MadMordigan

Abraham (who left his home in faith) and Noah (who built an ark before it rained, on God's say-so) as being more virtuous than those who had direct knowledge of God.

Are we speaking the same language? What would be more direct knowledge of god than having his say-so?

It is specifically because god does not whisper weather forcasts in our ears that he is hidden.

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

[ April 08, 2002: Message edited by: MadMordigan ]</p>

luvluv

But the specific quality Noah is reverred for is having built on Ark on God's say so even when he had no evidence there was going to be a flood.

I'm mixing metaphors a little, but I'm just pointing out that faith in the absence of evidence (not just of God's existence, but of the trustworthiness of anything God says) is held to be the supreme virtue in the Bible. So bd's notion that no greater degree of virtue is described to those who believe in the absence of evidence is not true, Biblically.

jdawg2

so the omnipotent creator of the universe, the earth, and all it's weather patterns, speaking directly to you doesn't count as evidence?

Silent Dave

LuvLuv, your position, assuming I have understood it correctly, commits you to several propositions, all of which I believe to be untenable.

First, that the evidence for God's existence that currently exists -- the supposed revelation to one person in a backwater area of the world over two millenia ago, and a collection of theistic arguments that are, without exception so far as I am aware, known to be flawed -- is sufficient to warrant belief in God.

Second, that God is either not interested in saving those people who, through geographical and/or cultural isolation, never during their lifetimes have access to the aforementioned evidence, or has overriding reasons for not doing so.

Third, that every single person who has had access to such evidence and rejected it has lied -- not simply been mistaken, but LIED -- about not believing it to be strong enough to warrant Christian belief.

Fourth, that removing a human's ignornace, or deception, or bondage to desire (without which there could be no motive whatsoever for not choosing eternal salvation) would interfere with human free will to an unacceptable (to God) extent.

Fifth, that God values human moral freedom, to any extent, more than he values saving souls.

And sixth, that any human, anywhere, at any time, for any reason whatsoever, would knowingly choose to condemn theirselves to eternal damnation. To say nothing of billions of humans, particularly given the Christian notion that humans are motivated by selfishness and greed.


Dave

luvluv

JDawg, it takes faith to believe in God when all the immediate evidence points the opposite way, and when believing entails severe social consequences.

But if that doesn't make sense to you then just remove Noah from my list of examples, he is not at all central to my argument.

Dave:

"First, that the evidence for God's existence that currently exists -- the supposed revelation to one person in a backwater area of the world over two millenia ago, and a collection of theistic arguments that are, without exception so far as I am aware, known to be flawed -- is sufficient to warrant belief in God."

I don't think the words of the Bible are the only evidence for the existence of a God. There is abundant reason to believe in A God, even in the total absence of scripture. I consider the existence and the diversity of life, and the origin of life itself (apart from evolution) to be strong impetus towards a dis-belief in naturalism. I don't consider what I know of the evolutionary arguments and the atheistic origin of life arguments to be sufficient to totally rule out the existence of a God. The total evidence I have heard seems only to give someone the ability to not believe in God if one chooses not to. We have discovered that God may or may not be necessary for the origin of life, but we have yet to prove He is superflous. As far as I know anyway.

"Second, that God is either not interested in saving those people who, through geographical and/or cultural isolation, never during their lifetimes have access to the aforementioned evidence, or has overriding reasons for not doing so."

I don't claim to know everything about how God will run the afterllife, but there is scripture that seems to suggest that those who did not have a chance to hear the gospel in this physical life will be given the chance to hear about it afterwards. The Bible even speaks about a period of time when such people will be allowed to be tempted by Satan (on a plane, we may assume, in which the existence of God is not objectively known) in order to be tested like the bulk of us were tested.

"Third, that every single person who has had access to such evidence and rejected it has lied -- not simply been mistaken, but LIED -- about not believing it to be strong enough to warrant Christian belief."

I don't see how anything I said implies this. You simply chose not to believe, and this choice removes you from the one means of knowing God. And I think there is a difference between honest disbelief and a refusal to believe. I don't think people will be condemned for their honest disbelief, but I think honest disbelief is much rarer than we suppose.

"Fourth, that removing a human's ignornace, or deception, or bondage to desire (without which there could be no motive whatsoever for not choosing eternal salvation) would interfere with human free will to an unacceptable (to God) extent."

God does remove our ignorance as to His existence if we choose to allow Him that opportunity, but He does not force it upon us if we don't want it. But yes, I do argue that a full knowledge of God's existence and His power would be coercive to the extent that it would constitute an unacceptable infringement upon our free will from God's standpoint. Though I may be putting words in His mouth, maybe you should ask Him.


"Fifth, that God values human moral freedom, to any extent, more than he values saving souls."

I think that's true and I'm sorry if you find that unacceptable. The only alternative is to make us all slaves or robots.

"And sixth, that any human, anywhere, at any time, for any reason whatsoever, would knowingly choose to condemn theirselves to eternal damnation. To say nothing of billions of humans, particularly given the Christian notion that humans are motivated by selfishness and greed."

Well, there are millions of people who believe in heaven and hell and who are not Christians. My own brother, to my great chagrin, often tells me that he knows he is going to hell and can't do anything about it. You would be suprised at how common this notion is. Many people believe yet do not feel they can behave in such a way that can merrit them heaven (a mistaken belief about how one gets to heaven) and have resigned themselves to the possibility that they will go to hell. That is a very common notion.

luvluv

"Fifth, that God values human moral freedom, to any extent, more than he values saving souls."

I changed my objection to this. I don't think it's a matter of valuing one over the other. I think if you have no moral freedom you have no soul. You can't have one without the other. So I think it is not that God values moral freedom over souls, but that he cannot really be given a soul by one who has no freedom to give it to him.

bd-from-kg

luvluv:

I had prepared a relatively long response to your reply to me on this thread when I discovered that you had just made a long post on the <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000183&p=1" target="_blank">If God exists, why is He hiding?</a> thread with a great deal of overlap. I don't have time or patience to answer posts from the same person, covering overlapping material, on two threads at the same time. (When I started this one it looked as though the other one had died.) So I've decided to avoid the temptation ro respond to all of the points you've raised here. If you want to discuss them, please post them on the other thread. Or alternatively, feel free to indicate that you plan to post exclusively on this thread from the point on regarding God's "hiddenness".

But I will make a couple of comments about your post which don't relate to the main issues.

1. About this thread.

A good deal of your post was devoted to pointing out that you never took various positions that I argued against. You seem to have overlooked the fact that, until then, none of my posts here (including the OP) purported to be replying to you. It should hardly be surprising if some of them relate to arguments you haven’t made and positions you haven’t taken.

In particular, William Lane Craig’s idea of transworld damnation seems to have been adopted by Kenny (judging from his comments on the <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000170" target="_blank">Injustice of Divine Punishment</a> thread), and Nomad declared repeatedly that he found it reasonable on <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=41&t=000084" target="_blank">this thread</a>. So there are intelligent, sophisticated Christians who post to this forum who find this position plausible. The fact that you don’t is irrelevant.

2. About the supposed redundancy of my arguments

See my April 10 post on that thread.

3. Consistency

You said:

Well, here’s what you said on the "If God exists, why is He hiding?" thread:

Sorry, luvluv, but you can’t have it both ways. If God is covering his tracks in such a way that we can only know Him by faith rather than knowledge, then God is withholding vital information from us. In fact, the post this excerpt was taken from begins “If God exists, why is He hiding?... here is my guess:” So you were explicitly offering an explanation of why God is hiding.

[ April 12, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>