Jobar

SOMMS:
"Suppose, for arguments sake, that God did exist."

Not today, I think.

Your attempt to sidestep our answers to your OP question is remarkably clumsy. You ask us to assume God, then ask if we would say God exists? So I will just cut you off at the knees, and refuse to make that supposition. (In this particular argument- I can, and have, done so for more honest and subtle arguments.)

Back to your original question. Why should we not try a positive attitude to Rama to see if evidence for Rama then presents itself? And if not, why should we do this for Yahweh?

Autonemesis

That sounds logical. However, who cares about that God but you? This God of yours is not the God that the other Christians are going on about. If your God doesn't give a shit about me unless I give a shit about Him, well - I can live with that. I wish the other God they call Jesus/Yaweh/Allah was like your God.

Psycho Economist

So your god hides from people who would not bow to him as king of the universe? I can't think of any tyrants, except the Trilateral Commission, who go to great lengths to hide themselves from their opposition, instead of eliminating it in an awe-inspiring demonstration of their power. Your argument sounds like an anti-democratic recharacterization of predestination.

Human history is the encompasses the punctuated erosion of the notion that might makes right. Rule by the consent of the governed was an alien idea in the time of Jesus, moreso in the time of early Iron age empires that was the millieu of the Old Tesament. Yet today we live in a democracy, and one that was conviened by Christians who believed in reason, loved the new-fangled thing called science, and fought the "divine right" of temporal powers to subjugate their citizenry.

Just trying to be a little dramatic before I go to work.

Have fun.

(Dramatic, not poetic. Now I really am going to work)

[ October 31, 2002: Message edited by: Psycho Economist ]</p>

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Jobar,
I am not asking you to assume God exists.


I am asking you this: hypothetically, if God did exist...would you acknowledge His power and sovereignty?

If you could not do this then you could not have a relationship with God even if He did exist.


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

In short, yes.

More accurately, God reveals himself to those who seek Him with the proper attitude.

Why do you despise this?


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

SecularFuture

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas,
I am a freethinker. I do not have a closed mind or attitude. I am open to everything that is supported by some amount of logic. God is an irrational, manmade concept.

If there was evidence to support a God concept, yes – I would acknowledge God's authority.

Psycho Economist

Human perception is biased towards seeing patterns in noise, and willful agents in the unknown. Or do you believe Neptune really rules the seas? Human perception is generally unreliable, that's why science relies on empiricism (arguing from outside evidence, controlled experiments to establish causation and relentless self-criticism) over anecdotes, revelation and arguments from authority.

I think it's more likely that superstitious goat-herders couldn't think outside their bronze-age box with its dark recesses and assumed the whole world was like them and their goat herds, than that your God is jacking around with the speed of light and the distance of galaxies to make fools of curious people with telescopes.

Maybe I've just been suckered in by all that satanic democracy crap...

I wouldn't despise your God if i knew he existed. But there's a world of difference between despising someone and ceding all autonomy to them.

Philosoft

What good does that do?

Not entirely. I already have a built-in notion of what I have control over. Unless God makes it clear he's going to do bad things to me for not ceding all control to him, I don't think his mere existence is enough to fully alter my schema of self-control.

Now then, what is the purpose of this line of questioning? Do you intend to ask all atheists this question in order to gather enough "no" responses to make an unfounded generalization? Because, if you're thinking about that, you might want to read SecularFuture's post on the following page. You won't even make it out of this forum without finding some atheist who is willing to acknowledge God as supreme given objective evidence of his existence (rather than the laughable converse you propose).

Psycho Economist

I'd like to return to the parental analogy where we have hope for a common frame of reference... I have biological parents, I imagine you do too.

You've consistently ignored this line of questioning in your ongoing effort to prove me unfit to be Christian because I don't accept authority for authority's sake.

• Is there any limit to what your parents could command you to do?
• They created you... does that give them the right to dictate your choices in life?
• Is it wrong for you to ask why you should comply with their wishes?
• Should they disown you if you ask if you were adopted?
• Should they shun you if you want a DNA test to establish paternity and maternity?
• Would it impossible to objectively demonstrate that they are your parents if you erroneosly believed yourself to be adopted?

How is your relationship with your God different from your relationship with your parents? Why is that so?

(Eh, it looked neater as an unordered list...)

[ October 31, 2002: Message edited by: Psycho Economist ]</p>

HRG

Sorry, but I think that's a misunderstanding. We use models based on logic or math on a daily basis; they contain in addition to a mathematical or logical structure correspondence rules which tie this structure to perceptions of the real world´(e.g. geometry vs. the behavior of light rays, solid rods etc.).

And those correspondence rules are derived empirically. Some of them may be hard-wired into our minds, but that's the result of experiences of our ancestors.

Regards,
HRG.