shot. Damn, all my hopes and dreams are dashed....

Maybe i'll just change my name and try again

Draygomb

00000000000000000000000000000000

Just a guess

Koyaanisqatsi

Wise guess.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

It wasn't hard at all.

Fictional creatures do not exist. 2 + 2 = 4.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

Great, let's rehash the same goddamned arguments you've already lost countless times in other threads. Ask away, but first, prove your claim.

Until you prove your claim, there is nothing to ask.

Mojaz

Because God wants people to have faith in Him.

However, He was generous enough to reveal Himself in the past as recorded in scripture. Needless to say, it would be insulting to God to reveal Himself with signs and wonders every thousand years or so just to placate the world's non-believers who refuse to have faith in Him and spit on the notion of His very existence.

Following death, as the non-believer is entering torment in hell, perhaps God will mention the creation on Earth as proof of His existence and say "How could you not believe? Are space rocks and chemicals capable of such things? Did your science ever prove that space rocks and chemicals are capable of creating life as I did In the Beginning?"

Huginn

The atheist will respond: "Yes science did just that, as you well knew. You knew from the moment that you created the universe that I would be a non-believer, yet somehow you think it is appropriate to punish me. You are an odd fellow. You arranged the universe in exactly the way it would be if you did not exist. You left the only evidence of your existence in the hands of simple men so that only the most credulous would believe and the wise would be unbelievers that you would punish. You had better have a damn good explanation or I'm off to chat with satan."

Kvalhion

Why doesn't a teddy bear give any signs that it is a supernatural deity? It wants you to have faith in it.

What a cop out. A God-concept does not want you to have faith in him. People want you to have faith in God. There is quite a difference.

It really amazes me how people cling to the idea that the absnese of God is a feature of religion. That as more and more knowledge and technology advances, people assume God wants them to look harder and harder for God.

Two thousand years ago, the stories in the bible appeared much more valid than they do now. People did not have the knowledge available to them to be able to compare and contrast what the bible told them. It was all a big group of unknown, so the bible seemed as good of a source as any. Societies were isolated, so contradictions in religious belief were not readily apparent. Miracles were easy to produce, since there was no way to invalidate their claims. God, in this context, was quite easy to find.

To put it simply, we've come a long way since then.

We now have the ability to hear about news nearly anywhere in the world instantaneously. We now have the tools and knowledge to disover the answers to the same questions people had two thousand years ago. "God did it" is no longer the default answer. Naturally, the bible had no choice but to change and conform. And with each apologetic explanation in the face of science and knowledge, God becomes harder to find.

Yet you assume this is a feature. You assume that knowledge that is contradictory to the bible is supposed to somehow increase our faith in God. Instead of minutely acknowledging the possiblity that God exists as a concept conceived of by humans, you give the only answer you can possibly give: God must want people to have faith. That is why he does nothing to affect reality. There is no other theistic explanation on why a deity credited with creating the universe would not do anything to further the plausibility of belief.

If no reality-affecting deity exists, I do not see why I should spend my life within the confines of reality worshiping a concept that has no power within reality. All the fairy tales in the bible are meaningless if the same thing does not apply now.

Actually, people revealed the concept of God in scripture. If you believe God entered their minds and inspired their writing, why do you assume God wouldn't do the same now, to inspire belief?

Here's a hint: In the bible, the writers did not write anything that they couldn't possibly have known without supernatural knowledge. Not one thing can be said to be completely accurate that the writers couldn't possibly have known on their own, without supernatural influence.

In this test, it is nearly infinitely impossible for someone to come up with a 32 digit number that exactly matches one generated. A god-inspired writer simply could not produce such a thing without supernatural influence.

That's the difference. You believe without question the word of man. I choose to seek to believe what can be no other than the Word of God. Yet that hasn't happened in two dozen guesses. I wonder why that is?

You assume to know the mind of God? As a concept, that would make sense. Since you are the one who has bestowed meaning into the God concept, you can assume the concept would be insulted. That does absolutely nothing for this test, however, because God has simply never done anything like this before.

You assume that your ignorance defaults to God. That may have been true two thousand years ago, but it certainly isn't true now.

(formatting and spelling)

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Kvalhion ]</p>

sotzo

Greetings Baloo!

Apparently, we are having trouble with the phrase "pissing away". Allow me to clarify my attitude towards "evidence for God." My attitude is remarkably similar to the attitude of the US Patent Office toward Perpetual Motion Machines:
"The views of the Patent Office are in accord with those scientists who have investigated the subject and are to the effect that such devices are physical impossibilities. The position of the Office can only be rebutted by a working model."

Yes, you're attitude is similar, however, the US Patent Office is asking for a demonstration that would prove that Perpetual Motion machines are possible and you are asking for a demonstration that would prove the existence of God. The former
is a scientific question, the latter philosophical. Why do you suppose you can approach these questions in the same way, which your challenge suggests?

Basically, with failure after failure after failure, the Patent Office could no longer justify "pissing away", so to say, the time and resources for investigating PMM designs. But, they left a back door: Give them a working PMM, and they will drop their policy on the spot.

Which is an appropriate response after you have used the most appropriate tool to answer the question at hand and come away with a conclusion.

Similarly, given the failure after failure after failure of theists to present evidence for God

The fact that some very intellectual people down through the ages have been theists based on their examination of the evidence you say has failed repetitively, suggests that "failure" is a function of what one calls evidence (which is the point of my previous paragraph).

I'm not suggesting, by the way, that just because there are intellectuals who are theists means that that is proof of theism. What I am saying is that such a fact, among others, argues strongly against your view that there has been "failure after failure".

which, upon close scrutiny, either has NO natural explanation, or for which I judge the natural explanations to be less probable than the existence of God, I've concluded that I cannot justify pissing away the resources necessary to scrutinize each such claim. But, I'm leaving a backdoor. I have chosen the guessing of a string of 32 digits as an acceptable event for which the natural explanations are less probable than the existence of God.

The crucial phrase of yours here is "I have chosen the guessing..". Your choosing the method by which a string of 32 digits is an acceptable event to show God's existence is misguided, as I said before, in that it assumes that an sovereign Being need play by your rules in order to justify His own existence. By definition, a sovereign Being, plays by no rules but His own, so now you need to either show a satisfying definition of God that will play by your rules (which would not be the God of Christian theism) or you need to admit that your challenge is founded upon wrong assumptions.

I am setting up guidelines necessary for me to begin "playing", period.

Okay. And my view is that your guidelines are wrong for the question you are trying to answer as per above comments.

You don't just wake up one day and decide, "I'm going to try believing in purple talking rabbits. To start, I will go into my back yard, and start searching top to bottom for purple rabbits. I will then spread out, asking others about purple rabbits, looking for signs of purple on all rabbits I see, and trying to start up conversations with rabbits in general. Furthermore, no matter how little evidence I find for purple talking rabbits, I will never give up, and never stop looking..."

This is the standard "pink unicorn in my closet" type of response which shows exactly what I'm talking about. The existence of purple talking rabbits would be answered by observing/hearing them. The existence of God would NOT be answered in that way since God is immaterial. Now, you may want to wear the badge of materialism, and if so, so be it. But you cannot apply the rules of materialism, sincerely, to a hypothesis involving an immaterial, soveriegn Being such as the God of Christian theism. That, I say again, is misguided.

But, this is EXACTLY what many theists would have atheists do in regards to their invisible friend, Jesus. In a nutshell, I have looked long enough to say, "Enough!". IF there is a god, and IF he wants me to continue searching [worship/believe in/pray to/love/whatever] him, THIS is the only way to get me searching again. I'm not dictating rules to play by; there are no rules, as I am no longer playing the game.

I'm confused. There are quite clearly rules that you have set up by which God needs to play if he is to invoke belief in you. Yet you say here that there are no rules????

In addition, you say that you are no longer "playing the game". If you are no longer playing the game, why are you presenting this challenge and spending time refuting posts on this thread?

I fail to understand how a Being that some hold to be as fictional as "talking purple rabbits", "pink unicorns" and Santa Claus tend to hold so much of their time and attention.