God, schmod!

[JCFolsom]

@wombatron

I think that he means in the context of humanity as a whole, rather than supporting some sort of reincarnation. Doesn’t support his case any better, but makes a little more sense.

No, I mean reincarnation. However, you can take it to mean an eternal afterlife, or what have you, as you prefer. The point is, what makes God seem a right evil git from one perspective doesn’t necessarily make God look that way from all perspectives. You must establish, before you go around insulting the creator, that your perspective by which you came to your conclusions is valid.

Besides which, even if this is the only existence we get, there are 2 points to be made which cast doubt on your assertion of God’s evil (if God exists, that is):

1. Just because you experience life and suffering in a subjective way doesn’t actually mean everyone does. It is possible that humans who live what appear to be horrible lives may not actually have subjective experience. Philosophical zombies.

2. I, for one, despite the suffering and evil of the world, am still grateful I exist. What is more, if the world that has been had not been as it was, it is quite possible, perhaps necessary, that I would not exist. Therefore, being glad I exist implies that I am glad for even the horrors without which I would not.

[ChaseCola]

you got that evidence yet? I am waiting for it.

[banned]

@Anonymous Coward

I don’t know, man, that first commandment seemed pretty much carved in stone as it were.

Rejection of God would imply rejection of his laws would it not?

The commandments are commandments to those who do not wish to seperate themselves from the Lord, but those who are or choose to be seperate are not obliged to heed them.

[banned]

@ChaseCola

you got that evidence yet? I am waiting for it.

What, in your eyes, constitutes evidence?

[Anonymous_Coward]

As far as I know the Ten Commandments are the only writings directly attributed to God, let’s see what he says about this;

…for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Do you reject the word of god on this matter?

[banned]

@Anonymous Coward

As far as I know the Ten Commandments are the only writings directly attributed to God, let’s see what he says about this;

…for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Do you reject the word of god on this matter?

1. If you don’t believe in the Lord/reject his authority you cannot attribute any of what happens to you or your children to the Lord. You would not follow that law because you don’t believe it’s law at all, and thus any of what it says is meaningless. (that’s why I said you were free to reject it in the first place).

2. Why would I reject the Lord’s commandments if I follow them?

[Anonymous_Coward]

Nope, either god exists and wrote the Ten Commandments or Moses wasn’t completely truthful because he is the one that attributed them to god, not me.

As I have no reason to doubt Moses this would suggest all the inequity in the world is a direct result of god’s will and not the result of random happenstance as was suggested. He is intentionally withholding his love from humanity for some unknown reason—probably because we killed his kid for preaching anarchism.

One might say that the only way god will give us his love is if we all practice anarchy like both he and Jesus directed.

Who knows…it does seem impossible to both accept that god exists and reject anarchy though.

Yeah, I drive the door-to-door Jesus salesmen crazy…

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

Upshot of the whole god-thing: god is an incoherent, ill-defined term which has no extension at all. It denotes nothing. All god-arguments devolve into “god exists because I say so”. There’s no evidence nor definition of what god really is. It’s a 3-character string devoid of all meaning. It’s an empty, vacuous word with all the force of absolutely diddly-squat behind it.

Period.

@JCFolsom

You have a lot of periods. Must go through a fortune in tampons. Doofus.

Nice to know that when it comes to “god”, you can’t make an intelligent comment.

I take it that you admit that I’m correct. Glad to see that you’ve come to your senses.

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

Upshot of the whole god-thing: god is an incoherent, ill-defined term which has no extension at all. It denotes nothing. All god-arguments devolve into “god exists because I say so”. There’s no evidence nor definition of what god really is. It’s a 3-character string devoid of all meaning. It’s an empty, vacuous word with all the force of absolutely diddly-squat behind it.

@banned

So you think God is like your paragraph?

Is that supposed to be you trying to be cute? Didn’t work.

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@banned

Aww, what a crummy guy that God is for letting people have free will.

Yeah, especially that omnimax creator-of-everything god the christians have. Of course, that god cancels out free will, since it’s just not possible to have free will with even a merely omniscient creator-of-everything god, let alone an omnimax one. Now I know the standard routine for the rebuttal: forget that god is either omniscient or created everything and say we have free will because…we have free will! Brilliant! Be dishonest–that’s the ticket.

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@JCFolsom

I am sure you, or anyone, has gone through some bad experiences. Have you never come out stronger, or wiser, or otherwise a better more thoughtful person by it? What does not kill me, and all that.

Because it’s just so much cooler to rationalize away suffering, isn’t it?

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@banned

1. If you don’t believe in the Lord/reject his authority you cannot attribute any of what happens to you or your children to the Lord. You would not follow that law because you don’t believe it’s law at all, and thus any of what it says is meaningless. (that’s why I said you were free to reject it in the first place).

2. Why would I reject the Lord’s commandments if I follow them?

1. Sure you can. It’s called “for the sake of argument”. I’m sure you’ve heard of that concept before.

2. So you admit that you think an injustice is perfectly fine if god does it. Good to know that you have a double-standard.

[banned]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

Now I know the standard routine for the rebuttal: forget that god is either omniscient or created everything and say we have free will because…we have free will! Brilliant! Be dishonest–that’s the ticket.

Straw man…

Free will is based on experienceing time within space-time. Humans are active observers within the realm of time. The future is not known, it is radically uncertain. That is how choice arises, it is unknown until it is known.

If man existed in a realm outside space-time, free choice would not be observable. The nature of all choices would already be known.

[banned]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

1. Sure you can. It’s called “for the sake of argument”. I’m sure you’ve heard of that concept before.

Yeah it’s used in reductio, to play devil’s advocate, etc. but people don’t usually say “for the sake of argument, I will contradict my premise, but still apply my premise”.

What you’re saying is that it’s okay to say “I reject the Lord exists but his laws (which must not exist if the Lord doesn’t exist) are non-existantly inhumane”

Well, great.

@Knight_of_BAAWA

2. So you admit that you think an injustice is perfectly fine if god does it. Good to know that you have a double-standard.

Right, because metaethics and Divine Command Theory don’t mix.

[CurtHowland]

@banned

Rejection of God would imply rejection of his laws would it not?

You are assuming that the commandments weren’t carved by a human being, writing down some general rules to help people live together, which were then proclaimed to have come from one of the gods in order to give those rules extra enforcement leverage.

I do not make that assumption.

The commandments are commandments to those who do not wish to seperate themselves from the Lord, but those who are or choose to be seperate are not obliged to heed them.

So logically, because I do not assume they were written by one of the gods, you consider it ok to murder me, or that it’s ok for me to commit murder? You just said those rules don’t apply to me.

The 10 Commandments make far more sense as general wisdom. Just like the Kosher rules for food make lots of sense in an environment of desert living, with wooden utensils, limited wash water, and no sterilization. Lessons easily learned if one applies the process of selection over time to see what works and what doesn’t. In a single word, “evolution”.

[Paul]

@JCFolsom

@ChaseCola

Well there is starvation, torture, rape, and murder widespread all over the world and he is too lazy to even tell us to stop. What an ***.

I am sure you, or anyone, has gone through some bad experiences. Have you never come out stronger, or wiser, or otherwise a better more thoughtful person by it? What does not kill me, and all that.

Well, generally speaking, “murder” does kill you.

[CurtHowland]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

because…we have free will! Brilliant! Be dishonest–that’s the ticket.

I don’t think they’re being dishonest. One of the greatest powers of the human mind is its ability to hold contradictory ideas in equal certainty. A kind of “compartmentalization” that allows both religion and experience. In a tribal environment it was a survival trait for a very long time.

This is also how someone can believe the free market works and that government doesn’t, yet believe some things so important that they cannot be left up to the free market. Completely contradictory ideas.

There was a short time, before the “revivalist” style evolved, where faith was retreating before reason. Jefferson removing “god” from the bible, for instance, but keeping the hard-won lessons of human interaction that had been recorded by people through the ages.

But the free market works. By leaving religion out of the hands of government, the “revivalists” figured out how to make a whole lot of money selling religion, and here we are today having lost substantial headway since the early 1800’s. By being tolerant, by not taking religion head-on as we would other, less institutional, child abuse, such as genital mutiliation, infanticide and some of the more violent punishments that have been used in the past, the illogic of religion has been generally left unchallenged.

This is one reason that the very mild challenges to the contradictory ideas that have been presented in these forums inspire such a rabid response. The simple illogic of the religious position is received as a dire threat, because it is seen so rarely by those so afflicted. And to them it is a dire threat, to be countered with vitrol and insult as quickly as possible, thereby proving the verasity of their faith if anyone from their tribe is looking, so as not to allow the heritecal ideas to penetrate. Or worse, spread! Which is why they cannot even “agree to disagree”, but must disparage anyone who does not agree with them.

Very interesting discussion by Richard Dawkins and Laurance Krauss, where the idea of the “free market” in religion allowing the revivalists to evolve comes up, let’s see if the URL fits here:

http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,2472,Richard-Dawkins-and-Lawrence-Krauss,RichardDawkinsnet

So in summation, I don’t think the theists are being dishonest. I think down deep they’re just scared.

[Niccolo]

@ChaseCola

@JCFolsom

@ChaseCola

If there is an all powerful god, he is an ***.

What makes you think so?

Well there is starvation, torture, rape, and murder widespread all over the world and he is too lazy to even tell us to stop. What an ***.

That’s not God’s style. God does not directly interfere with man. He might send manifestations down to Earth in order to help man understand, but if men decide to ignore the teachings of Christ, what more can be done? It is ultimately man’s fault for the hate in the world.

Free will is a double edged sword.

[Niccolo]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

@banned

1. If you don’t believe in the Lord/reject his authority you cannot attribute any of what happens to you or your children to the Lord. You would not follow that law because you don’t believe it’s law at all, and thus any of what it says is meaningless. (that’s why I said you were free to reject it in the first place).

2. Why would I reject the Lord’s commandments if I follow them?

1. Sure you can. It’s called “for the sake of argument”. I’m sure you’ve heard of that concept before.

2. So you admit that you think an injustice is perfectly fine if god does it. Good to know that you have a double-standard.

If the LORD is the ultimate decider and standard setter for morality, then how can you question His actions/inactions in the sense of ethics - something He creates, manifests, and manages?

[Niccolo]

@ChaseCola

you got that evidence yet? I am waiting for it.

I presented the proof for paranormal/spiritual activity in another thread - thus disproving the atheist claim altogether. Furthermore, the fact that the situation occured in a Roman Catholic Church along the Eucharist guidelines, it qualifies as circumstantial evidence for the Christian God.

The Eucharist Miracle of Lanciano, IT.