Dr Rick

oops

Dr Rick

You've done nothing of the sort; there is a good refutation of the deductive PoE, but yours isn't it. Your whole argument is nothing but a repetitive and circular assertion that "the God of the Bible can be omnibenevolent and human beings can be imperfect and evil must exist simultaneously" mixed with various strawmen and tangents.

It isn't that they "must exist simultaneously," and you certainly haven't shown that's the case; it's that it's possible that they can.

Logic is not merely repeating assertions, and it's certainly not this:

You call that logic?

It's weird how so many of the threads you participate on end-up with others expressing exasperation at your irrational posts, and you telling them how wonderfully logical and critically reasoning you are. It's as if your the only person on the planet that understands logic. That's certainly one possibility, I suppose...

Llyricist

I'm actually aware of this, and all my arguments were doing was "pushing at that probability" so to speak

Llyricist

hehe I'v taken to not really reading his posts after the first few words... just noticed this

Now THIS is a strawman! NOWHERE did make the claim that any other particular interpretation was correct, and I never set up any other interpretation to "knock down".

WOW this guy is off the wall! My point, as I did say before was that his interpretation of scripture carries no more weight than any one elses, nothing more, nothing less.

Radorth

Read some writings of Charles Finney or Frank Bartleman or George Whitefield.

Using your cynical logic, Ben Franklin would have called the results of Hitler's preaching "wonderful" as he did Whitefield's.

Would you like to call the doubtful Franklin a victim of "Crowd poisoning"?

Would you like to compare the results of Whitefield's preaching with Hitler's?

Would you like to compare their motives?

How about comparing the Nazi's with the Methodists?

Oh wait, I forgot. You have no way of knowing the difference.

Rad

To him who has, more will be given. To him who has little, even that which he has will be taken away from him.

Radorth

I might have accidently prayed for you the other day without permission.

I'll try not to let it happen again.

Rad

Llyricist

Rad,

My point was that the effect is a psychological one, it produces a euphoria, and a suggestibility, and it is NOT connected in any with any God. I didn't say this suggestibility was necessarily evil, I was just hinting that wasn't necessarily good either. Heck I've felt it at a Pink Floyd concert when the entire Orange Bowl sang the chorus to "Shine on you crazy Diamond", it was intense... it was transformative... it was beyond good... but it wasn't god.

emur

Rad, being that you didn't respond to my last post (page 6), I take it that for you the issue boils down to "God works in mysterious ways" - a position that I do not accept.

So many theists start with "God is...(insert description), then attempt to explain the world around them while keeping this description intact. When it is pointed out that their God description doesn't fit reality, out comes "you haven't interpreted the bible properly" or "God works in mysterious ways".

I told a Christian friend of mine when I walked away from evangelicalism that reality is now my foundation. The world as I see it and experience it shows me what is real. I reject philosophies and religious views that contradict reality, or explain reality in a contradictory way to the way I experience it. God is supposedly a big, powerful fellow. If he wants me to experience reality differently, he can show me.

As for your experience Rad, I have experiences too. Mine within evangelical Christianity were nasty. I saw and see what people do to people in the name of God, and have been on the recieving end of some of that good ole Christian love myself.

I vowed after the last painful experience that I would never again put myself in harms way. No more will I be rejected, forced out, slandered, and otherwise treated like shit by people who are right with God and love God. For me, leaving my religion brought an end to the war. Today, I am more at peace.

If your experience makes you a better person and a person more at peace with himself, that's fine. Just note, for you, that meant accepting something. For me, it meant walking away from something.

Mel

long winded fool

I don't blame you. You can't save face otherwise. You and Dr. Rick both have this kind of reputation of retreating into whatever indiscriminate argument you can find that you think will protect your beliefs from critical analysis. As long as you don't think about it, you don't have to face it.

Really, reread what you just wrote. I think you've permanantly lost any chance of saving face here.

:banghead: The hypothesis was, how could an omnibenevolent God allow suffering and evil to exist. I have shown how He could. The omnibenevolent God is the hypothesis. Evil is the thing to be reconciled with the hypothesis. It has been reconciled, friend. I reference this thread as proof. I could be in error and you are free to disagree with me, but until you give a logical reason showing exactly why, I will continue to assert that I'm right and may start to speculate on the psychological roots of your irrational conviction otherwise. My solution is available for anyone to see. Yours is mysterious and unformulated and evidently needs no explanation since it's apparently obvious to anyone who is a good atheist and those who aren't don't deserve to know anyway. From what I gather, it ironically consists mainly of telling me how illogical I am since I am accepting God as a premise for the sake of argument and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that no God can ever exist. I hope you can see how obvious it is that you are trying to call the kettle black here. Once again, the atheist argues in a stereotypical fundie manner. You can repeat how my solution isn't the case with nothing to back up this claim besides personal intuition and conviction, but the writing is on the wall, so to speak. Address it or continue to reassure yourself that you're right. Either way, you obviously have no logical argument to stand on otherwise you'd have been using it since your first post. Your goal is not to educate me or anyone else on what is honestly and logically true. It's to beat me at any cost. You think you can change your argument as you see fit so long as it keeps a theme of "my opponent is stupid and this must be obvious to everyone because I'm smart and I say so" and that this proves that you are more logical than those who disagree. This is why people often tend to ignore your posts. They are designed solely for you, not them. You get out of them whatever you're going to get and that's all.

LOL. If you are saying that it is possible that they can, then I accept your concession. If you are saying that they can't possibly exist simultaneously, then show me the contradiction and I'll once again show you the solution. Of course, if, like Llyricist, you are merely trying to save face as is your tendency, then I suggest you just continue to completely ignore my argument and assert to others that my logic is faulty. Then you'll never have to face logic that shows you are in error in front of your friends, and anyone with similar psychological tendencies may agree with you.

Dr Rick

Boy, talk about irony...

Saving face rather than reason has always been your priority, lwf; too bad you won't devote some energy to learning how to reason.

Repetition won't make it so. Your correct about the hypothesis, and Radorth brought out how they could co-exist, but you completely blew-it with this nonsensical free-will defense and how evil must exist.

You probably still don't see the difference between your drivel and the rational argument presented on this thread, do you...?

...nope, you obviously don't. You aren't even comprehending the posts on this thread.

Yes, they can possibly co-exist.

No, I'm not saying that they can't possibly co-exist; that would contradict what I posted, and then my posts would look just like yours.

No, inbetween the strawmen, the victory dances, and the self-acclamations of your logic, you argued that they must co-exist.

That's probably the best idea you've ever posted.

Ah, so in addition to being a wizard at logic, you're a psychology guru, too. How nice...