David Mathews

Hello queue,

David: Socrates & others are remembered. That is correct. Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking about them now. Do you suppose that they care that people are remembering them today?

David: I don't believe that you have proven that religion actually is a narcotic and an intoxicant. Whether or not that is the case, I believe that a significant number of atheists have their own narcotics and intoxicants. Either chemical narcotic and intoxicants (such as cigarettes or alcohol) or fantasies which serve the same function (The hope that future generations will remember you, the hope that death will be defeated).

You have your own intoxicants and narcotics. Where is the great advantage in your viewpoint, then?

David: I am a monotheist, not a polytheist. Therefore, all of the questions above are not applicable to my religious beliefs.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello John Page,

David: Your going to be disappointed a third time, John.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello Helen,

David: God is not abusing His power. God can and does have absolute authority over all of His creatures, and therefore He can do what He wishes to us.

David: No, there are no limitations upon God's options in dealing with humankind.

David: I don't know what you are asking here. Could you rephrase the question?

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello lpetrich,

David: If you can create a purpose for your own life, that is excellent.

David: If you don't want to go to heaven, don't go.

David: Ancient people were mistaken about a great many things.

David: If you want to command God to do a miracle for you, go ahead and do so. God doesn't obey your commands and that means that you won't get your miracle. God is not hiding from you, God is not obligated to obey you.

David: You are confirming what I said: Not one atheist among the whole group.

David: If the Bible had contained accurate medical knowledge you would still not believe in God: you would attribute that knowledge to ancient man. Scientific foreknowledge, in my view, is a particularly ineffective argument for inspiration or theism.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello wordsmyth,

David: The Christian texts are more valid for answering these questions for me because I am a Christian. Those people who are Muslims will of course find the answers to their questions in the Qur'an, and the Jews in the Torah, Midrash and Talmud.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello Answerer,

David: I expected that you would find some reason to complain against God in the answer that I provided. If you did not do so, you wouldn't be an atheist, would you?

Sincerely,

David Mathews

HelenM

I'll try

It's scary to think of humans having power over other humans because they might abuse it in terrible ways.

Is it ok to think of God having that power since it's impossible for Him to 'abuse it' if you will? Because His character limits how He can exercise it - as it were?

Was that a clear enough attempt to rephrase?

love
Helen

Answerer

Sorry, I'm not a person who like to complain but what you had said obviously made me distrustful of your God which is, in turn, not a complain to me regardless of how you think or feel.
Anyway, here comes my next question, in bible, it is stated that day was created before the sun was, but how do day exist before sun was created?
Feel to answer if you want.

John Page

Either way, this makes you guilty of hypocrisy. Goodbye, so-called christian.

Just to make absolutely clear, I'm not indulging in name calling, I'm reaching a conclusion that I think any reasonable person would do under the circumstances given the evidence of your statements and the definition of the term. From the Oxford Reference Dictionary:

rainbow walking

Hello Rainbow Walking,

Hi David,

rw: Earlier you claimed that even if methodological naturalism discovers a natural origin for life and this universe you’d still subscribe to the belief that god created it all to exhibit this effect. That’s called “engulfing” your opponents position and is a typical presuppositional tactic.

David: I can and should engulf an opponent's position when it is consistent with my own.

Rw: Then proceed to demonstrate the consistency. Merely saying it don’t make it true. When you appeal to this tactic you are, in effect, playing god. Your wish and desire for a thing to be true doesn’t make it true simply because you wish it were very, very much.

David: I have no intention of disagreeing with myself, hence I must engulf this argument of yours.

Rw: Exactly. Your “self” and the claims embraced by your “self” are the Magna Carta of your intentions, the evidence or lack of any, be damned. This exposes your intentions for what they are: A blind stubborn desire to believe in something regardless of the evidence against it, the illogic, irrationality, irresponsibility, and unreasonableness of the intent. You may claim that your intentions “engulf” my arguments but in the final analysis, unless you present superior arguments, all you accomplish is a monumental big fat zero with a negative balance.

rw: The only problem with using this method in determining the truth-value of the respective explanations is that yours is not falsifiable or testable. Who can prove you wrong with scientific methods?

David: In reality, the question of God's existence is not scientifically falsifiable.

Rw: Neither is it scientifically testable, observable or verifiable. But it is philosophically inconsistent, incompatible with all other aspects of reality, contradictory to the compendium of human knowledge, ontologically unprovable and epistemologically unknowable. In effect…incomprehensible and your wishes and intentions do not bridge the gap from here to there in any meaningful way. There is no comparison because there is nothing more than pure imagination to compare with. Reality is not a product of imagination, neither is man’s knowledge of it.

rw: The particular religious affiliation of any or all scientists involved in the major disciplines investigating the questions of origins has nothing to do with a philosophical presupposition that godunnit has pre-imminence over science.

David: God does not exclude these scientific origin scenarios. Therefore, the conflict that you are seeking is nonexistent.

Rw: Are we to take this to mean then that you have rejected Genesis chapters 1 and 2 in favor of science? How do you sustain your wishes and intentions with this salad bar methodology in relation to the manual you appeal to concerning such figures as Paul and Jesus? How far are you willing to go to cling to both worlds?

Rw: You would have to have evidence of the particular area of compatibility for this assertion to stand the test of peer review.

David: Present the naturalistic scenario and we will determine whether or not it contradicts theism.

Rw: Singularity of time/existence into big expansion to cosmological evolution to the present.


Rw: How many of these folks died believing they were headed for heaven…or worse?

How many allowed this belief to dull their senses and intellect to the inevitability of death?

How much of this false acquiescence permitted them to live in utter disregard of an alternative possibility?

How many of them, had they not been led to this acquiescence, could have made some meaningful contribution to the subjugation of death?

How long must mankind endure this blind alley perpetrated by the doctrines of faith?

David: I don't see the connection between your complaint against religion and the fact that all (or nearly all) of these people are forgotten, and their hopes, dreams and accomplishments are forgotten as well.

Rw: Where did these folks get their beliefs?

Rw: Are you suggesting that man has no forward looking capabilities because of some selfish desire to only be concerned with his own life? Men derive purpose and meaning from their lives from their labors. I hold that a man perceiving himself laboring for a cause as worthy as the subjugation of death would find tremendous meaning and purpose for his own existence from such an endeavor. Men have and still do.

David: I agree. The goal is a noble one.

Rw: Then why do you resist it?

Rw: Why do humans want something urgently enough to violate the rights of their fellows to acquire it? I don’t think you realize how much of our psychology is affected by that subliminal biological clock and the fear driven pressures it places upon our psyches in ways we haven’t even suspected. Couple that with the almost universal acceptance of the inevitability of death and you should be able to extrapolate a common thread running through-out man’s violent aggressive history. How many bad choices have you made in haste? Why were you so hasty in making them?

David: From a philosophical perspective, these questions are legitimate and worthy of consideration. I must say that it is unlikely that mortality is the primary or even secondary cause of any act of violence or crime, except (of course) for murder, which is the desire to make someone else dead.

Rw: Sure it is. Man’s will to live evolves complicated rationalizations to justify his behavior but it still originates from his will to live which is driven by his biological clock.

David: Because God refused to heal Paul's thorn the flesh and God allowed Stephen to die.

Rw: I don’t follow the logic of your apologetic here. Did god not care for Paul and/or was Paul not one of his apostles/prophets? Is that why Paul received no healing?

David: God told Paul that His strength was sufficient for Him, therefore refusing to heal Paul's physical problem.

Rw: In that same verse god declares his strength is made perfect in Paul’s weakness. Isn’t that precisely what I argue below in that god could not have known himself as perfect until he created less than perfect man? Thus he is not omniscient.

David: I believe that God did not want Paul or the Christians to be so dependent upon God that they would appeal to Him to solve all of their physical problems.

Rw: That isn’t the message conveyed by Jesus as he went about healing the multitudes.

Rw: Is that not implied in your claim that he created mankind? Are you saying god created man without said creation being a requirement of some particular aspect of his purpose? Was man an accident of creation?

David: God created man because He wanted to create man, and for no other reason. God did not need humans, God still does not need humans, and God will never need humans.

Rw: Then why create humans? What created the “want to” in your god?

David: Humans say "God is perfect." There is no evidence that God says such things about Himself, except in his communication with humans.

Rw: There is no evidence that god says anything. There is textual support that humans claim god inspired them to declare his perfection. Are you saying humans invented these definitions of god? If so, why are they not also evidence to suggest that humans invented god? A thing is, after all, known only by how it is defined…yes?

David: God need not have said anything about His perfection. The principle is derived from philsophical consideration of God's nature in comparison with human nature.

Rw: Can anything be said to exist without attributes defining its existence? Theologists always depict their labors as attempts to discover new data about god. In reality, what they accomplish is to paint new faces on an ancient tribal warrior deity invented by the Habiru (Hebrews) sometime during the iron age or just after.

David: Even if humans invented definitions of God that does not mean that humans invented God. These definitions are merely tools meant to convey some qualities of God in a manner which is meaningful to humans.

Rw: Yet when these definitions are critically examined they fail to communicate anything meaningful, leaving god as incomprehensible as always. Humans are still inventing gods for one very good reason. It is man’s nature to explain his experiences. When no accurate explanation exists, we invent one to assuage our fears. Death is an inexplicable experience of the human species that elicits an unbridled fear. God, and the associative doctrines, are humanities explanation of the phenomenon in a way designed to assuage our fears. That is its major selling ticket. Eternal life.

David: I don't regard humans as "perfect critics" of God, or even as qualified to criticize God in any way.

Rw: Why not?

David: Humans are not qualified critics of their own self, how then are they qualified to criticize God?

Rw: What are the qualifications of a critic? Have you ever spent any length of time with a group of people before someone in the group began to criticize others in or associated with the group?

A final summary: What is portrayed as a viable god concept is an "(1.)INVISIBLE,(2.) POWERFUL,(3.) LIVING,(4.)SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE,(5.) WHOSE IDENTITY IS REVEALED IN HIS DESIGN if you're not afraid to LOOK before you LEAP.

David: If you would like to define God in this manner, I do not object.

Rw: Is it consistent with your understanding of the god concept? Do you see how easy it is to create a god? All one needs is to find areas of human experience or curiosity that have no conclusive explanation and insert a superhuman being as the cause or purpose of the experience. Origins of life and existence are just one. Human behavior is another. Death is the most profound. Answers to the “why” question are also fertile ground for inventing a deity and a religion. Once a thing like that gets a toehold by appealing to enough people’s imaginations it becomes a cult. Once it is allowed to languish in the minds of more and more people for many generations they pass it on to their children and it gets further refined and retrofitted to each successive generations view of their world. It becomes the sieve through which their every experience is interpreted until it reaches a point where it actually has a life of its own…like Bill Gate’s money.

Observe

Somewhere far away and long, long ago…

A group of 18 men, women and children are crouching in a small cave while outside a fierce storm has been raging for the better part of a week. This little tribe were not very successful on their last hunt as they followed the herd of gazelle for their sustenance. Now they were cowering in a cave petrified by the loud bursts of thunder and bright flashes of lightening, something they associated with death, because several months before one of their best hunters had been struck by lightening right before their eyes just hundreds of feet from the herd as they were moving in for another kill out on the plain.

Myle, the leader of the tribe, is standing by the mouth of the cave keeping a vigilant eye out for lions, his mate, Selina, is watching him in disgust as her belly growls with hunger and their sons cry for food. Selina and the other women had not been present when Og, their best hunter, had been burned alive by the bolt of lightening. Finally she can take no more and approaches Myle,

“Selina hungry!”

Myle looks away in shame and a touch of anger brushes across the stern features of his face.

“Myle go to herd. Bring food for Selina and childs.”

Myle shakes his head from side to side vehemently and points outside as another burst of thunder peels across the sky shaking the floors of their meager cave.

“Ya angry! Hurt Myle. Make Myle smoke like Og.”

(Ya was the beast who allegedly lived inside the volcano that occasionally erupted belching smoke and fire. The volcano, while not in the immediate vicinity of this tribe, was visible on the horizon to the east of their hunting grounds. Myle had been told that Ya was a fierce and evil beast who burned men with his eyes if they came too close to the volcano. The volcano had been showing signs of activity the last few months prior to Og’s unfortunate accident.)

Selina reaches her hand up to touch Myle’s face and softens her voice,

“Ya not hurt Myle. Myle not like Og. Og hurt Selina when Myle with herd. Ya no like Og. Og bad. Myle good. Myle go to herd take others like Myle."

Myle shakes his head vigorously again,

“Ya angry, not like Myle take from herd. Ya’s herd.”

Selina moves around in front of her mate and looks up into his eyes,

“Ya not hurt Myle. Ya not angry. Ya hungry like Selina and childs. Ya’s belly growl like Myle’s Myle go to herd, take many meats, go to mountain of smoke and fire, leave some meats for Ya, bring rest to Selina. Ya hungry no more, belly no growl like Selinas, Ya eyes no fire. Ya help Myle for meats. Is Ya way. Myle go now.”

(Myle, encouraged by Selina’s words, grabs his spear, grunts a command to his men and bolts out of the cave in the direction of the herd. Their hunt is successful and they do as Selina suggested taking five of the herd to the foot of the volcano. Before they arrive back at the cave the storm abates, further confirming the apparent truth of Selina’s brilliant assessment. Myle becomes known and famous as Ya’s friend and servant and continues to make ritual offerings at the foot of the very same volcano that Moses would one day climb in search of a conversation with YWYH while the Hebrews milled about at its base planning a worship service to a golden idol. Myle’s tribe prospers because they have overcome their fear of storms while all the other local tribes are still hiding in caves.)