schu

What substance? Rad just makes assertions about the supernatural, about the god in his head. He seems to assume we have to answer all the questions he can raise at the same time he just keeps making more gratuitous assertions.




How about making the sun stop and go backward in the sky? That is the story in your bible. Let's hear you defend that.

I didn't say anything about bullets reversing course. Like a true troll, you just throw out assertions that are beside the point if not down right hokey and then expect people to take a lot of time answering these spurious statements.

Why would any reasonable person make this assertion? All your "evidence" for the xian/jewish god comes from an old book that can be show to be false. Anyone who asserts that this is evidence is sadly lacking in understanding.

There is no more evidence that your god made life here on Earth than there is for life having come from outer space. The difference is that life from space, or from hot spots in the mid-ocean ridges are natural explanations. There is a world of evidence for natural occurrences, and exactly none for supernatural occurrences.

You would do well to answer all the questions Bill Snedden has ask instead of throwing out bogus arguments.

GunnerJ

In much the same way that a cowpie has substance, perhaps.

HelenM

This is hardly 'substantive discussion'

Helen

GunnerJ

Oh, for fuck's sake, cry me a river, Net Nanny Helen! Radorth has demonstrated, by his unreliable, straw-man revisionism of the free will/PoE thread that substantiative discussion is, at best, fruitless with him.

Radorth

Yes I would, and note the differences between my answers to him and you. Or maybe you can't tell.

I did not say creation is provable. I have never claimed special creation to be a fact. There is no proof of it. It is merely a theory. Personally I think God had a hand in creation because of it's design and complexity, and made life to adapt to environments. But that is just my belief. I can't prove it and you can't disprove it. I am saying evolution has equally marginal "proof" and still "scientists" think they know how life originated. They are so often wrong because they hypocritically claim to be objective, and yet they are fooled by "missing link" hoaxes for forty years.

I challenged you to answer "50 Reasons to Leave Your Faith In Evolution" which you need to do to "prove" any strict evolution theories.

Rad

The Naked Mage

HA HA HA! You've always been a wacky cut-up, Helen! I'll never understand why you stopped using about fifteen smilies per post!

But seriously, trying to argue with Radorth is like trying to debate with an unusually stupid brick wall. I've also noticed chilling similarities between him and a certain other well-known fundie that once lived in these parts...I'm just waiting for him to mention roof demons.

No, it is NOT a theory.

Gravity is a theory.

The speeds of sound and light are theories.

Your take on the matter is just an example of Man's desire to make himself more stupid, with a Hebrew sand genie slapped on the end. Try not to confuse the difference again, wordtwister.

Puritan

Bottom line is that the believer is not bothered by not having proof,or even feeling that God is near,in an emotional sense.
Evidence simply doesn't matter,even amid all the unanswered questions of suffering and random calamities and nonsensical happenings in the world.
The reason is obvious even to Atheists,even though they probably won't admit it.
That is the fact we are dealing with two polar opposites on the scale of humanity,the believer and skeptic.
There is no connection at all,and the opposites attract notion is just a misconception.
It's sin and rebellion that are attractive,and the freedom to do things your own way.

But the atheist seems to think that just because a few thin-skinned self-proclaimed outcasts have defected from the faith,then those that are left are really atheists waiting to happen.
But anyone can see that those who are strong in their beliefs have as much chance at defecting as atheists do of converting.
BTW--Just curious as to exactly HOW is one 'hurt' by the so-called Church?? I realize humans aren't perfect and will let you down,but isn't holding a lifelong grudge a bit much??

Anyway,my point being that while some are deeply offended at an apparently absent God,others don't mind.
Which is the whole secret of enduring hardships...not minding the pain--of rejection,persecution,estrangement,exile,or even being outcast from your own peers.
Just like the story of the 3 Jewish boys in the fiery furnace in the book of Daniel,and their great faith...

"If it be so,our God whom we serve is ABLE to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace,and he will deliver us out of thine hand,O king.
"BUT IF NOT,be it known unto thee,O king,that we will not serve thy gods,or worship the golden image which thou has set up."
[Daniel-3:17-18]

The same way with strong believers today,who will not lose faith even when it seems God is absent.
And I understand that just because some have more courage under fire than others,it still doesn't prove God exists.
But the proof lies in the pudding so to speak.
It's true that some will die for futile causes,as long as they choose to go their own way.
But rarely will one hold onto a false ideal in the face of cruel torture and a long painful death.
Especially when given the choice to recant their beliefs.
Why then have Christian martyrs in the past not wavered under such conditions,even when given a way out?

I suppose many skeptics can and have already answered that to their own satisfaction,or simply will change the subject and point back to all the persecution that so-called Christians imposed upon others in such things as the Crusades,and...the Crusades that followed,and...whatever else they did,which I'm sure those false believers must be guilty of much more.
[btw--no need in pointing those other things out,as i am well aware of already.]

So why should I challenge Atheism as a valid worldview?
Maybe I'm not,in that I may only be defending my own beliefs,and helping you better understand them.
I don't speak for the masses,only myself.
And even if some might consider me more open-minded and tolerant than most believers,i'm sure their will come along one or even many that will once again confirm your disallusionment with religion in general...if i haven't already.
The question is...who will you choose to see as a spokeperson for God? And since God doesn't even exist to you,then why should the opinions of some deluded people offend you any way?

A bit of simple advice for any out there who are torturing themselves over all the questions,and lack of evidence for this and that.
You have to accept the fact that there is no evidence to verify anything concerning God,and never will be in your lifetime--unless Christ returns soon?
Once you have finally made up your mind,then you will no longer be compelled to continue going around the same mountain over again...or through it as some have tried to do.
:banghead:


"From that time many of His disciples went back,and walked no more with Him.
"Then said Jesus unto the 12,'Will ye also go away?'
"Then Simon Peter answered Him,'Lord,to whom shall we go?
Thou has the words of eternal life.'"
[John-6:66-68]

Dr Rick

Rad lost that arguement badly when he backed himself into a contradiction on that thread by limiting his sky-daddy's omnipotent power, just as he's doing here. He argues that his god can't allow free will without allowing evil. That means his god has limits to his power, in complete contradiction to what the Bible says and most Christians believe.

Radorth gets his clock cleaned.:..."We logically expect that if an omnipotent, omnibenevlent being exists, then suffering should not...If your god exists, and if it is omnipotent, then it can find a way to eliminate evil while keeping free will. If such a task was impossible, then your god wouldn't be omnipotent, now would it?"

Radorth couldn't respond to these arguments from Goliath, Rimstalker, and others.

In a frank burst of honesty, Rad got that last part right but the first part backwards: it's because he makes contradictory and irrational posts that he is a troll.


Rick

Stephen T-B

"Between believing a thing and thinking you know is only a small step and quickly taken." Mark Twain. (Thank you, Bill.)

When a woman told my friend Joe Cooper that she’d seen a 30ft fairy step out from a clump of trees, wearing a tall, floppy, pointed cap, he did not believe she had seen it; he knew she had because he knows that fairies are real
When my father prayed that a dripping tap in the house we’d just moved into would stop, and it did, he didn’t believe god had stopped it; he knew god had stopped it. He knew that god was real.
The difference between believing and knowing is a matter of degree, and bridging the gap is indeed “only a small step and quickly taken.”
The Christians I know, while being certain that god exists (they can all state categorically “I know that my Redeemer liveth”) tend to be less dogmatic about the Bible, believing it to be true on the balance of evidence which they are prepared to admit in its support. The strongest “evidence,” of course, is their own knowledge that god exists, and that pretty much settles the matter; but then most Christians, unless born-again Fundamentalists, entertain doubts about a passage here and there, so if, for example, they’ve doubts about the Earth being the filling in a very large, flat sandwich then they may be more inclined to state that they believe the bulk of the Bible to be the revelation of god, rather than assert that all of it is.

I wrote in an earlier post in this thread that I know there is no such thing as god, but I can no more prove this to be the case than a theist can prove the opposite.
Result: deadlock.
If I’m more cautious and say “I don’t believe there’s a god,” deadlock remains, but now the theist is thrown into confusion because unbelief is so completely unreasonable in the face of the fact that god really does exist.

Harumi

Sarcasm and satire Radorth. But apparently you can't seem to understand that. There are plenty of Christians I like far better than several of the atheists here. My best friend and my godparents being three of them. Yb and I are NOT friends.

I'd appreciate it if you stopped trying to accuse every atheist around here as Christian haters and you here as being poor and persecuted.