beastmaster

Assume (1) God is omnipotent and (2) He has endowed humans with free will.

Since God is omnipotent, He has the power to reveal Himself to us with Overwhelming Evidence. Evidence would be overwhelming if we were left with only two choices in the exercise of our free will: (1) to obey God or (2) to rebel against Him. We would not be left with the option of "not weighing the evidence fairly."

Because God has NOT revealed Himself to us with overwhelming evidence, any uncertainty I have about His existence -- even if it is a biased uncertainty -- is His own doing. He could eliminate ALL uncertainty with merely a divine thought. It does not seem fair to me that God would punish me for His action/inaction.

So I conclude either (1) that God is evil, (2) that God is not omnipotent, or (3) He doesn't exist at all.

I'm not sure how any of these conclusions help the case of the Xian theist.

Ab_Normal

Unum, your analogy still doesn't explain why people who are good, who contribute to their society and help each other, who go through life trying not to hurt anybody, are assumed to have a one-way ticket to eternal punishment just because they don't believe in the existence of a deity.

I sure wouldn't work for the company you describe! So the only way to get ahead is to find a gift the boss wants? (That's spelled b-r-i-b-e in my book.) Whatever happened to being judged on performance?

edited to either fix or insert a typo.

Unum

My analogy doesn't explain this because that is not what I believe happens. The person you described will be rewarded. However, I believe they would be even more rewarded if they at some time had acknowledged the existence of God. Although, it is not the acknowledgement of God that counts in the reward, it is the knowledge that there is a One, all-powerful entity that is counted. By understanding that there is truly one entity, one can more easily understand the patterns that this one entity forms. By understanding what the patterns are, one can more easily reproduce and/or alter the pattern being produced. Understanding that there is One all-powerful entity isn't going to make one see these patterns, as it is also possible for someone to see these patterns without believing in One entity. However, this One entity that I describe is the boss that lays down the rules or patterns that all of us live by, personally I think it's a good idea to know the rules if one wants to play the game properly.

You don't have a choice whether or not you are an employee of this company. By being something, you are part of the everything company that I am talking about.

We are judged on performance. However, if you can perform nothing, you will receive an incredible judgement. It's not a bribe, as you don't have to do this. In fact, very, very few people actually do this. The survival instincts of our human body makes the task of perfoming nothing a very difficult task to accomplish. The more difficult tasks that people willingly take on in life, the more reward they receive if and when they accomplish it.

Peace,

Unum

xeren

Analogies are all well and good, but they really can't get to the truth of a mater because they can never share every aspect of the things being compared.

Analogies are great for illustrating a point, but they should not be used in place of real evidence, because without it, they just muddle things and make things confusing, like in our boss scenario that is going on.

diana

thechort,

It's the whole question of "belief" that reeks to me. I see a huge difference between knowledge and belief, particularly in the "belief" (faith) that is defined in Heb 11:1.

I can't conceive of a god who would demand such belief and condemn me for honestly seeking evidence (i.e., knowledge of that god) and coming up empty.

In short, I am incapable of belief. I need knowledge. But the rules state that I don't get that.

Any god who would punish a person for not believing when there is absolutely no conclusive evidence to support that belief would be unjust in my book, regardless of the extenuating circumstances.

d

Unum

What would you consider real evidence? How about this?

God has been defined at various times and in various writings as being all-powerful. Now, look, taste, feel, smell or hear. Do you sense anything around you? Anything at all? If you are reading this it is obvious that you are able to see something. The fact that you can sense something, means this something is causing or has caused an effect upon you. Energy, in physics, is defined as the ability to cause an effect. The things you sense have caused an effect, therefore they have energy. Power, in physics, is defined as the amount of energy transferred (or the amount of caused effect) divided by the change in time. So, not only do the things you have sense have energy, they also have power. Let's see, God is all-powerful and the things you sense have power. In other words, the things you are sensing are actually a part of God. Here we have God who has all the power and you are sensing something that has some power, but not all, therefore it is logical that the things that you sense are a part of God. It is as if God is communicating with you everytime you sense anything. The evidence of God has been right in front of you your whole life. God has never once hidden from anyone. God has always been and will always be. The thing is, you aren't sensing all of God. If you look around you can see many things, but you can't see all things. God is all of these things, even the ones you can't see. In other words, God in its entirety can not be seen directly. You can see parts of God, but the entirety of God can only be imagined.

Peace,

Unum

Ronin

That sure would surely be a defective way to run a prosperous or efficient company ~ when would any work get done?.

When did ‘perfection’ ease into your analogy?

If the manager did not write these documents, then having various employees from different cubicles making up memos that readily contradict each other would render them valueless and cause the assorted employees to argue with each other as to which memo is really from the manager.

This would show that the documents are fraudulent and also prove to hamper overall productivity of love, smiles, happiness and harmony.


We’ve already established that none have found any evidence of the manager or the manager’s office.

This is why fraudulent memos are still around to cause division, discord and violence between employees ~ in direct opposition to the set mission of this analogous company.

If the manager exists, then the manager should show up and provide the proper documents in order to improve productivity ~ unless the manager is a complete an utter failure.


That sweeping statement, Unum, is completely nonsensical.

If one defines the qualities and quantities of the manager and the office, then we can examine the evidence that would either substantiate or invalidate the existence of this manager.

Since we are still debating this issue, I take it you will not be able to provide this evidence.

I am able to discern evidence for many things and can be certain that I wrote these words to you.

Then you are obviously not talking about the Abrahamic manager.

So your manager would base benefits not upon high productivity of love, smiles, happiness and harmony ~ but only upon his own vanity and the employee's recognition?

You would have to work for one oddball, non-existent manager.

It’s sad because it is silly, Unum ~ the truth is before you in the beauty of the very real and natural world.

I recommend you experience it.

~ Buckle up, it's the law.

parkdalian

What you describe is a pantheistic God. A pantheistic god has little to do with the question of believing in an anthropomorphic God to avoid Hell or to justify Hell as an appropriate punishment for not believing. If belief in God is simply a matter of renaming natural phenomena and calling it God, then I'm in. The Earth's moon is now officially God to me--so I believe in God. I now won't go to hell, right?

Ronin

In other words ~



Unum ~ To call the sensory experience of the universe "God" is not to explain it. This only adds unnecessary language with a superfluous synonym for the word "universe."

Dr. Retard

It's hard to imagine a situation wherein believing something, in and of itself, deserves punishment.

But the belief in question is special in that it's as harmless to others as can be. The claim that such a belief, in and of itself, deserves punishment is morally unintelligible.

So questions of whether such beliefs might be the result of prejudice, and whether prejudice tarnishes the default moral innocence of beliefs, seem beside the point. The sentence "A deserves punishment because A doesn't believe that God exists" seems so absurd as to be a crime against moral language.