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Yes, it’s still me.
Does my style appear schizophrenic?
It may be because once somebody started quoting the bible I decided to break away from discussing the topic of free will within the confines of a strictly philosophical framework.
But it was not my intent to have us cracking open bibles in this discussion, if that’s what you meant by the above.
I have no hidden agenda.
Mine can be read in my bio.
On the other hand, if what you meant is that you’ve lost respect for me regardless of how we ended up cracking open bibles, and only because of the arguments I provided, then that’s unfortunate, but I suppose I’ll live.
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Oh no, that's not what I meant at all. I just meant that your style sounded differeent, that's all.
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So what what’s my point?
It is simply that only a person who attempts to bridle his spirit, who is willing to learn, will benefit in your duct tape scenario.
Whereas a rebellious person will almost inevitably further harden their heart and carry on.
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To the degree that I know hayden, he fits the definition of the former.
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On original sin, for instance, you’re insisting that God should not have given Adam and Eve either the opportunity nor the desire to choose anything in the first place. You’re asserting that the opportunity and the ability to make that choice itself was a set up.
You view God’s decision not to have completely omitted such a choice to begin with as “evil” on his part, because he knew humans would fall, since they were made with a built-in mechanism which would lead them in that direction no matter what, yet he “punishes” them anyway.
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In particular, what I view as unjust is that he would give people free will and then punish them for using it in a manner different than He perscribes. But yes, you're getting it.
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But Jinto, can’t you see that if God would actually have done what you’ve suggested here, that he would be the most perverted, imperfect and unjust entity of all?
By creating beings that had no chance within them to make their own choices, even wrong ones?
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The thing is though, if the bible is to be believed, I
still don't have that choice. Oh sure, technically I
could choose to go against God's will, but since that results in an infinitely intolerable situation for me, I, being of sound mind and body, could not possibly make that choice if I believed the bible is true. To restrict people from doing something that they have been given no desire to do is one thing. To simply make that action impossible is another: I don't hear anyone complaining about the fact that God made it impossible for us to fly without mechanical aid. But to give people the desire and the capability to do something and then compel them not to by threat of torture - that is evil.
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The most common fallacy that atheists base this argument on is that Adam and Eve did not know what they were doing ...
...That they did not have enough information, and that God was keeping it from them.
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Moreover, God lied to them: he told them that on the day they ate the apple they would die. Well they ate the apple, and they lived for another 930 years. The snake on the other hand, told them that not only would they not die, but they would gain knowledge of good and evil. As it turns out, the snake was correct. What's funny though, is that in this case, the snake is considered evil for giving Adam and Eve the capability to know Good and Evil, and God is considered Good for punishing them for that knowledge. Even funnier, is that God punishes Eve more severely than Adam, even though it was
Adam that he gave his commandment to: he never told
Eve not to eat from the tree. Funny that.
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Contrary to your arguments, there is no evidence of this.
You’re choosing to make an assumption about the character of an entity that you do not even choose to believe in in the first place.
Thus, your viewpoint can only be based on sheer bias, since they do not reflect the statement of the facts (Source: Genesis).
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I can certainly judge the character of a fictional entity based on their actions in a book. No assumptions are required: all I have to do is look at what that entity does in the story.
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Don’t you see that you yourself would have had absolutely no other alternative, that you would have had no CHOICE but to believe and serve God, simply by the sheer fact that you would not have been presented with both sides? You would not have had the mechanism, not would you have been presented with the temptation.
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I wouldn't mind though, since I would have been created to serve him. That's the thing: if you're going to create me to serve you, then you design me so that I actually
like that arrangement. If you design me so that I
like freedom, then it is unjust of you to force me to serve you. Force? Well what else do you call throwing me into a lake of fire if I refuse?
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What kind of supernatural being would go out of his way to create such complex beings, without instilling in them the ability or placing them in a setting to be able to choose nothing else except him?
Talk about eliminating free will.
You’re suggesting eliminating the whole kit-n’-caboodle.
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Yes I am. If you give people the free will to desire something different than your goals, then it is infinitely unjust to punish them for then proceeding to do what their free will tells them to do. Either make me desire to serve you, or make not serving you a viable option, one of the two.
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Look, Jinto, first of all, YES you were talking about the salmonella analogy.
Let me explain why.
The “salmonella”, according to the record, was in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God did not lie to the first humans.
He said if they eat that stuff, they “will surely die”.
Did they not die?
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He said "on the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Adam lived 930 years. God lied.
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This is a common theme in your arguments, and a common paradox.
What you’ve suggested as a solution to the God Test, for instance, is that God would intervene IF he were just.
Again, the entire position you’re arguing from is highly paradoxical, and illogical.
Especially since you’re expressing the desire to have God eliminate his most mysterious and precious invention: the human will itself.
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But can't you see: by not making disobedience a viable option, he has done worse than remove human will: he has turned it into a liability.
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I wonder if you have kids, or are planning to have kids?
This would interest me.
Especially since everything you’ve asserted suggests forcing people to do things until they learn, and removing all things around them which could tempt them to make the wrong choice against all instruction.
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NO, I don't plan to have kids, but if I did, I would certainly not let them run out into the street in front of a moving vehicle, let them get hurt, and then spank them for disobeying my instructions. I stop them
before they reach the street. And if you either have kids or are planning to have kids, I should hope you do the same.
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and the implication that Christians use it as a copout, is unwarranted, since
1. Your assertions undermine the very thing you argue against: violation of the free will;
2. Your assertions do not match the biblical record, nor are they congruous with what we know about the nature of the supernatural being that supposedly created humankind.
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Again, what I argue against is not so much violation of free will as giving us free will and then making it a liability.
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If you argue that you cannot rebel against an entity you do not even believe exists, then you must agree that is equally impossible to surrender your will to an entity which you do not even believe exists.
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Granted. And that puts God in a conundrum: as long as people don't believe in him, they don't have the CHOICE to follow him or not. They simply cannot choose to follow him unless they believe in him. So by not providing evidence, God is taking away our free will to follow him or not. Hayden is asking for the opportunity to choose to believe in God or not, and by not granting his request, God is violating hayden's free will in order to take a course of inaction that violates hayden's free will. Further, God will violate hayden's free will again by sending him to hell for not making a choice that he never had to begin with.
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HERE’s why: We MUST conclude that the test’s “failure” cannot have necessarily proven the non-existence of God, nor an “existent God’s” disinterest, at least not logically
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actually, it proves that either the biblical God is intent of refusing to give hayden the choice not to go to hell, or that the biblical God doesn't exist.
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My contribution to the discussion was to suppose that the concept of God is much different than that of simply believing in a pink unicorn.
Especially since God promises that if you believe in him and call on him, he will answer. I have not read any such assertions made by the invisible pink unicorn.
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And yet, no one has survived the Mark 16:18 challenge. I guess that we're a planet of unbelievers then.
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Either an agnostic, or a disbelieving, or a rebellious heart has, in fact, chosen NOT to activate the will to take either of the 2 consecutive steps above,
neither a) the conscious abandonment of disbelief,
nor b) the conscious act of the free will to BE obedient
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Now hold on a minute. I thought we already established that you can't be rebellious against God
unless you believe in him.
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Here’s why:
If the test had worked for Hayden, how could Hayden have proven it to you? Anecdotally?
I think not.
You have rejected every piece of anecdotal evidence I’ve presented.
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Of course it wouldn't have worked for ME. The question is: could it have worked for
Hayden? Answer: yes.
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Aside from implying that people who believe in something without measurable evidence must be insane, this premise is an example of Argumentum ad ignorantiamcan and can be said to be false.
Illustration:
For lack of measurable, scientific evidence to the contrary, you could assert that I cannot possibly love my wife since my loving her does not produce any evidence of an occurrence which would leave traces of evidence which could be collected and strung together to support my claim. All evidence of this is circumstantial and could be feigned.
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Actually, we could quite easily collect evidence to show that you love your wife. We could show that you obviously care about her because she is relevant to you. We could show that you feel affection for her by observing your voice intonations and facial expressoins while conversing with her, as well as the actions which you may perform on her behalf. We can also collect further evidence of this by observing your sexual relations (although, you would probably be quite annoyed if you found out that I was doing that). Would all of this prove beyond any doubt that you love her? No. However, if this evidence did
not exist (if, for instance, you showed no emotional reaction when her name was mentioned), then it would be insane to believe that you loved her.
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Although I do love her, I will never be able to produce measurable evidence to actually prove it.
Therefore, I am the only person who can confidently assert this claim, and utterly know of its indisputable truth.
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Actually, even YOU cannot know of its absolute truth. You can think that of course, but there is always the possibility that you hve been suffering from a prolonged delusion.
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Not even my wife can truly know it.
At some point, she is forced to believe it, and to continually weigh my actions, examine my behavior in order to arrive at her own conclusion
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Which is my point. If she did not have your actions and your behavior as evidence, she probably wouldn't believe that you loved her.
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This empirical lack of evidence which would rule out the possibility of my feigning love for her, however, has still in no way disproved that something which I have defined as, and understand to be, “love for my wife” de facto exists inside me
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Perhaps, but it would make it impossible for her to believe it.
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In addition, I am aware even before you say so that you did not mean to imply that all people who experience a thing called love, or who believe themselves to be loved, must be insane for lack of the kind of measurable evidence most often used to prove things in a court of law.
The fact is, even sane people believe in things despite a lack of measurable evidence.
Love is one example. Therefore this inference is indisputably false in the form in which it has been phrased here.
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As I showed, however, measurable evidence
does exist for the existence of love, without which you wouldn't believe it. If, for instance, a friend of mine who has thus far showed no signs that she even cares about my existence suddenly started spouting that she loved me, I wouldn't believe it. Why? The lack of corroborating evidence. If you believe that it's reasonable to accept claims without any evidence, then let me just say that I love you.
Do you believe that?
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Here, I am using a presumption about the nature of the very thing I am trying to refute in order to then arrive at a conclusion which attempts to refute the very thing itself about which I have presumed something. Thus, there is also something mind-bogglingly circular about this illogical line of reasoning.
That this brazenly traverses the parameters of logical integrity goes without saying.
The bottom line is, how can you presume to know something very specific about the quality and character of a thing you do not even believe exists, much less something about its abilities to do or not do something?
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Simple. I can
define it. For instance, I know that yellow sock-dwelling monkeys in G.W.'s socks are yellow, and could (if they existed) be found in G.W.'s socks. Why? Because they are defined that way. More to the relevance of this topic, however, you have
defined God as someone who will not intervene unless someone surrenders their free will to him. If this is true, then logically sane people canot believe in God. That was your defense against the accuracy of the God test: that God would not stop hayden from posting unless he surrendered his free will. I am showing that by that definition, sane people cannot beleive in God. This is what is known as debating a hypothetical situation.
Now, if you remove your stipulation of God not interening unless hayden surrenders his free will, then the Biblical God does not exist. That's what the God test proves.
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This cannot be true unless you’ve interviewed every “Christian” who ever lived.
You cannot say for a fact whether or not there may be a portion of believers who actually came to know Christ because God revealed himself to them in some way despite their unbelief, thus UTTERLY convincing them of his existence.
What empirical evidence do you have that God has NOT EVER convinced and CANNOT convince ANYONE of his existence who did not already believe he existed to begin with?
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Again, this was your stipulation, not mine. I'm perfectly fine with a God who will provide evidence to unbelievers, as we can rule out such a God's existence form the lack of evidence.
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And besides, how would such evidence be measured by others?
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It would be presented to those others, so it would be seen in whatever manner God thought best for convincing them
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Without answering these questions, you expounded on this preliminary conclusion to further assert that God must therefore be unjust for having created a place called hell, in which human beings are allegedly being punished without due cause.
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It was your stipulation. Without it, the God Test proves that the biblical God, or indeed any omnipotent being that wants people to believe it exists, simply does not exist. That's why you stipulated it, and I am showing that that stipulation leads to a logical conclusion: God is horribly unjust.
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Although it is possible to arrive at true conclusions from false premises, this is not an example of such a case. The conclusion is also false.
God’s system of providing humans with choices, and granting them the ability to make them, by warning them specifically ahead of time to tell them what choice would be the wrong one, then informing them of the consequences of such a choice, is not unjust.
It is perfect in its justice.
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Uh, yeah, and he did this how? He did not, for instance, warn the six-year old child that drinking from the dtergent container would kill him. He did not warn people that if Hitler was allowed to come to power that every Jew in Germany would be in big trouble. He did not warn us of any of those things. Oh, you meant about hell. Sorry, but eternally torturing someone for making the logical conclusion is NOT just. You are bound into thinking that any system of rewards and consequences is just as long as people are forewarned, regardless of what is being made illegal.
Imagine the following scenario: the U.S. decides to make publicly questioning the government illegal, and enacts the death penalty as the consequence. The public is given a year's warning before the law comes into effect. 366 days later, someone asks whether that law should be considered just. He is executed on the spot. According to you, this is just. But lets take this a step farther: suppose that the U.S. Government decides to give everyone a job (yay!). Except that they get to tell you what it is (boo.). And all the jobs pay the same (boo!). And refusing to work is punishable by death (BOO!). According to you, as long as people are warned of the punishments for disobedience, this is just. Sorry, but forewarning is not sufficient: the punishment must also fit the crime.
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Sheltered robots cannot choose, therefore they cannot choose to love God of their own “free will”.
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That depends on what you mean by free will. If they only desire to love God, then in a sense that is a free choice. But this gets into a discussion about the nature of free will, and these posts are long enough as it is.
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The only way to prevent evil is to destroy it completely.
Again, you’re suggesting God use his power in order to shelter himself from the possibility that his creation might reject him, regardless of his well-meaning instructions.
This is simply not in line with what I understand to be “supernatural”. It sounds like a “natural” need.
That’s not to say that God did not and does not grieve at our poor choices.
I’m simply pointing out that God will not use his power to shelter himself from the possibility of rebellion.
Suffering enters in because humans make bad choices. Period.
God could give you paradise.
He could buy your love, shower you with gifts, use his overwhelming power to keep you from choosing evil by forcing the choice down your throat.
Then, sooner or later, if you still had any similitude of a free will left, you would ultimately see through God’s bullying ruse, accuse him of buying your love, sheltering you and forcing choices down your throat.
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And what exactly do you think I am doing when I point out that your God is evil? Worshipping him?
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Type 1.:There are those who get something out of it because they have come to understand the deeper truth of it. For these people, such a practice becomes a simple pragmatic function which is done with pleasure. E.g.: When children are still very small, you teach them to get into the habit of brushing their teeth. Only after many years of teaching and practice do they understand the so-called practical “meaning” behind brushing their teeth. Later, they want to brush their teeth in order to avoid tooth decay, because they like their teeth and respect themselves, and feel better afterward. For this type of person, what was a “ritual” of “the brushing of the teeth” in childhood, makes good practical sense later in life. These people no longer require strict religious discipline in order to have nice teeth. They are grateful for the patient instruction of their parents and follow it gladly later because they have come to understand that it is good.
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False analogy. There is a causal relationship between brushing your teeth and preventing tooth decay. There is no causal relationship between cutting off your foreskin and spiritual cleansing.
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If you want to avoid harming yourself, you will follow God’s commands because you have understood that the “commands” are actually more like instructions: they are there for our protection, further development and good. Therefore you are grateful for the “commands” and to God for helping you to understand them, and you follow them voluntarily
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Actually, I would not be grateful for that. I would prefer that God restrain his commands to things where there is a causal relationship INDEPENDENT OF HIM between me following them and not getting hurt. I would also prefer that he refrain from punishing me beyond the deity-independent consequences for disobeying him if I did. If he really cares so much about me not getting hurt, then he can stop me anytime he chooses. That I would be grateful for.
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Then there are those who only see “the brushing of the teeth” or the “washing of the hands”, without ever understanding their respective purposes. They perform their functions in a “pharisaical” manner by making a big deal out of “rituals”. This circumstance may be unfortunate that the particular individual is ever practicing yet never coming to the full knowledge of the truth, but that does not make its practice useless.
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Those people will nevertheless experience the benefits of their actions regardless of whetehr they believe in them or not. Can you say the same about foreskins?
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I.e., people who practice “the washing of the hands” purely as a ceremonial ritual without ever seeing that the actual purpose of washing your hands is to prevent illness become fools who profess themselves to be wise, I agree with you.
But that does not eliminate the possibility that there are those who will eventually “come to the knowledge of the truth” actually by way of performing the act, Like a child beginning to brush its teeth as a small child without understanding what it is doing.
Or a swimmer who later becomes grateful for “pool rules” which tell you how deep the water is, but could not read them, or understand their purpose as a child.
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Uh... I actually did understand those as a child, but I digress. A person who washes their hands will experience fewer illnesses regardless of whether he knows about that or not. On the other hand, a person who does not believe that cutting off their foreskin has any purpose will not be spiritually cleansed by it. That indicates that it is the
belief that causes this "spiritual cleansing" effect (if indeed, one even exists, although given that most circumcisions nowdays are done at just a few days of age, it's hard to see what effect that would be), and not the action. In other words, telling people to cleanse themselves by cutting off their foreskins is analogous to me selling sugar pills as a cure for the common cold.
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Therefore you cannot logically argue that all rituals are flat-out useless.
Perhaps they’re useless to you.
Perhaps you’ve come to the knowledge of the truth of them, and no longer require a “habit” or a “ceremony” or a “ritual” to understand them.
Still I think your previous post demonstrates that you at least either
a) do not understand, or
b) do not care to understand
the spiritual dimension to them
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Or c) I know a placebo effeect when I see one.
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Jesus reprimanded the high priests and scribes for acting elitist, particularly when it came to ceremonial washing.
Jesus accused them of only performing the ceremony without having come to the full knowledge of what it was made for in the first place.
The Jewish priests turned a simple command to remain clean into an overblown ceremonial ritual, which they then used to criticize others for not adhering to.
Jesus came to
A. Fulfill the law, i.e. the commands of God in the Old Testament, and
B. Explain and demonstrate their actual purpose.
Try reading Mark Ch. 7 v. 2-23, John 2:6, 3:25, for starters
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Apparently, Jesus also recognized a placebo effect when he saw one.
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God also knows all this.
And neither does he use hell as leverage in order to deter our crimes, anymore than the death penalty will deter a child rapist from their goal.
Though the knowledge of the existence of a penalty for our crimes may help some to correct their behavior and come to know of God’s actual merciful nature, God would rather that we not commit crimes simply because we hate crime.
And that we would come to a belief in him because we want a relationship with the one who made us, not because we’re scared shitless of the one who made us.
In fact, I would assert that most Christians who only believe in God because they are afraid of hell, have an entirely wrong image of God, and this grieves him.
As I said above, God wants us to use our will to believe that he is good, not under duress, but with a sound mind, and a conscious decision to see that God’s love and mercy is great.
In order to get to heaven, according to the bible, you have to set your will in motion, to achieve it. You have to choose to believe through an act of the will, not by shutting it down.
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And it should be noted that the ineffectiveness of the death penalty is a strong argument against its existence. If hell is an ineffective deterrent, then why have it at all?
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Ok.
Read the book of Numbers Chapter 19 starting with v. 7 ending at verse 22.
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Anyone who does not thoroughly wash themselves after handling a dead body shall be cut off from the congregation.
Foods that may or may not be eaten.
A purification ritual. But where does the bible say "thou shalt wash thy hands before eating?"
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This is what those pompous and pious Jewish priests in the New Testament had turned into “ceremonial hand-washing”, which Jesus criticized because these legalistic fools had not understood the purpose behind it, nor the deeper spiritual truth of “cleanliness before God” which it represented.
There is much you do not understand about the physical-material-substantive make-up of God and his “Holiness”, or perfect purity.
This is what I meant when I told you that you need to read more and do a little more research. Actually, almost all your arguments demonstrate a glaring lack of knowledge of the bible, its symbolism and the nature of God reflected in it.
But don’t worry about it, I still got your point.
It is refuted above in the teeth-brushing scenarios regarding your assertion that all rituals are useless.
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No, just physical rituals of inner devlopment. Please read what I am saying more closely.
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You misunderstood my argument if that’s what you thought I was suggesting.
1. The foreskin is not a “problem”. If it were, Paul would have agreed with the quarreling churches on the topic of “the circumcision” and would not have allowed the gentiles to become part of the body of Christ until they had been circumcised. Paul argues against those believers who had not understood this and states that a foreskin in and of itself is not a “problem”, or a hindrance to being saved, and that the gentiles who still had theirs, should keep them if they wanted to.
2. The foreskin is there to “protect” a boy’s penis until his “coming of age” when he is ready to get married and have sex. It is removed only after it has served it’s purpose of getting a boy into a rigorous routine of washing that area carefully and of “protecting” the tip of the organ. Once it has SERVED ITS PURPOSE, it may be removed. It is not a broken part, inserted to cause grief, requiring the owner to return to the factory for more repairs.
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1. If the foreskin is not a problem, then it does not have to be removed.
2. And the reason why it MUST be removed is? Oh wait, it doesn't have to.
3. If the purpose of a foreskin is to create behavioral patterns in the boy, then why is it removed BEFORE it can possibly serve that purpose (Genesis 17:12)?
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Your analogy, again, is a gross misrepresentation of the practical functions of things which can be found in nature. It is another example of your conscious choice to set your will in motion in order to twist obvious truths, false premise after false premise, in order to support a conclusion you have already arrived at before you began the argument. These arguments are circular because the proposition and the conclusion are identical:
God is unjust and is interested in causing human suffering. He created foreskins. Foreskins are a “problem”. Therefore God is unjust and is interested in causing human suffering
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No, my premise is that the bible is an accurate description of God (hypothetical, I already know this is false). God commands people to cut off their foreskins. Therefore, God is one sick fuck. It's not the foreskins that lead me to conclude God is horribly unjust, it's the fact that his legal system is based on blood sacrifice, the idea that moral guilt is transferrable, and the idea that eternal torture is an appropriate punishment. The foreskin argument was advanced to couter the idiotic notion that all of God's laws are for our own benefit. I still don't see what possible benefit can be derived from mutilating a baby's penis.
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This argument is illogical and lacking in integrity since it does not seek to expand on any possible positive aspects of possessing a foreskin, nor any reasons why it would become unnecessary later in life. The argument is based on a proposition that, although not proven to be true, is asserted as a basic truth.
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No, it's only your strawman that is illogical.
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Background: God provided humans with the law for their own protection.
Our law, “Thou shalt not drink and drive”, for instance, is there to keep people from killing themselves, as well as others. God knew, in spite of the law, that people would abuse their privileges. A lot of right-wing puritans claim something along the lines of “alcohol is evil in and of itself”. Yet they overlook the fact that Jesus Christ not only drank wine at most of the meals depicted in the bible, he even performed a miracle whereby water was changed to wine for a huge wedding celebration. I.e., Jesus drank wine.
But he also knew that people would abuse alcohol. That they would drink, get drunk and later in world history, drive, and maybe kill themselves and/or others.
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However, our system of justice would prefer to simply make it so that drunk drivers can't exist.
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The fallacy I’m addressing here is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to abide by the law.
I’ll step back, many Christians don’t even know who they believe in.
Jesus came as a man.
A man with human limitations. The miracles he performed, he asserted over and over, were because he had faith in GOD the Father to perform them. According to Jesus himself, he did not perform those miracles because of his divinity.
The bible clearly states that he laid aside his divinity in heaven in order to come to us as a man. Yet, as a man, he still managed to lead a “sinless”, or perfect, life according to the law. He fulfilled the law and proved its worth.
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Actually, no, he didn't. Jesus broke the fourth and fifth commandments, by dong work on the sabbath (Jn. 5:16), and refusing to adress his mother as anything other than "woman,"(Jn. 2:4, 19:26) respectively (also, he refused to tell his parents he was staying behind in Jerusalem in Lk 2.) Jesus also lied (Jn. 7:2-10), was a drunkard (Lk. 7:34), and stole from other people's cornfields (Mt. 12:1) (also note that this happened on Sunday, again violating the fourth commandment. Sinless? I don't think so.
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Jesus, as the only man who ever lived to successfully abide by the law all his life, fulfilled the law on our behalf, procura, so that if we slip, we can claim our righteousness in him and be exonerated from the fine that needed to be paid for not having fulfilled the law. God, even though he demonstrated to us that it was possible to fulfill the law if we truly love God with our whole hearts, minds and souls, has mercy on us anyway when we slip, and allows us to invoke the act of Christ who, in our weakness and unbelief, fulfilled the law on our behalf, and paid the price for our sin
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Hell isn't a bloody fine, and a moral system where guilt is transferrable is not just.
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I hope you never have to go to jail. But if you do, and bail is set, I hope you can afford it.
But if you can’t, I hope someone is merciful enough to get you out of jail on bail until your trail. Is someone else paying your fine for you or posting your bail mean the law is transferable? Does the court care who posts your bail?
Point is, if you choose, by an act of free will, not to believe that God is benevolent, then you can never profit from him having posted bail for you through Jesus Christ on the cross, and you remain in jail until your trial.
That’s step one, the price of bail: the unbeliever is in jail, and the bail is set so high that he cannot afford to pay it without help of a benevolent person to post it.
Step two the actual transfer: Many Christians also forget that even Christians will be judged. I even made the mistake of using the word “judge” synonymously with “held accountable” in my last post.
So just to correct that and make this perfectly clear: Every human being that ever lived, is living and will live, will face the judgment seat of God some day. Everyone.
Christians too.
So now pay attention, because this is crucial:
Transfer of accountability, not responsibility, is the legal system God uses.
The claim you make when you come to Christ is that, in your ignorance of God’s benevolence and his merciful nature and his acts of love, in ignorance of his true character and willingness that we not die, you did not know what you were doing, and are not held accountable, although you are responsible.
When Jesus was dying on the cross he uttered these words in regard to the soldiers and other bystanders who were mocking him “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing”. This is the precise role Christ fills for the believer:
He is the one who acts as intercessor on our behalf, for our having committed hateful acts of rebellion during our time of ignorance.
When I was very small, we lived in Utah. One day I took a hammer to a pile of pumpkins our Mormon neighbor had piled in his yard. I busily punctured the surface of each and every one of them because I liked the popping sound the pumpkins were making when I struck them with the hammer. I was barely 3 years old. When my parents and the farmer finally discovered what I was doing, they stopped me.
I remember not realizing that I had destroyed perfectly good pumpkins until this was pointed out to me. The farmer had mercy on me because I was three.
Although I had committed the offence, and was responsible for it, my parents wanted to pay for what I had done by buying all the pumpkins from the farmer.
But he even refused to take money from my parents. Mercy upon mercy. My accountability was waived due to ignorant folly.
But I learned my lesson.
You say you know what you’re doing, Jesus says you don’t.
However, once someone points out your sin to you, and you come to a knowledge of the true nature of God, you call on him, in belief that he actually wants to forgive you, and he will answer you in some way.
At that point, the only prerequisite is that we acknowledge that what we have done is sin and that we confess it to God.
If we suddenly wake up, and see the wrongfulness of our actions, and confess that to God, then he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Jesus intercedes on our behalf. Asking the Father not to hold us accountable, due to our ignorant folly.
And he acts as your intercessor before the Father at the final judgment.
The only thing that is required, is to claim this transfer of accountability to your big brother intercessor, i.e. the belief that Jesus is the son of God who came to live a perfect life and pay the price we could not afford to bail us out.
It is possible to claim that you committed sins while living in ignorance of his goodness, and he will close a blind eye to (cf. book of Acts: God blinks and eye).
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A) the court may not care who posts my bail, but if I am convicted, it is me that has to sit in the cell. Someone else cannot do that for me.
B) You are confusing civil law and criminal law. Civil law gives the injured party the right to collect money damages - emphasis on the right of the injured party to recover. This is wholly different from criminal law, which focuses on punishment of the guilty, and where the punishment is NOT transferrable. I cannot have someone else sit in that jail cell for me: I have to do it.
So which is God's law?
If it's civil law, then hell is unjust because God, being omnipotent, cannot suffer a loss from my actions. Therefore, he has no right to request damages. If it's criminal law, then he cannot hold someone else responsible for my actions, regardless of whether they agree to it or not: that would be unjust.
C) If God wants to forgive due to ignorance, then it should be those that DON'T believe in him that are saved - we have no knowledge of his existence. On the other hand, because you DO believe in him, you are fully responsible, and therefore cannot be forgiven. At least, that's what would happen if God was just. Therefore, assuming God is just, I offer atheism as your salvation. (First time I've ever been able to use that line)
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No, I must still insist.
It is free.
You can keep your foreskin.
You can keep your will.
You can keep your moral fortitude.
And if what you mean by “pride” is dignity, then you can retain that too.
And above all, choosing to work from the premise: “let’s first assume the gospel account is true”, instead of “let’s just first assume it’s false” does not require gross intellectual dishonesty.
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YEs it does, because the Gospel account is so inconsistent that in order to justify it, I have to constantly make excuses for God. That's not the way it should work. Making an assumption, for purposes other than logical argumentation, of something that I KNOW to be false, is intellectually dishonest. For instance, I KNOW the noachian flood did not happen. I know this because there is no large, uniform sediment layer dated at around 4000 years ago with fossils sorted by weight instead of by age. To believe it, I would have to lie to myself. I KNOW that God is not perfectly just. I know this because rigth from the beginning, he punishes people unfairly, such as when he punished Adam for not beleiving his lie. And here's the other thing: that was not a natural consequence of eating the apple, that was something God caused to happen, which is clear from reading the text in linear order. To believe otherwise, I would have to lie to myself. I don't assume the gospel account is false, as you say, I KNOW it is false. In fact, I can prove it in a court of law (In fact, that has happened - a large part of the scopes trial was about showing the absurdity of the biblical account). So to beleive something I KNOW to be false, is the most intellectually dishonest thing I could think of.
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Both are equal, since we were not there.
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Consider the following:
I have just met the invisible pink unicorn.
I have not just met the invisible pink unicorn.
Since you weren't here, according to you, both of these accounts are equal.
I hope you see the problem with that reasoning.
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In fact, you are required to perform possibly the most challenging intellectual task of your life.
Solve this simple riddle:
What if everything you’ve asserted turns out to be false, in spite of all this excellent dialog?
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Considering that "everything" would include things that you have agreed with (such as factual statements about the content of the bible), then that would mean that you are also wrong. It also means that reality makes no bloody sense.
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What if, even though I could never prove it in a court of law, I DO love my wife.
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Then evidence probably exists to support that conclusion. Also, you probably could prove it in a court of law - after all, the jury will only return a negative verdict if there is
reasonable doubt.
Then (s)he is nothing like the God in the bible.
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Just ask yourself this one brain-busting question:
What if Jesus did, against all arguments to the contrary, raise from the dead?
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Then technically, that still wouldn't prove that he was telling the truth, as there are other people in the bible who rose from the dead, although it would be evidence in his favor.
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What I’m asking you is intellectually challenging, not compromising.
What if the account of the Gospels is true after all?
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Then it would be consistent. Who is Jesus's paternal grandfather?
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It doesn’t cost you a thing to choose to assume their story was true, and to begin examining the rest of the book from that premise, any more than it costs you to assume the Gospel story is a farce.
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Again, it costs me my pride and my intellectual integrity. It also would motvate me to commit suicide, as if there is a heaven then I want to get there as soon as possible. ALSO, I should point out that there are a lot of other religions out there, and most of them also have punishments for nonbelief. If one of THEM is true, then I'm in very deep shit if I believe yours. But, if I remain an atheist, then at least I will have made an honest decision and not been worshipping a false God, which could potentially make things easier. Also, the distinct possibility exists that an amoral God put all these religions down here in order to confuse us in order to see if we would figure out the ploy: all of them are false. In which case, I would be dooming myself by NOT remaining an atheist. So go take pascal's wager somewhere else - I don't need to be coerced into accepting your religion by the fictional threats of your God.
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Because when the rubber meets the road, you do not KNOW, Jinto, so by insisting that it’s a lie, you’re making a choice simply not to believe the account.
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Actually, I do KNOW it isn't true. But you don't KNOW that all the other religions aren't true, so you're fucking yourself by believing in this one.
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Ok.
I reread it and found something very similar:
Saul of Tarsus, on his way to murder some more Christians on the road to Damascus.
He did NOT believe in Jesus Christ.
He HATED the gospel story and HATED Christians.
He implies this in many of his writings.
Sword at his side and documents in hand, he was off to slice up some more lunatic believers.
Before he got where he was going, Jesus Christ manifested himself to Saul in a flash of light, knocked him of his horse, blinded him, and asked him why he was persecuting believers.
Believe the account, or don’t believe the account.
The choice is up to you.
As for the core of your argument, however, I’ve already addressed this numerous times above.
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Interesting. Have a reference, perchance?
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I never said Lazarus had leprosy, but that’s ok.
The source I referred to IS a non-biblical source.
I told you, the name of the town where this was believed to have happened was changed, denoting something major.
Check on it yourself
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Something major happened, but that does not prove that lazarus was ressurected. But I'll certainly look it up, as a scholarly matter.
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Skepticism is one thing, even I’m skeptical.
But you asserted much more than that.
You asserted that it could not have happened at all, because they did not have the “scientific method”.
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Come on RUG, I know you aren't that stupid. I told you that they would be easily fooled by tricks because of that. I never asserted that not having the scientific method would prevent it from happening.
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I argued that you do not need the scientific method when someone’s finger that had fallen off due to leprosy, suddenly grows back before your very eyes, or if your dead brother emerges from his tomb wrapped in his grave clothes.
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Oi. I've already responded to this.
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Still, I agree with the direction you’ve spun your defense into though: just because someone says that there were so many people, does not mean that there were that many people
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Good. Although, I do resent the implication of dishonesty.
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But even if there was an absence of a neutral record to support it these claims (which is also not true because there are countless other sources which have substantiated historical, political, and religious events in the gospels), it still does not mean that it did not happen.
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The historical/political aspects of the bible being the parts that aren't in question. I can substantiate many of the historical and political events in Star Trek, that doesn't mean that James T. Kirk exists.
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Neither of us can prove anything one way or another.
So why immediately work from the extreme negative premise of impossibility?
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You're putting the cart before the horse. Impossibility of ressurection is a conclusion, from the premises that people do not wake up after they die, when people die they start to decay such that even if they could be revived three days later there wouldn't be much left to revive, and that the supernatural powers that would be nessecary to accomplish such do not exist in modern times (Otherwise someone would have won James Randi's million dollar challenge). Now if you're going to make the extrordinary claim that ressurection IS possible, then you're going to have to provide more extrordinary evidence than just the say-so of some anitquated scientifically illiterate people.
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This is a major gap in logic.
Ever heard of hostile witnesses? The greatest opposition to Jesus’ miracles, words and resurrection were the Jewish priests of that day. They weren’t only skeptics, they were vindictive opponents. Yet they DEMANDED that Christ be crucified on account of blasphemy. That was the charge. He had called himself God and brought the death penalty upon himself. These characters never once claimed that Jesus had committed fraud, chicanery, counterfeiting, or the like. Even after Lazarus was up and walking about again, they did not ever attempt to write anything about fakery, they simply said “ok, that’s it, he has become a threat to us, for the sake of the nation, this Jesus must die”.
Hostile witnesses.
Yet they not only never dispute the miracles, they later never disputed Jesus’ resurrection either, they just began killing Christians
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Look at yourself: Jesus was rejected as a true prophet by the authority on Jewish missiahs, and yet because of this rejection we're supposed to find him MORE credible? Besides, they weren't the only ones: Jesus's friends also thought he was a looney - see Mark 3:21and 6:2-5. Now, if his own friends and family realized he was crazy, then...
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I appreciate your example, but we’re not talking about candy bars here Jinto.
The bible verse I quoted says that even if someone is “raised from the dead” they would not believe.
Again you’re confusing contexts without doing any of your own reading.
The context is that the rich man is outer separation from God for being so stupid as NOT to have simply believed.
Yet, in that place called “hell” he can still speak, remember his family, remember his religion, and he feels compassion! In that feeling of pity for his family, he petitions to be raised from the dead himself so he can go back and warn his five brothers to believe so they won’t go to that place of separation from God.
But Abraham says, (paraphrasing) “even if you were to be raised from the dead, and tell them about hell, they still wouldn’t believe you”.
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That still does nothing for your assertation that a person who does not accept andecdotes will not accept hard evidence, except to say that the bible uses the same rationalization. And incidentally, I don't remember the rich man NOT believing in God. If I remember, the actual passage only said that he has in hell for being rich. A curious side note.
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I know a guy from my old neighborhood in San Diego who was a drug addict. He broke into a pharmacy to steal codeine and the pharmacy owner came in and caught him. The pharmacy owner blasted the guy with a shotgun and the guy died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. The guy was revived several hours later and lived on a machine for a while until he recovered. When he got out of the hospital, he started telling everybody that when he was dead, he left his body.
And that he left the ambulance and went to hell.
He changed his life for a few years, kept off drugs.
But only about 6 or so years later, he was a full-on drug addict again.
And he claimed to have been to hell and back.
Weird story, totally anecdotal, impossible to prove in every way, easy to explain away with discussions on the human brain etc...
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Actually, this peice of andecdotal evidence shows that his belief in God didn't help him. Now, this guy was obviouosly sincere in his belief of the afterlife (hell, he had experienced hell), and yet still didn't change his behavior. And yet, dispite that, God still didn't help him turn around. He didn't "cleanse his spirit," he didn't "remove the forskin of the guy's heart," God did nothing. This only further convinces me that God is a fiction.
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So your argument against the fact that the disciples were willing to die for what the believed is based on two points:
1. Any ol’ religious fanatic, suicide bomber, can claim to have seen the risen Christ. Well the fact is, no other martyr I’ve ever heard or read about did so.
2. Many of the disciples were losers. This is a logical fallacy called Argumentum ad hominem, which is an abusive, defaming argument directed at the person themselves. It is one of the worst fallacies and cheapest arguments there is. It can be found on II under http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism....html#hominem.
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That's because the ones who didn't get their religion endorsed by constantine didn't survive to see today. The fact is, people have died for their beliefs.
2. Ad hominem IS a fallacy, however, so is argumentum ad lazarum. And andecdotal evidence. So, can we agree to leave the alleged character of the disciples out of this?
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Is this really the best you can do with the “the bible is full of contradictions” approach?
If you continue along this line of argumentation, it will not only become more and more clear that you often rely on as many logical fallacies to support your beliefs as Christians do to support theirs, but that you also are as much of a poor bible scholar as most Christians.
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Okay, first you criticize me of making an ad hominem, and then in your very next paragraph, you make an ad hominem. Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.
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At any rate you are doing an excellent job of revealing that you really do not know what you believe.
Anyhow, here’s your answer, if you were really interested in one that is:
NIV Study Bible:
“There are several differences between Luke’s genealogy and Matthew’s (e:2-16). Matthew begins with Abraham (the father of the Jewish people) while Luke [a historian], traces the line in reverse order and goes back to Adam, showing Jesus’ relationship to the whole human race. From Abraham to David, the genealogies of Matthew and Luke are almost the same, but from David on they are different. Some scholars suggest that this is because Matthew traces the legal descent of the house of David using only heirs to the throne, while Luke traces the complete line of Joseph to David. A more likely explanation, however, is that Matthew follows the line of Joseph (Jesus’ legal father), while Luke emphasizes that of Mary (Jesus’ blood relative). Although tracing a genealogy through the mother’s side is unusual, so was the virgin birth. [...]”
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Two explanations, neither of which is satisfactory. If one was the legal line and one was the expanded biological line, then there should be more than three common names among the lists, and those names should be in the same relative order. If one was for joseph and one was for Mary, however, then why is it that both of them mention Joseph quite specifically?
And if the best defense you can mount for your own beliefs is to criticize the beliefs of others, then please, figure out what you believe before telling me I need to agree with you.
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The bible message boils down to one thing: either Jesus rose from the dead or he didn’t.
If he did, then his claims to be the son of God are true and so is the whole bible.
If he did not, then they ain’t and it isn’t.
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In other words, the bible commits a fallacy of bifurication.
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I already covered most of this above, but I’ll recap:
Original sin may be standard bible answer, but you have not shown where believing this account utilizes a logical fallacy. This bible truth is based on belief.
Belief that mankind is in need of a savior.
The belief that mankind is in need of a savior is actually a logical conclusion.
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You're damn right it is. I nominate Michael Shermer.
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Particularly since, despite the existence of laws, and even under the most ideal conditions, there are people who, sometimes out of the sheer thrill of rebellion (as you said in your argument invoking the principle of reinforcement) will spit in the face of authority, even if they’ve enjoyed an excellent upbringing.
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And people who will in the face of all reason refuse to accept that their pet belief might be false, while claiming to be open minded. Not you nessecarily, but there have been a lot of people who use the same fallacies to defend themselves.
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The heart of man is wicked and deceitful, who can know it?
Original sin makes sense to me when I look at people, even close friends of mine.
Even with the most loving father and mother, the most balanced, structured and loving household, a friend of mine just “decided” to go punk and start messing with drugs in High School. Twenty years later, as a result of some of those decisions back in High School, you could say he has since totally ruined his life. His sister is fine, balanced and happy, his family still loves and supports him, even with tough love, the whole nine yards.
He’s told me he since that he doesn’t know why he had so much fun pissing off his parents : maybe they were too good to you?” I said.
In my view, my friend proved that he was just an ungrateful, decadent jerk, who still doesn’t know how hard some people have it.
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Uh, yeah, sure. You know, I look at the world, and while I see a lot of incredibly stupid people, but no truly evil people. I see in your friend, not an ungrateful, decadent jerk, but a human being worthy of love who frankly just made a couple of stupid decisions. Now, knowing the consequences of that, hopefully he will make smarter decisions. But I always find it interesting to see that the ones who see the most evil in others are those that believe in God, as though somehow the thought that mankind might actually be worthy of handling themselves apart from God is some kind of affront to them. Why is that?
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But whatever the case may be, the burden of proof does not lie with me to prove that there is such a thing as original sin....
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BLAT! WRONG! The burden of proof does lie with you to prove that there is such a thing as original sin, considering that you have not proven that there was ever a time where humans were perfect and therefore have not proven the logicdal necessity of such in order to explain human behavior. And also, you will have to supply in your explanations an explanation of why, if a perfect person can become imperfect, that does not apply to God as will, especially given the APCA doctrine.
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1. Adam and Even had no reason to doubt God’s character, the bible says the serpent [/I]deceived[/I] them. That is, he told them something other than what God had said, and, although they had no logical reason to doubt God, they chose to.
2. Cf. my comments on removing choices from people to keep them safe from the truth.
3. I added the emphasis to the word blind. This is another monstrous misconception unbelievers have about Christians. Faith is much more complex a thing than even 99% of Christians understand it to be. Faith isn’t simply believing. Believing is believing. Faith is a much more mature progression of belief. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, it’s the evidence of things not seen. Faith cannot be blind. It is a contradiction in terms to say so. It’s like saying Ghandi used “blind pacifism” to achieve his goals or Martin Luther King used “blind political determination” to achieve his. This is nonsense.
Faith , by definition, has vision. Clear, mature, structured vision.
But I wouldn’t expect you to understand this concept as it applies to Christian “faith”.
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1. They had no reason to doubt the serpant's character either.
2. Why not just give them omniscience as well? Then they owuld know once and for all who is telling the truth, not that they'd need to since they would already know everything anyone could tell them anyway...
3. faith, by definition, does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. Therefore, it cannot have substance. If it had substance, it wouldn't be faith, it would be KNOWLEDGE.
But I wouldn't expect you to understand this as it applies to atheism.
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I reiterate: (this applies to your quote above, as well as your comments on the Flat Earth Society)
1. People who have hardened their hearts will not believe no matter what they have seen or experienced, they will explain away everything, even physical proof. I have experienced this in my life as well.
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Experienced what? Rationalizing away everything, including physical proof? Yes, I'm sure you have.
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2. When Jesus reappears, those people who believed in him will not learn anything new, and believe it or not, hatred of Jesus and unbelief will actually flourish greater than ever. I’ve read so much about the deceit that is preparing the path to explain that coming event. Talk of aliens kidnapping people etc. Paul said clearly: “If our gospel be a mystery to anyone, it is only because the god of this age has blinded their minds so that they cannot see the truth.”
The god of this age is self.
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No here's the thing: you are rationalizing away everything. Most people do not beleive the bible is literal truth: "Oh, but that's just deciet that's supposed to come before the rapture." Historical evidence contradicts much of the bible: "Oh but that's just becuase we haven't found the real evidence." The bible contradicts itself: "Oh, but the words used there clearly mean something other than what they are used to mean the other 99% of the time." The fact that you can even sit there and tell me with a straight face that people will believe
less upon seeing some actual evidence: it's ridiculous.
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And as for your underlying attempt to insult by comparing Christian faith to the underdeveloped claims of the Flat Earth Society, I’ll assume you meant no offence because I’m sincerely convinced that you have not understood.
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Offense? How? It was an accurate comparison, in fact the claims of the Flat Earth Society were based in large part off the inerrancy of the bible - the stories of mountains from which the entire Earth's surface is visible and trees that could be seen from the ends of the Earth, all would be impossible if the Earth was round. And just as their claims are ridiculous: so are yours.
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Christianity only boils down to one thing, either Jesus arose from the dead or he did not.
I hardly think your comparison is fitting.
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Flat Earth only boils down to one thing: Either the Earth is flat or it is not.
And yes, my comparison is fitting.
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Oh come on Jinto, I thought we were having an open discussion here. That’s what I love the most about II.
Also, you agreed to continue the discussion on a string of my choice.
Moreover, just as another reminder, I’m not the one who cracked open a bible and started quoting Deuteronomy. And I didn’t tell you anything about the contents of the bible that you don’t already know in the section of my text you reacted to “The Principle of Mercy vs. the Principle of the Law”, so give me a break.
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I was making a joke.
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By utilizing free will to disbelieve, even though it cannot be PROVEN that Christ did NOT arise from the dead anymore than it can be PROVEN that he DID, every person will be weighed according to their deeds, since that’s what they’d rather have than activating free will to believe. But here’s another misconception, regarding hell, which I’ve been meaning to get to all this time.
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Actually, some of us would prefer to simply die, no judgement or afterlife at all. Oh wait, that's not an option.
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First of all, as I said (and you said you don’t care, but it DOES make a BIG difference):
Hell was not created for human beings. Hell was created for a fallen angel previously named Lucifer and his fallen angel followers numbering in the billions. According to the bible, there is no place in heaven for beings who hate God. So they were cast out by the other two-thirds who remained. And when these fallen angels were cast out, they determined to take mankind with them, to deceive mankind, in an act of vengeance against God. And to hide the gospel, distort the truth, slander the reputation of God, lie about his character and nature. Now, what happened in the garden of Eden at the beginning, was that a covenant, a pact, and agreement was made, inadvertently, between humans and this fallen being. In essence, the used car salesman you were referring to in one analogy, well that’s what fallen angels did and are doing.
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In other words, just say the other side is being decieved by a bunch of liars looking for revenge. Nice ad hominem.
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It’s very important to understand that God’s laws function on similarly to the best legal system you can imagine here.
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Sorry, but since that is the notion that is being debated, you can't assert it as a premise.
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That these fallen beings had to acquire the “right” from humans to enter the planet and start doing business. Jesus act on calvary was, among other things, a legal act which broke humankind from the bond of that covenant made by Adam and Eve. So, God allows those people, who by choice, whish to remain under that contract, to join their contracting partner in another place called hell, which, in spite of all the imagery of fire and such, in reality only means complete and utter separation from God, outer darkness, away from His light, for all eternity, the very thing they wanted.
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Blat, sorry, but your bible does not support that notion. If all hell was was seperation from God, then perhaps you would have a point. Unfortunately, that isn't it at all:
©1997 by Jack T. Chick LLC
My unicorn, I actually used a Chick Tract as evidence in an argument. May the IPU forgive me...
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God’s act of judgement at the end will be according to two contracts which mankind had the right to choose from. And He is faithful to fulfill contracts which people have concluded of their own free will.
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And yet, somehow, he can't respect the right of people not to be bound by either, even though no one alive today was even
around when those others were "signed."
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Ok this is a very serious topic.
What you have believed here, and I don’t know who told you this, but it’s a lie.
In order to blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, you have to have accepted Christ as your savior to begin with. You have to have had full knowledge of him and have been in a relationship with him, the Holy Ghost has to have already been invited into your life. If this has not happened, then in a sense you are still living in blindness to the truth, and if you were to come to God right now and ask him to forgive you and reveal himself to you in some way as you exercise your will to believe, he WOULD forgive you. And I have the scripture to prove it. I take this topic very seriously, so if you are interested in the scripture I’m referring to, let me know an I’ll look it up for you. It’s in the book of Acts.
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Acts 13:39? The verse that gives Christians a moral blank check to get away with literally anything?
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Do the laws of the Invisible Pink Unicorn state that she is standing at the door of your heart and is quietly knocking at this very moment? Has she promised to answer you when you open the door to your heart to let her in and has she promised to reveal herself to you in some way once you’ve grasped the concept of active faith in her and begun exercising it? Can I find and read the book of the laws of the Invisible Pink Unicorn somewhere?
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As a matter of fact, you
can!
Click here
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Hitler was baptized but he later renounced Christ openly.
The no true Scotsman fallacy does not apply.
In order to be a Scotsman, you must at least first come from Scotland, I’ll just start there.
But, just so you know, I have read parts of Mein Kampf, and there is hardly a thing in Hitler’s life that did not reveal that he bore one of the most deranged, lying, criminal hearts in any body to ever walk this planet.
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Lol! So then, none of that no true Christian fallacy either. But Hitler didn't renounce Christ, and so according to your bible is now in heaven.
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I explained a small portion of the passages you’re referring to here. You can either choose to utilize your keen intellect, brazen determination and obviously well-honed critical thinking skills to investigate whether there might at least be [/I]some[/I] truth in what I’ve stated, or you can choose not to do so.
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Flattery will not get you anywhere.
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You don’t have to respect me as your equal, or see me as a worthy opponent the likes of whom someone as clever as yourself should even be debating, that’s ok. I presented the bitterness of this life aspect as one possibility for some people choosing to turn away from God after having enjoyed a Christian upbringing. I am aware that this is not the only possibility, but thank you. I’ll check out the thread myself in my free time, if you agree to read this horrific violation of journalistic integrity I’ve created in yours
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Fair enough.
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1. The biblical God is hardly the only God out there.
This is correct. There are many false gods appearing as angels of light, proclaiming themselves to be as merciful, beautiful, mighty and just as YHWH, and there are many vicious god, deceiving with fierce, hateful rage, and blaming their perverse act on YHWH in order to slander his reputation, blame the ills of this world on Him, but Jesus Christ says that YHWH sent him. If what Jesus said was true, and if Jesus did in fact arise from the dead, then the rest of the points in Pascal’s wager are moot.
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Uh huh. So, I take it that you think God is just for letting mankind be at the mercy of these other Gods when he could just snap his fingers and be done with them. But here's the thing: pascal's wager relies on the assumption that Jesus was not delusional, lying, or a fabrication of later writers. Therefore, it cannot be reasonably applied to test the truth of that same assumption: it's circular logic.
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The fact that you presented this frail wager as an argument against the words of Jesus demonstrate clearly that you have not understood the gravity of them.
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As a side note: you keep saying "Well you don't seem to realize how serious this is." What you don't realize is that there are thousands of God concepts out there, and yours is no more sensible than any of the others. To say: no, this is serious, you're dooming yourself by not listening to me, is nothing more than an argumentum ad baculum, and one based on a nonexistent threat at that. It does not serve as a logical argument for your God's existence.
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Let me make this perfectly clear to you: Jesus claimed that he, and only he, regardless of what other gods may claim otherwise, is the Way, the Truth and the life, and that nobody would be able to come to live in the presence of the Father except through a belief in him. In order to understand Christians, you must realize what Jesus was claiming here, and you cannot discard the fact that it was one of the very reasons for the charges of blasphemy against him which led to his crucifixion. He claimed to be the only true God. No other god that has ever presented itself on earth has claimed that other than Jesus Christ in the flesh. Check the record.
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Actually, Jesus did not claim to be God, he claimed to be the SON of God, and if you look closely in the bible, you sill see that the two are seperate and distinct entities. And in any case, to mix up claims and truth is a fallacy.
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Pascal forgot to consider this: if there is another God other than YHWH, who sent his son Jesus to die and arise back to his former place at the right hand of the Father, then he has not come to earth to claim that, and prove it the way Jesus did, through the resurrection.
And any other god who would not come to earth to provide such evidence is either
A) a liar
B) unjust.
If A then B.
If B then A.
Therefore, such a god can only be evil. I refuse to follow such a god.
Funny little wager, though, an amusing children’s experiment.
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Hahahahahaha! You claim that any God who doesn't provide evidence of his existence (other than their numerous prophets) is unjust and a liar, and yet your God, who does not provide any evidence other than a single prophet who claimed to be his son (and who incidentally would have had to if his mother was not to be stoned to death for not being a virgin when she married, but that's an ad hom), is supposedly Good. Uh yeah - one alleged miracle working prophet is as good as another as far as I am concerned, and if one of them claims to be the son of God, they are somehow
more believeable? Give me a break. Jesus didn't even fulfill most of the prophecies about him. For one thing, the missiah was supposed to be named Immanuel, not Jesus, and for another was supposed to be a warrior. And He didn't even fulfill his own claims of return - he said that there would be some standing before him who would not taste of death until his return, and yet, everyone back then has already died. And yet, because one prophet happens to make a particularly outrageous claim, you choose to believe in him instead of all the others with more credibility. Yeah right.
"I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer God than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours" - Sthephen Roberts
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This is interesting.
What do you read?
Where do you draw the line on old?
And I find it interesting that you use the word slave. Nearly every person I’ve talked to about God’s commands had difficult grasping the concept that they are there to help, not hinder us, as with my “pool rules” analogy, out of mercy, love toward us and a genuine interest on the part of a just God in having a relationship with mankind. God asks us to follow a few basic principles, respect, love, etc. to come to Him through a conscious act of our own free will, not to turn it off, but to turn it on, and we view it as slavery because we want to live our lives as we see fit, even if it hurts us or others
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God's laws do hinder us. Do you think that we should take disobedient children before the village elders and stone them to death? Do you think that it is justified to obey Deuteronomy 13:1-5? (Which by the way, was the justification of the Jewish priests for the execution of Jesus of Nazareth). Do you think that people in slavery ought to consider their slavemasters as worthy of honor (1 Timothy 6:1)? Do you think persons with wounded genitals should be kept out of church (Deuteronomy 23:1)? Do you think that Psalms 137:9 is reasonable? Do you think that God's commandment telling people to cut off from their community all those who have foreskins (Gen. 17:14) is okay? And finally, do you think that all of God's numerous commands to go and kill the infidels, such as the story in numbers 31, are justified?
God's laws were the cause of unimaginable war and strife. They made people evil, intolerant, and cruel, willing to sacrifice any amount of blood for what they percieved to be God's will. To say that God asks us to come to him through principles of respect and love... If that's love, I want no part of it.
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I never claimed this and I don’t. Though you’re obviously free to do so if you wish, it would behoove you not to lump me in with what you’ve heard from other so-called Christians. Again, the “no true Scotsman” fallacy does not apply since this is not an issue upon which a person’s redemption is dependant.
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Alright then.
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I agree and yet I do not.
I agree that it is unfortunate if there are those who have chosen a belief in Christ because they fear death and hell. As I have mentioned, these people, in my view, have a poor image of God, being that God is love and loves people more than they will ever be capable of comprehending.
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Yeah, God just loves his people. But seriously, by throwing pascal's wager at me, you had abandoned all pretense of trying to prove God actually exists and trying instead to show that I should kneel to God out of fear. Funny thing is, Luke would have agreed with that approach (Lk. 12:5).
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I do not agree with the implication that the latter half of the last sentence of my paragraph above is not likely to be true. It is indeed very likely, that God is benevolent.
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It is not likely that God exists. If God exists, it is
incredibly unlikely that the bible is his word. If the bible is God's word, then "The biblical God is the most evil nazi that ever lived, and Satan is arguably the hero of the bible" - Michael Wong.
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And it is at the very least possible that what the bible says is true, that He loves people more than they will ever be capable of comprehending.
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Again, if the bible is an example of God's love, I want no part of it.
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This is at least the reason why I believe in God, and Jesus. I simply choose to believe the account, that God loved the world so much that he gave his son to die on our behalf, so that whoever would simply believe in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16)
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JOE 3:16 - For the Unicorn so loved the world, that She gave Her only begotten Horn, that whosoever believeth in her should not fester, but get a life.
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I’m very eager to find out. Maybe you can shed some light on this?
Or did you mean to do so with your most recent blast?
If so, I fear I’m going to require just a tad bit more info than that, Jinto.
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Well, I'm sure that if you can actually spare the time to look through these... Woah.
76 KB of information, you'll probably find that info.
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There are a number of things I commented on in your post that I’d like your feedback on.
But of all of my dizzying, circumlocutive ramblings above, the thing I’d appreciate a response to the most is my statement on what you said about blaspheming the Holy Ghost.
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Matthew 12:32 is pretty clear on this point, as is Mk. 3:29 and Lk. 12:10. And if the verse in acts you were referring to
was 13:39, then that's pretty scary, since saying that believers are justified in all things is roughly equivalent ot giving them a moral blank check.
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If you really took the time to respond to this, I’ll be checking the string next Wednesday.
If not, I’m sure I’ll see you around here.
RUG
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Sure thing, just remember that from where I am sitting, I really can't see any difference in the logical support for flat earth and the logical support for Christianity in general. When you recognize that, you'll understand my position a lot better.
04-20-2003, 12:38 AM
Interestingly Enough
