This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
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Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
POG you don’t read obviously. Inaji @491 and many many others can list out verses till you’re blue in the face and you don’t bother to read them. If anything, you should go back and read your bible about your god, not us. Otherwise what is your fucking point?
@Gilell
PoG is … a sad, sad case, isn’t he? He will probably never even realise that the answers he and his fellow-hovindians are being given (quite kindly, considering) actually demonstrate that their questions are full of faulty reasoning and self-contradiction … aka full of shit. They have to stick to the script, they literally have nothing else. It’s just so … so desperate They don’t dare deviate from the script. To do so would bring the whole edifice and hence their whole lives crashing about their ears (not to mention what they paid Hovind to coach them in reciting the script) (o.o)
In the Bible, God clearly commits genocide and murder, and lays down the rules for how to properly enslave people and who it’s permissible to rape and when to kill rape victims as oppose to forcing them to marry their rapists.
Therefore we can conclude it isn’t sinful to commit murder and genocide and endorse slavery and rape.
Therefore we can conclude that “sin” is a useless concept.
Thanks, Proof of God! Keep up the good work.
Proof of God
When you read comments stating that the commenter considers the bible to be a load of crap,
why do tell them to read the bible?
Don’t you understand how stupid that is?
Inaji #498
Are you appealing to my God in order to prove He doesn’t exist? That is circular reasoning. Or do you believe He does exist? If you don’t believe He exists then please use another “source” to prove that.
Sorry fuckwitted loser of losers, you have asked me that question several times, and the answer always come back to the same. Your deity doesn’t exist. Never did, never will. You have a delusion in your mind that I won’t share, no way, no how, not matter what you say.
Now, real physical evidence, evidence that would pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine, and not natural (scientifically explained), origin. Like an eternally burning bush or equivalent, is a different matter.
@Proof of God
Um, no? The point is to show that your God would not be “holy, just and perfect” by any stretch of the imagination.
She’s not doing any such thing. What she is actually doing is trying to show you that your own morality is not derived from your bible. That your bible clearly endorses things that you agree are evil. That the description of your god given in your bible is that of a being whose properties you yourself admit to be evil.
You do not get your morality from your bible or your god. You get it from the same place we do, from within your own brain. But unlike us you have invented this concept of god to justify yourself post hoc. We, however, do not see any use for such a justification.
Thanks, Borkquote. Let’s try this again.
@Proof of God
Um, no? The point is to show that your God would not be “holy, just and perfect” by any stretch of the imagination.
Exodus 17:13.
Cool story bro.
You really don’t understand what circular reasoning is.
The Bible makes the claim that God exists, among other claims.
Pointing to the Bible as proof that God exists is circular reasoning.
Inaji is looking at the Bible’s OTHER claims to show if your God exists, clearly HE believes that other gods also exist. (Among other things.)
Your claim that your God is the only existing God contradicts the Bible’s claims.
Has someone deceived God himself?
SallyStrange #499
You don’t believe in absolute truth and yet you say I am absolutely wrong and you are absolutely right?
Another question: What if the majority of “standards” determined that rape was right? What if they determined that killing 6 million Jews was okay? What if they determined that only males could vote and hold office? Would that make these things right? According to your worldview if more “standards” are for something then that something must be right.
Wrong. YOU do not, and so you project that onto your god, which is really just you. Your bible on the other hand undeniably describes a god who enthusiastically commands all these things.
But you do not get your morality from your bible or your god. You lie to yourself and pretend that you do, but you do not. You get it from your own evolved moral instincts, hard wired into you through the process of evolution because it promoted the survival and reproduction of your ancestors within social groups composed of other humans. Which is the same place we get it from as well.
No fuckwit, you attach the absolute to things we don’t. You are wrong. You believe in something that doesn’t exist. You can’t show physical evidence your deity isn’t imaginary. You are full of shit.
All those statements are truth with a small t, 99.999% certain. To get to absolute anything other than zero temperature, requires delusional fools like yourself…
Your babble is full of those crimes against human, done with the approval of your imaginary deity. What a loser of losers you are, if atheists know more about the babble than you do, and you can’t acknowledge the facts that are present therein.
PoG:
Proof of God, what if your god didn’t exist? Would you think it was okay to rape and kill? Does your god prevent you from raping and killing?
Nope. I say I am relatively right and you are relatively wrong. Present me with new information and I may reconsider.
Well, all of those things were true then we’d be living in an alternate universe and you and I would be intelligent sharks. But we’re not in an intelligent universe, and we’re not intelligent sharks (well, I’m not, maybe you are), so, I’m still okay saying that your God is evil and you’re evil for not recognizing that and encouraging other people to worship him.
Was meant to be “not in an alternate universe, but this is also true. ;)
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls #513
Are you saying you could be wrong about “those statements”? If they could be wrong they might they be? Are you absolutely certain that zero C is freezing? If so then you have just put forth an absolute statement.
Here’s a question: Could you be wrong about everything you claim to know? Please be honest.
@PoG, 433
I’m in the middle of a discussion with a guy who thinks that Skyrim – the game, not the region – is a symptom of a cancerous degeneration of modern RPGs. Personally, I quite like it, though I find it needs a little modding to truly fit my tastes (it’s a bit easy, sometimes). We disagree on this, obviously, therefore the idea that there is absolute truth falls down, since absolute truth denies the possibility of valid disagreements of opinion.
Therefore, it is impossible to say that murdering a child is wrong.
Am I reading your logic correctly?
It’s funny how much this comment reminds me of a rant by Mike Adams: Health Ranger!! against the horrors of not believing in free will. If you don’t believe that people are conscious, he argues, then it becomes defensible to round them up in camps and murder them, just like Hitler did. Clearly, arguing that people are not conscious is the most utterly evil thing possible, and believing it is an utterly heinous and indefensible worldview.
He may well have a point, but it’s entirely unrelated to the thing he’s responding to – the argument is that free will doesn’t exist, not that consciousness doesn’t exist, and the two are significantly different concepts.
Arguing that it’s impossible to determine the difference between right and wrong if you don’t believe in right and wrong may well be true, but it has no bearing on the existence of absolute truth. Yes, I am absolutely sure of that. OH NO!! That means absolutes exist!!!!! (No it doesn’t.)
In real life the majority of standards do not determine such things, and are less likely to in the future than the sun is likely to rise in the west some day.
Useless hypotheticals are useless.
Of course there is no “MUST be right”. That is merely a product of your own delusional absolutist thinking.
If more standards are for something, the more LIKELY it is to be right, but the strength of that likelihood depends on how many of the standards are in contradiction to each other.
And the standards are observable things. We already have so many standards determining that rape and genocide are wrong that it would take thousands of years to find enough opposing standards to make that a minority, even if ALL future standards determined them to be ok. And the chance of that happening is essentially close enough to zero that might as well call it zero.
Competing standards are also not made equal. They can be evaluated for internal consistency and ranked in border of reliability. The already existing standards that determine that rape and genocide are wrong are so strongly self consistent that the possibility of even a single opposing standard arising in the future that would be equally internally consistent and reliable is virtually unfathomable.
Your useless hypothetical is useless.
Yeah, I called that some hundred comments ago. It really is like arguing with a five-year-old, they just parrot your impressive-sounding words back at you.
Proof of God #493 wrote:
Now you’ve got a problem: you just proved to us that the Bible is wrong.
Consider a situation like this: someone in a religion other than your own tries to convince you to stop believing in the God of the Bible and believe instead in the “true” God. When you tell him or her that no, their God is false they offer you this evidence that they are wrong: In their holy book, it says “Christians know in their heart that Christianity is false and they secretly believe in THIS God.”
Does this convince you? COULD it convince you? All you have to be able to do is know that you are sincere. You could even in theory be wrong about the truth of your religion. But given the time and effort and insight and thought you have put into understanding Christianity and being a Christian — could it be likely that you’re a liar? You believe in the other guy’s god, and refuse to admit it?
Come on. Grant that we can know what we believe. You don’t have to think now that we’re right. But entertain the strong possibility — the overwhelming evidence — that at the very least WE really do think we’re right.
Which means that if we accept that Romans 1 is a Christian claim then you just handed us a reason to NOT believe. That is what is known as an “own goal.”
OK lets descend down to your logic POG. Lets say there is a god and absolute morality as dictated by the bible.
In the bible, there is a story where a group of kids tease the prophet Elisha calling him baldy, and a group of bears swoop down and kill them all (2 Kings 2:23). This is one of perhaps hundreds of examples which could be given and not even the worst.
Please explain to us how this could be even conceivably moral in any supposedly absolute morality. If you can’t, go fuck off.
@PoG, 518
Everything? I’m pretty sure Nerd of Redhead claims to know zir own name. That’s not something a person can be wrong about.
Note also how our attacks on God’s character and our attacks on God’s supposed existence are constantly conflated. They can’t even agree on the definition of the most general terms. It’s why I usually just like to toss Batman at them. (He NEVER kills, by the way)
SallyStrange #516
In other words: I “might” be wrong and you “might” be right. Which means you don’t really know that I am “wrong” and you are “right”.
We can use the bible to show that if God actually existed, he’s an evil being that endorses genocide, murder, and rape. We thus consider him not worthy of worship, however “Perfect” and “Holy” he considers himself.
But that’s all hypothetical, since you’ve done nothing to prove he exists.
An excellent and illustrative example.
Zero C is an IMAGINARY concept, which humans made up. These humans then DEFINED it to mean the temperature at which water freezes (pure water at sea level).
And so it is with all things “absolute”. Every time a person uses the word “absolute” to describe anything he is admitting that he is talking about an imaginary construct, invented by humans.
And every time you use the word “absolute”, pog, you are admitting to the world that your god is imaginary.
Thanks for conceding the argument.
Thing is, you can’t really know anything for absolutely certain unless you ARE God, by this reasoning. They never seem to acknowledge that, they seem to think that some moldy old book is their “get-out-of-argument-free” card.
@mikeyb ,523
Easy. The absolute morality is “what God says, goes.” God said “murder those kiddies,” so it was absolutely moral. QED. If anything, the only people who really suffered were those poor, poor she-bears. Oh, those poor she-bears!
The majority which matters here is the one which includes the victims. If the victims of rape say it’s “right” and thus give consent, then by definition it’s not ‘rape.’
Right and wrong are grounded in what is shared among all the individuals. That is why God is irrelevant to morality, regardless of whether it exists or not. If one rape victim also exists, then not all the power and authority of God and its Nature of Perfect Goodness could make what happened “right.” You measure God before you use it to measure with — because there’s no other way.
Athywren #524
Out of all the knowledge in the universe how much do you think you know? Is is less than 1%? Please answer the question.
Do you seriously think people won’t realise you’re deliberately pretending to misunderstand (aka lying like a rug)?
People are simply pointing out that your imaginary god – the fictional character who appears in the collection of mismatched texts you call the bible – is clearly shown in those very texts to be a nasty, murderous, sadistic, unspeakably vile wannabe dictator.
Without your god, would you attempt to murder, steal and rape? Is it only your belief in your god that stops you from attempting to murder, steal and rape?
And don’t forget the question we actually started out with and which you still haven’t even tried to answer: show us some evidence for the god you believe in. Show us that proof of god you’re so keen on … honestly, aren’t you even going to try to show us your wonderful proof of god? What a meanie you are, keeping it to yourself! Oh, did I say meanie? I meant dishonest, sadistic worshipper of a fictional sadistic tyrant. Seriously, how do you expect anyone to consider you moral when you freely admit to worshipping a being that – if it existed, which fortunately for you it doesn’t – would be the most evil, sadistic torturer and murderer the universe has ever seen?
SallyStrange is far MORE LIKELY to be right than you, PoG.
I don’t “know” for sure, but if ever I am in a situation where I must make a practical decision dependent on which is closer to reality, I’ll play the odds.
Which, incidentally, is also what you do. You just lie to yourself and pretend you aren’t, after the fact, because it makes you feel better to so pretend.
I’ll admit I could be wrong, if you will admit your to the possibility that your deity is imaginary.
Do you even know what the word “knowledge” even means. The phrase “all the knowledge in the universe” is a nonsensical construct.
Questions that make no sense do not deserve to be answered.
Only after you answer the question; “where the fuck is your conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity?” Two can ignore questions, as I am following your example, but yours is asinine, and mine is pertinent.
A list of God’s killings:
1. The flood of Noah: All flesh died that moved upon the earth. Estimate: 20 million.
2. Abraham’s war to rescue Lot. Estimate: 1,000
3: Sodom and Gomorrah: Shall I hide from Abraham the thing I do? Estimate: 2,000
4. Remember Lot’s wife. 1
5. Er was wicked in the sight of the Lord (so the Lord slew him). 1
6. Onan spilled it on the ground (so the Lord killed him too). 1
7. God’s seven year, world wide famine. Estimate: 70,000
8. The Seventh Plague of Egypt: Hail shall come down upon them and they shall die. Estimate: 300,000
9. The Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. Estimate: 500,000
10. The Lord took off their chariot wheels, at least 600. Estimate: 5,000
11. The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. Estimate: 1,000
12. Who is on the Lord’s side: forcing friends and family to kill each other. 3,000
13. The Lord plagued the people because of the calf Aaron made. Estimate: 1,000
14. God burns Aaron’s sons to death for offering “strange fire”. 2
15. A blasphemer is stoned to death. 1
16. When the people complained, god burned them to death. Estimate: 100
17. While the flesh was still burning between their teeth, the Lord smote them with a very great plague. Estimate: 10,000
18: Ten scouts are killed for their honest report. 10
19. A man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 1
20. The opposing party is buried alive (along with their families). Estimate: 9
21. God burns 250 people to death for burning incense. 250
22. God killed 14,700 people for complaining about God’s killings. 14,700
23. The Massacre of the Aradites. Estimate: 3,000
24. God sent fiery serpents to bite the people for complaining about the lack of food and water. Estimate: 100
25. A killing to end God’s killing. 24,002
26. The Midianite Massacre: Haave you saved all the women alive? Estimate: 200,000
27. God slowly killed the Israelite army. Estimate: 500,000
28. God the giant killer. Estimate: 5,000
29. God hardens King Sihon’s heart so that all his people can be killed. Estimate: 5,000
30. Og and all the men, women, and children in 60 cities. Estimate: 60,000
31. The Jericho Massacre. Estimate: 1,000
32. Achan and his family are stone and burned to death. Estimate: 5
33. The Ai massacre. 12,000
34. God stops the sun so that Joshua can get his killing done in daylight. Estimate: 5,000
35. Five kings killed and hung on trees. Many more than 5. Estimate: 10,000
36. Joshua utterly destroyed all that breathed as the Lord God commanded. Estimate: 7,000
37. The genocide of the twenty kingdoms. Estimate: 20,000
38. The Anakim: some more giant killing. Estimate: 5,000
39. The Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizz. Estimate: 10,000
40. The Jerusalem massacre. Estimate: 1,000
41. Five massacres, a wedding, and some God-proof iron chariots. Estimate: 5,000
42. The Lord delivered Chushanrishathaim. Estimate: 1,000
43. Ehud delivers a message from God. 1
44. God delivers 10,000 lusty Moabites. 10,000
45. Samgar killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad. 600
46. Barak and God massacre the Canaanites. Estimate: 1,000
47. Jael pounds a tent stake through a sleeping man’s skull. 1
48. The Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow. 120,000
49. A city is massacred and 1,000 people burn to death because of God’s evil spirit. More than 1001. Estimate: 2,000
50. The Ammonite massacre. Estimate: 20,000
51. Jephthah’s daughter. 1
52. 42,000 killed for failing the “shibboleth” test. 42,000
53. The spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and he murdered 30 men for their clothes. 30
54. The spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and he killed 1,000 men with the jawbone of an ass. 1,000
55. Samson killed 3,000 in a suicide terrorist attack. 3,000
56. A holy civil war (having to do with rotting concubine body parts used as messages). 65,100
57. The End of Judges: Two genocides and 200 stolen virgins. Estimate: 4,000
58. God kills Eli’s sons and 34,000 Israelite soldiers. 34,002
59. God smote them with hemorrhoids in their secret parts. Estimate: 3,000
60. 50,070 killed for looking in the ark of the Lord. 50,070
61. The Lord thundered great thunder upon the Philistines. Estimate: 1,000
62. Another Ammonite massacre. Estimate: 1,000
63. Jonathan’s very first slaughter (not counting the one before.) 20
64. God forces the Philistines to kill each other. Estimate: 1,000
65. The Amalekite genocide. Estimate: 10,000
66. Samuel hacks Agag to death before the Lord. 1
67. In the Valley of Elah: Goliath. 1
68. David buys a wife with 200 Philistine foreskins. 200
69. The Lord said to David, Go and smite the Philistines. Estimate: 10,000
70. God killed Nabal (and David got his wife and other stuff). 1
71. David commits random acts of genocide. Estimate: 60,000
72. David spends the day killing Amalekites. Estimate: 1,000
73. God killed Saul (and his sons and soldiers) for not killing all the Amalekites. Estimate: 100
74. David killed the messenger. 1
75. David killed Rechab and Baanah, cut off their hands and feet, and hung their bodies over the pool. 2
76. God helps David smite the Philistines from the front and rear. Estimate: 2,000
77. God killed Uzzah for trying to keep the ark from falling. 1
78. David killed two thirds of the Moabite POWs and enslaved the rest. Estimate: 667
79. The Lord gave David victory wherever he went. Estimate: 66,850
80. David killed every male in Edom. Estimate: 65,000
81. Thus did David unto all the children of Ammon. Estimate: 1,000
82. God slowly kills a baby. 1
83. Famine and human sacrifice. Estimate: 3,000
84. David’s mighty men and their amazing killings. Estimate: 3,400
85. God killed 70,000 because David had a census that God told him to do. More than 70,000. Estimate: 200,000
86. Solomon carried out the deathbed wish of David by having Joab and Shimei murdered. 2
87. A tale of two prophets. 1
88. Jeroboam’s son: God kills another child. 1
89. Jeroboam’s family. Estimate: 10
90. Baasha’s family and friends. Estimate: 20
91. Zimri burns to death. 1
92. The Drought of Elijah. Estimate: 3,000
93. Elijah kills 450 religious leaders in a prayer contest. At least 450 (used as estimate), possibly 850.
94. The first God assisted slaughter of the Syrians. Estimate: 10,000
95. God killed 100,000 Syrians for calling him a God of the hills. 100,000
96. God killed 27,000 Syrians by making a wall fall on them. 27,000
97. God sent a lion to kill a man for not smiting a prophet. 1
98. God killed Ahab for not killing a captured king. 1
99. God burned 102 men to death for asking Elijah to come down from his hill. 102
100. God killed king Ahaziah for asking the wrong God. 1
101. God sent two bears to rip apart 42 boys for making fun of a prophet’s bald head. 42
102. The Lord delivered the Moabites. Estimate: 5,000
103. A skeptic is trampled to death. 1
104. God’s seven year famine. Estimate: 7,000
105. Jehoram of Israel. 1
106. Jezebel. 1
107. Ahab’s sons: seventy heads in two heaps. 70
108. Ahab’s hometown family, friends, and priests. Estimate: 20
109. Jehu killed Ahaziah’s family. 42
110. Jehu and his partner show their zeal for the Lord by killing the rest of Ahab’s family. Estimate: 20
111. Jehu assembles the followers of Baal and then slaughters them all. Estimate: 1,000
112. The priest of Baal and Queen Athaliah. 2
113. God sent lions to eat those that didn’t fear him enough. Estimate: 10
114. An angel killed 185,000 sleeping soldiers. 185,000
115. God caused king Sennacherib to be killed by his sons. 1
116. Josiah killed all the priests of the high places. Estimate: 100
117. Just another holy war. Estimate: 50,000
118. God killed a half million Israelite soldiers. 500,000
119. Jeroboam. 1
120. God killed a million Ethiopians. 1,000,000
121. Friendly Fire: God forced “a great multitude” to kill each other. Estimate: 30,000
122. God made Jehoram’s bowels fall out. 1
123. God killed Jehoram’s sons. Estimate: 3
124. Ahaziah of Judah. 1
125. Joash, the princes, and army of Judah. Estimate: 10,000
126. God destroyed Amaziah. Estimate: 1,000
127. God smote Ahaz with the king of Syria. Estimate: 10,000
128. God killed 120,000 valiant men for forsaking him. 120,000
129. The fall of Jerusalem. Estimate: 10,000
130. God and Satan kill Job’s children and slaves. Estimate: 60
131. Hananiah. 1
132. Ezekiel’s wife. 1
133. Ananias and Sapphira. 2
134. Herod Aggripa. 1
135. Jesus. 1
Totals:
Biblical numbers only: 2,476,636
Estimate: 24,634,205.
Drunk with Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible by Steve Wells (if you want chapter and verse, buy the book. I’m done typing the bleeding obvious.)
POG, this constituted much typing on my part, so pay the fuck attention.
@PoG, 532
Of course it’s less than 1%. The universe is more vast than we are able to see. It is more than 90 billion light years across. More than 13 billion years old. I live in a tiny speck in a tiny speck on a tiny speck, circling a tiny speck in a tiny speck. I don’t even know 1% of all the knowledge about my country. By a cosmological standard, I know nothing. Even bearing in mind that I’m a student of physics and chemistry, and have a passable grasp of both at an undergraduate level, I know nothing.
So what? I’m not claiming to know that the universe was created, nor am I claiming to know the identity of its creator.
Out of all the knowledge in the universe, how much do you think you know that you feel confident in making such an arrogant claim? On what basis do you take the word of humans, who also know nothing, on utter faith? What do you think the reaction would be of the real creator, if one exists and is anything at all like the thing you worship? Please answer the questions.
Sorry, that was @533
I’d rather you tell me how the fuck you plan on quantifying knowledge. How many units of knowledge are Newtons laws? Kepler’s? The laws of thermodynamics? Lewis acid/base theory? Please explain this.
That I know only a small fraction of all there is to know in the universe does not in any way imply that I must entertain the possibility that there is an elephant hiding in my underpants.
Amphiox #537
You want me to show proof that God exists when you already know He exists? Your question doesn’t make sense since you already know God exists (Romans 1). Therefore, I am NOT going to show proof that God exists since all humans already know God exists.
God did not teach ANYONE that any of those things were wrong. Christians throughout history defended and defend misogyny and anti-Semitism, based on the same Bible you try to bash us with. And it was NOT theology that determined those things were wrong. If it were for bible-thumpers like you, we’d still have pogroms and women would still not have the vote.
BZZZT, wrong presuppumtion. Your deity doesn’t exist. Period, end of story. How can we know something that doesn’t exist, actually exists, without conclusive physical evidence, which you haven’t and can’t provide, making you nothing but a mother fucking liar.
@PoG
lol…
So is this the gotcha you’ve been trying to work your way towards? People have stated this much explicitly already if you could have been bothered to notice. They must not have used the key words you’ve been conditioned to look for. Yes, there is some non-zero probability that I am wrong about anything. Rational people accept this with little fanfare. You’re the one with the boner for being absolutely certain about things.
Proof of God
Your God does not exist.
I don’t know this in my hear; my heart pumps blood.
I use my brain for the thinking.
@544:
It’ll blow your mind, but really, 3/5ths of humanity are not giving a rat’s piss to your God. They’re just as sincere believers as you. If you come in with the assumption that everyone else is pretending not to believe in your God, you will never convince anyone.
Oh, and if a decent person really, truly, sincerely believed in this god of yours then their only moral course of action would be to kill as many babies as possible in the exact moment of their baptism/whatever is the equivalent of baptism in your flavour of xtianity. Because that’s the only way you’re going to be sure of saving anyone from eternal torture, given that your god is a monstrous tyrant and everybody “sins”. Of course this would be at the cost of eternal torture for you, but if you’re a decent person you’d make that sacrifice.
.
Perhaps it’s just as well you don’t really believe in your god, eh? Or have you just not been caught yet?
Athywren #540
You claim to know less than 1% of all the knowledge in the universe. Therefore isn’t it likely that of the other 99%+ of knowledge, something contradicts your less than 1%? If you do not know all the knowledge in the universe then how can you be certain that what you think you “know” is true?
Suppose I said to you that the speed limit on a certain road “is 45 mph…I think”. Do I really know what the speed limit on that road is? No. Therefore the only way to know something is to know all the knowledge in the universe or to know someone who does. God is the “someone” who knows everything. He has revealed that knowledge to us through His Word, the Bible. Unless you know God you cannot personally know anything for certain.
@PoG, 544
So here’s the thing… we all know that this isn’t the case. I’m not going to call you a liar, because what I’ve read from you does convince me that you believe it, but it is a lie that you’re repeating. Unless you’re using some other definition of God, like… I don’t know… maybe you think it means a particularly tangly kind of hedgerow, and you’re just failing to communicate that fact, then we know that we don’t already know that, because we know what we know.
You’re not going to convince me to eat peanuts by telling me that I love their taste when I know that they make me retch. You’re not going to convince me to watch football by telling me that I already enjoy when I know that I find it tedious. And you’re not going to convince me to believe in your god by telling me that I already do when I know that I find the concept you propose laughable.
Inaji @539, terrific list for anyone who bothers to read, obviously not POG. Thank (metaphorical) god this is just fiction. But if we include the crusades, inquisitions, pogroms, witch killings, genocides, slavery, inspired by the Bible and the Koran etc, etc, we’d just have a large part of the history of the West. Just read Pinker’s Better Angels of our Nature for a fuller expose.
@PoG, 551
You didn’t answer my question. I answered yours, answer mine. Then I will follow your script.
Here it is, in case you missed it:
…and while we’re at it… the men who wrote the bible, did any of them ever tell a lie? How about your pastor or priest or whatever title your lot prefers, did they ever lie? How about the world’s theologians, have they ever lied?
According to the Christian worldview, what would that make them?
Why would you take the words of proven liars and damnable wretches on faith?
@551 PoG
Well then, it’s a good thing you’re the only person here who gives a rat’s fart about being absolute certainty. Fucking brick wall, you are.
@544 Thank you for pointing out a passage in the Bible that is not just unproovable, but actually objectively false.
POGlet:
Your puny, evil God has determined that rape is just dandy, to the point that a raped woman must either be sold to her rapist or executed. Human beings, who are much better than your puny, evil God decided that rape is wrong, because they have empathy and understand that it is wrong to violate another person.
Your puny, evil God is just fine with that level of killing for no valid reason. See #539. All that is in your bible, Sweetpea. Human beings, who are much better than your puny, evil God, recognize the appalling wrong in doing such a thing, and fight against it.
Do you reside on this planet, punkin? It wasn’t all that long ago that the rule was that only men could vote or hold office. This was recognized by many human beings to be wrong, and it was fought against, and there was societal change as a result. This is how things work.
PZ Myers #543
It implies that you don’t really KNOW anything. If you could be wrong about something then you don’t really KNOW that thing. Without God no one could KNOW anything for certain.
Proof of God #544 wrote:
This is why I like to call presuppositionalism the “Neener Neener School of Debate.” There’s no debate. There’s no argument. There’s no actual attempt to reason or persuade the other side to change their mind.
It’s an accusation. “Neener neener you’re a liar!”
Shameful.
Proof of God: why should we answer any of your questions when you’re already an atheist?
Sure you are. You don’t believe in God. How do we know that? Because you don’t, that’s why. Nobody really believes that God exists. They’re all just pretending because they hate the truth.
What’s sauce for the goose …
@EnlightenementLiberal
Did you watch the “George ought to help” video?
Its key to understanding my point.
I’m not a pacificist , so your stuff isn’t exactly relevant. , step back from the other uses of violence.
The key question is it right to force George to give money to Oliver under threat of violence?
Is it is moral to threaten peaceful people with violence in order to get them to give up money.
I don’t think anyone here has actually explained why it is moral to threaten peaceful people with violence to take their money.
And, of course, some of the opponents, fighting change all the way, were Christians pounding on their bible s with “proof” that women were inferior and shouldn’t be allowed to have positions of authority.
Even Christian “Morality” is not absolute and unchanging.
Proof of God
#526
In other words, you’re going to lie about what I said because you can’t deal with what I actually said.
Nope. It means I think it’s extremely likely that I’m right and extremely likely that you’re wrong. And, you’ve presented no new information, so I am going to continue to think that.
Funny I don’t know about gods but I know I exist for certain, at least right now. I don’t know what this “I” is but I am conscious, something is going on for certain. I could be part of an elaborate program like Bostrom asserts or the Matrix for all I know, but probably not. I’m not trying to get deepety, but there are practical certainties just like Descartes said a long time ago. At the same time I have no consciousness about god, no awareness of such a thing exists, what is wrong, Romans 1 must be wrong, perhaps due to an individual with temporal epilepsy or schizotypal personality disorder to speculate.
Goof of Prod
Uhuh.
How can you claim that everything was created perfect, if human beings were flawed enough to sin?
Athywren #554
If it weren’t for God I would know nothing as well. However, God who knows all things has revealed them in the Bible. I can therefore, know for certain that there is such a thing as absolute truth.
I don’t think you understand who wrote the Bible. As 2 Peter 1 says the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible through the pen of “holy men of God”. The Holy Spirit only allowed truth to become a part of the Bible.
PZ Myers writes:
Of course there isn’t. It’s Oderus Urungus’ Cuttlefish WARNING: NSFW, NSFLunch, Over-the-top-cartoonish-rude.
@564 Daz
I lol’d.
If you cannot know anything for certain without God, how do you know that Bible is actually God’s true word?
And how do you know the author of 2 Peter wasn’t mistaken? Or delusional? Or lying?
Proof of God #558:
And for the nth time: we’re okay with not having absolute certainty. We can function just fine with having a high degree of confidence about something, even if we don’t absolutely know if it’s true. You’re the one with the weird fear of uncertainty, not us.
No. Unless you’re going to claim that the universe is totally chaotic, and that there are no common underpinnings to how it works. If I have a puzzle piece that is blue, finding more puzzle pieces will not suddenly turn it orange.
So, with god, there actually is an elephant in my underpants?
I can see where this bogus philosophy might appeal to you. With god, maybe you aren’t an idiot, you hope.
all the things are in the bible?
100% of knowledge is in the bible?
Again, this is just another example of El Shaddai being a compleat fuck up. He’s supposed to be a God, ffs. Why set the tree of knowledge and tree of life in the boundaries of the perfect garden? Why not zap ’em with an invisibility spell? Why not perform a memory charm on Eve & Adam? All kinds of options there, but noooooooo.
At least the older myth of Pandora is more honest, when it comes to placing the blame for all bad things squarely on women. Prior to Prometheus stealing fire to give to mankind, man lived in perfect autonomous happiness with the gods. Then that whole fire thing happened, Zeus got pissy, and created Pandora to fuck all those poor guys over, making them all happy and miserable at the same time. Then Pandora just had to look in the jar, and all those bad things got out, except for Hope, who stayed. Even with all the nastiness engendered by that myth, the ancient Greeks still didn’t have the concept of sin. Their Gods were better than that, and they weren’t all that nice, y’know.
So, it’s absolutely true that your God is a genocidal murderer who endorses rape and slavery. And you see nothing wrong with this because God told you that he is Perfect and Holy.
That’s why you’re evil, and why it’s fortunate that your God does not exist. If he did, the rest of us would be morally obliged to destroy him.
Semantic quibblings about what constitutes truth won’t change this reality.
SallyStrange #562
Yet you could be wrong and I could be right. Therefore you don’t really know anything. Extremely likely does not equal knowing for sure.
Actually, PZ knows a lot of thing, and you DON’T KNOW the biggest thing. The biggest thing you don’t know is that your deity is imaginary until your provide conclusive physical evidence for it.
Just remembered. For those following it, Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy part four is now online.
Proof of Glod says we all know Four Consonants In Search of a Vowel is real just like it says in the Bible because it says so in the Bible.
Dude, it says in the Noble Quran Al-A’raaf, Verses 172-173;
and is further explained in reliable Hadith (Al Bukhari and Muslim)
So who are you going to believe, the Messenger of Allah or a Jew-hating epileptic murderer who never even met the Prophet he claimed to speak for?
(Your petard. Enjoy the hoist)
And you don’t know for sure. Show with conclusive physical evidence, that your deity isn’t imaginary. Do you really know for sure it exists? It doesn’t, never did, never will….
Yes yes. You can’t tolerate any degree of uncertainty. I can. That makes me better than you.
I think PoG’s software has gotten stuck in an infinite loop owing to our failure to meet the terminating condition of being astounded at the revelation of our lack of absolute certainty.
Where in the Bible does it say what I had for breakfast last Thursday?
POGlet:
Well, not really, Punkin. God never makes mention of current day geography – people at Rapture Ready often wonder why God never mentioned America in his book. God never mentions a single one of all the things we’ve discovered about the universe. God never mentions (or even hints) that at some point, we’ll learn medicine which won’t kill most ill people. God never mentions all the wonders of the world, but does manage to mention unicorns.
The bible is cobbled together stories written by (and much of those stories stolen from earlier peoples, with the Gods in them barely changed) the people of thousands of years ago. They didn’t know shit, so God didn’t know shit either.
PoGgie doesn’t understand that we are extremely comfortable with Good Enough Knowledge™, which works wonders, compared to his Absolute Knowledge which fallaciously presupposes an imaginary deity that nobody to can point to conclusive physical evidence for. What works, versus being foolish….a no brainer….
Daz:
The hell with that. I want to know where in the bible it states what I’ll have for supper 37 Tuesdays from now.
Well at least PoG has said one true thing. A stopped clock …Or perhaps in this case, a better metaphor would be a drone – for one brief instant finding itself in tune with the reality of the music by merest accident.
.
Exactly, Sastra. If PoG really believed in his god he’d be honour bound to kill as many babies as possible in the exact moment of their baptism (or equivalent ritual) in order to save at least one or two souls from eternal torture. But PoG doesn’t want to kill babies (at least, I bloody hope he doesn’t. Going on his taste in gods, I wouldn’t be too confident about that). Deep in his heart he knows all this religious nonsense is just a myth, but he’s too scared to drop the charade because he hates and fears the truth – that there is no skydaddy. Poor PoG.
Inaji 584
Yeah, but I wanted to see if I could get a “I never could get the hang of Thursdays” reference in.
PZ Myers #570
You can go on believing that there is an elephant in your underpants! However, that will not change the fact that there is a God who created you and who is unable to let your sin go unpunished. Read the Ten Commandments and see that you, like me and everyone else, is condemned to Hell for our sin. If it weren’t for the grace of God I would be eternally condemned to Hell. However, because of what Christ did on the cross, my sin debt has been paid for in full. Jesus Christ stepped in and died for my sin, thereby declaring me forgiven. I can now fellowship with God because of the cross. I would encourage all who are desirous of more in formation to read the gospel of John. Romans also deals with the free gift of salvation offered to us by God.
Please consider what Jesus Christ did for you and me 2,000 years ago.
Where in the Bible does it say how many were in the tribe of Adonikam? I’ll give you a hint: It says in two places, and each place says a different number. So the Bible doesn’t supply sure knowledge, and this discussion is over, thank the dark ones.
Only a fuckwitted lying and bullshitting liberturd would make the claim that your tax money, withheld at your employer, is done through goons bursting through the front door. That over the top lying and bullshitting for emotional, not rational reasons, is dispicable, and typical of those without empathy toward others. Morally bankrupt in other words.
Goof Of Prod #587
Once more, with feeling: How do you know this?
THAT GOD DOES NOT EXIST UNTIL YOU PROVIDE CONCLUSIVE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE FOR IT. Put up or shut the fuck up.
Proof of God
When you read comments stating that the commenter considers the bible to be a load of crap,
why do tell them to read the bible?
Don’t you understand how stupid that is?
Whole wheat toast, poached egg, orange juice.
—
Fish and chips.
About that whole “righteousness” thing….
Part I
The PoG believes that whatever his god demands is, by definition, righteous. It’s the “God is Good” half of the argument, the other half being “God Just Has the Biggest Stick”. PoG claims to not like rape, slavery or genocide, so he says “My god doesn’t like them either”, which is attempting to set oneself above god or say that one is god’s boss or partner. That is a whole different level of sin if you’re a real Christian.
What he lacks is the consistency of the real Believer. Over in the Yeshiva World News’ “Coffee Room” there was a discussion about the commandments concerning the Sabbath. Jews are not supposed to break Shabbos for anything less than the saving of a life. And a couple schools of ultra-Orthodox cumblotches believe that only applies to saving Jewish lives. One of the participants even went so far as to say he wished he could see a Gentile drowning on Shabbos so he could observe the commandment to NOT saving him.
That, my friends, is a heroic level of intellectual consistency. PoG just isn’t in the same league.
And for fewk’s sake keep this nameless kollel student away from Iraqi babies. He’d likely “dash their little one’s heads against the stones” because the Psalmist says it would make him “blessed”.
Part II
What’s so special about the Ten Commandments? According to Rabbinic consensus any commandment comes from god, so they are all equally important. Leaving the corners of your fields for the gleaners is just as much a requirement of the Divine Will as fucking your dead brother’s widow, refraining from adultery, killing Amalekites, keeping the Sabbath or not putting honey into the Temple incense.
Chigau:
That sounds good. Oh my, I think you must be a god, too!
@PoG, 448
Sorry to jump around, haven’t managed to read the intervening comments yet…
The first word my niece has learned to say is “ma.” It’s not an English word, at least not the way she’s using it, but it’s certainly a linguistic communication with a consistent meaning (please).
Also, is it a sin to say no? Oh, sure, sometimes it’s disobedience, which is totally a sin worthy of eternal torment, being burned alive for all time and never being given a hope of reprieve, but there are lots of ways to use the word. I get what you mean, though. It’s a common first word because it’s a common word that young children hear, but so what? There are plenty of reasons to say “no!” to a child that have nothing to do with disobedience, or plotting the overthrow of a major world power (which are equal crimes, worthy of equal punishment by any reasonable judge, obviously). Sometimes a child is simply doing something that might lead to them hurting themselves, and the parent, concerned – as any good parent is – tells them to stop, and them flays them to the bone for all time… or… picks them up, one or the other. It’s hard to tell these good parenting practices apart sometimes.
Anyway,
@PoG, 565
Thank you, now I’ll follow your script.
Sure, I’d even say it’s likely – there are quite a few things in my mind that I “know” that aren’t all that well evidenced. For instance, I “know” that humans are, in general, good… and yet I spend time on the internet and talk to people who think that murdering children is alright because god said to do it, and they were utterly, viciously evil anyway (which they know because god said so (which they know because it’s in a book(which they take seriously because the book tells them to(which they take seriously because the book tells them to(which they take seriously because the book tells them to(ad nauseum)))))).
You have to test things. There’s a method for it. Firstly, you have to repeat things, to make sure that what happened one time happened for the reason you think it did, or to recognise that it didn’t. Then you have to rely on others who are doing the same thing you just did to make sure that you’re not spotting things that aren’t really happening – or that you’re not failing to spot things that are happening. This works better for some things than for others, and the results aren’t always true in all circumstances, but it works well enough to have a decent understanding of how things appear to work.
For instance, I know that, if I let go of an apple, it’ll fall to the ground. I also know that, if I let go of an apple while travelling at thousands of meters per second, relative to the Earth, while several miles above my current location, it will simply drift away from me. There are likely places where neither of these effects represent what would happen, and that would contradict my knowledge about what happens here… but that’s still what happens here. I know that the apple behaves this way because of gravity – I know that, because that’s the label that we give to that behaviour. I know that the apple behaves this way because the force of the Earth’s mass warps the local spacetime field, resulting in a the apple’s trajectory being bent, such that it falls or floats, depending its on position and speed relative to the Earth. I know that the preceding sentence is a model – an approximation that describes behaviours and allows us to make accurate descriptions that are repeatedly verified – and does not necessarily reflect the true nature of the thing that we call gravity. I know that I do not really know what gravity is, but I know that what I know about it works very well in this place, at this speed, at this time.
There’s probably a sign somewhere that you could look at. Also, some of the more advanced GPS maps show you speed limits, and even beep to alert you if you’re going too fast.
Yeah, no. I don’t need to know everything in the universe to know that the apple I’m about to let go of will land on my desk and make a thumping noise. But I will test it, just to make sure…
…
…yup. Did.
But we have no reason to believe that this god of yours exists. All we have is a book that was written by humans which claims that he exists. Besides, I still know that the apple will fall to my desk and make a thumping noise when I let go of it. Ok, that was arrogant of me. I’ll test it again, for humility’s sake…
…
…yup. Did.
The people who wrote the bible claim that the holy spirit wrote the bible through them. Doesn’t mean they were telling the truth. Remember – they were humans. They lied. They were liars. They were wretched, deceitful sinners. They claim that the holy spirit wrote through them, but they were no more trustworthy than the guy who sells stolen cars to little old ladies in his shady downtown dealership. You’re putting absolute faith in deceivers, because they claim they’re not deceiving you, and you believe that it’s safe to do so because they claim they’re not deceiving you, so you can take them at their word when they say that they’re not deceiving you. Do not be deceived – you have been deceived.
Ináji
Just be sure to remember this in 37 weeks or you’ll make me look bad.
Seven of Mine, formerly piegasm @580
I’m starting to think Eric Hovind is secretly a genius that is using Pharyngula to “Turing Test” his artificial general intelligence.
Sorry, Eric, it still needs a lot of work.
Chigau wisely:
Yes, a leading cause of atheism is reading the babble. One only need look at tales of conversions to unbelief both here at FtB/Pharyngula and SciBlogs/Pharyngula.
What I see here is the proof of why the religious are so afraid of science:
* Science is relative. It changes as we gather more data
* Science requires logic,reason, and verifiable data; not faith
* Science, when wrong, can be shown to be wrong, and must change
This destroys their world view, robs them of authority, makes them cry in the dark because there is no sky daddy and just plains makes their brain hurt.
*sigh* An act of sex between my parents created me, Punkin. No god or gods were involved. As for your god being “unable to let your sin go unpunished”, why? It’s a GOD, right? Seems to me it could do anything it wanted to, including not holding grudges. So I’ve masturbated. Why is that your god’s business? It’s a terribly skeevy thing to do anyway, let alone focus on it to the point it decides eternal torture is a suitable punishment.* You god is completely free to let all that stuff go. If you’re going to stick with it being unable to do so, that means your god is proscribed by something or someone more powerful.
*If you’re one of those that goes against the bible and thinks hell is only a separation from god, I’m good with that, no problem, wouldn’t make any difference at all.
Proof of God, congratulations you have proven one thing to me – proof once again of the power of cult indoctrination. I knew this already of course, but you have provided a shining new example. Getting through to you seems to be as unlikely as convincing a Scientologist that E-meters don’t provide a golden path for eliminating the curse of thetans brought about by the evil overlord Xenu. Anyway the genesis curse story makes about as much sense as the curse of Xenu so it is an apt analogy and you are in good company being part of a much larger cult.
Inaji #601
You do realise your mention of the rumpy-pumpy has just made PoGlet blush, don’t you. Cruel person, you are!
Proof of God @ #587:
So some captured Zealot (or more probably a composite of many crazed “prophets” infesting Palestine, or even more probably, a literary character that never existed at all), underwent the most merciful crucifixion on record 2,000 years ago. So what? What about the thousands who underwent the more usual crucifixion? What about the thousands of Spartacus’ followers who took days and days to die, nailed to crosses along the Via Appia? You forget, One Jewish carpenter means nothing to us!
Chigau:
I have noted December 9th – Fish and Chips. I’m happy to be accommodating to my fellow God.
Well, except for showing what murderous fucks the priests of your God were for demanding his death, of course.
Daz:
Hey, I have to work on that capricious god thing!
Well what choice did they have? Their omnipotent God was utterly powerless to forgive any sinners at all before he had his own son killed. They killed him out of kindness to us!
Inaji #607
She Who Smites Unbelievers With Embarrassed Blushes!
Yeah, that works. Definitely beats genocide, anyway. And I really wanna see the hymn-book.
Daz:
The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All shall be sacred, amen.
I hope you include The Wizard’s Staff (Has A Knob On The End) too?
Athywren:
Of course I do. To reach true sacredness with this hymn, one must sing it in a bath tub before the fireplace in a pitch which will cause unsecured goats to give yogurt for 6 months instead of milk.
Proof of God #565
Really? So First Kings 7:23 was a fluke?
My favourite Discworld passage!
@Tomas C
I throw the question right back at you: is it moral for people to reap the benefits of living in society while contributing nothing back?
Figures out in Libertopia you don’t need to compel people to pay for stuff, just rely on their good faith so they not just run off with your product. Right?
Proof of God #558:
I’ve seen this argument many times before, and it’s no less absurd this time. What you’re saying is that it is not possible to know anything at all about anything unless you know absolutely everything about everything in the entire universe or gain your knowledge via someone who does (who, according to you, is God). This means that I only know that cup of coffee I just drank tasted good because:
a) I, personally, know everything there is to know about every single thing in the entire universe (and, according to you, must therefore be God), or;
b) God personally beamed the knowledge that that particular cup of coffee tasted good into my brain , or
c) The Bible somehow tells me that coffee tasted good.
All three of those possibilities are, basically, totally absurd. You seem to think there is only an absolute kind of knowledge, that cannot possibly be wrong, so if anything is proposed as ‘knowledge’, but there is a possibly that it’s wrong, it’s not knowledge and can therefore be discounted. The problem is that this simply isn’t true. In fact, most ‘knowledge’ might be wrong. For example, I can say that I know the sun will come up tomorrow. This is actually wrong in two ways:
1) Whilst the sun probably will come up tomorrow, from my perspective, that is an illusion of perspective. From the sun’s perspective, it stays exactly where it is, it’s just that relatively small ball of water and rock spins around so that a different part of it faces towards the sun.
2) There is a miniscule, but existing, chance that some catastrophe will strike which destroys the Earth tonight, so I can’t know, with absolute, 100% certainty, that the sun will come up tomorrow.
And this is not even getting into the more esoteric ideas, like the ‘what if you’re just a brain in a jar, imagining all this’ territory.
What is usually meant when someone says they ‘know’ something is something along the lines of ‘according to all available data and evidence I have seen so far, the preponderance of it overwhelmingly comes out in favour of this proposition, so until I see a sufficient amount of evidence which alters this balance, I am going to operate on the assumption this proposition is correct’. However, certain religions and their followers also use ‘know’ to mean ‘I have a faith-based certainty this proposition is true, so will continue to believe it despite any and all evidence and/or data contradicting it’, which can cause confusion.
And a perfect excuse to trot out a few of Pterry’s Finest:
PoG was wondering about sin?
And belief in the gods
and the real requirements of faith and religion:
It is fully moral for a group of people to decide that, collectively, all members of the group are required to give up money for collective goals, and then appoint a group among them to enforce that requirement from those who immorally refuse to contribute, with violence if necessary.
So, given the right context, the answer is YES.
A god who defines “sin” as yours does, and is unable to let it go unpunished, is not a just god and not deserving of worship of any kind.
I’ve quoted Jack Vance here before, but perhaps Proof of God will see his sect’s exegesis in this mirror:
Lodermulch was an inflamed hemorrhoid, but I agree with his theology.
Alas, poor Poglet, who sucks his copy of the bible like a pacifier to keep the great uncertain universe at bay.
Proof, why are you doing this? It’s ok if you don’t really have proof of god. NONE of us have proof of god; you’re not alone! But you told me you were going to show us “proof beyond question,” and then you showed us a badly presented and slightly douchey presuppositionalist website instead. Now that we haven’t all suddenly become converted, you’re going to say there’s no point in proof because we all know it’s true anyway? That hardly seems fair.
One of the first steps to having a productive conversation is to let other people tell you what they believe, and take them at their word. If someone says, “I don’t think there’s any such thing as a god,” the appropriate response is not “HA HA BIBLE SEZ YES YOU DO; Y U LIE?!?” but, “Oh, ok, why not?” That’s how you learn.
In the spirit of inquiry, Proof, maybe you can tell me a little about why you think belief in god should be obvious to humans.
Here’s a though experiment you might enjoy: suppose a Bible-hating dictator conquered the world and somehow succeeded in permanently destroying every copy of every translation of every version of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles that ever existed, possibly using undetectable and unstoppable nanobots to seek out and destroy even the most well-hidden copies in every language. No more Bible. For good measure, they also destroy extracanonical Jewish scriptures and commentaries, the Koran, 90% of all medieval philosophy, and the works of William Paley.
A few generations pass, and the Great Destruction is a done deal — barely anyone even remembers there used to be something called the Bible. Suppose you’re born into this brave new YA dystopia. How do you determine that a god exists, and how do you figure out what it’s like? It should be easy enough, if the existence of god is obvious.
You can also imagine a similar world, or make it the work of the same dictator, in which a very large swath of existing knowledge about biology, geology, and cosmology was eaten by nanobots and its memory supressed. How would we begin to piece together a working model of how the world works?
I am curious about your answer!
I thought he could do anything.
@vaiyt
In Libertopia we like the principle of non-agression.
http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Principle_of_non-aggression
You can defend yourself from theft or other acts of aggression to your person or property. It does forbid initiating aggression though.
I believe in a free market society where everyone can earn their fair share so your first question is not exactly relevant.
68. David buys a wife with 200 Philistine foreskins. 200
That sounds like a bargain!
@Amphiox
So if a bunch of your neighbours in your community gathered together and decided they wanted to get your money for some cause in the neighbourhood (that you may or may not agree with) and then threatened to use violence on you if you did not contribute the money , it is moral?
It doesn’t seem moral to me. As the George Ought to Help (GOTH) video pointed out, just cause some group voted on it doesn’t mean its OK to threaten peaceful people for money.
@Ogvorbis (#419)
Misremembering aside, it’s awesome when things like that happen. Thanks for sharing.
@Tomas C.
How do you connect your various properties?
hoosierx @ 625:
I hope that’s sarcasm, because there are enough assholes around already. Your posts will be more readable if you quote people. To do that, use:
<blockquote>Place Text Here</blockquote>
Also, type out or copy and paste the nym of the person you are quoting and the post number. Ta.
Category error fuckwitted idjit. It isn’t a vigilante mob, but the duly elected government, which does have taxing authority. Unlike you, who has no authority not to pay your fair share of taxes.
There is no argument you can use that isn’t you just saying “WAAHHHHH” about paying taxes. Immature asshole.
Tomas C. #624
You may believe in whatever myths you like, old bean. Just don’t try to foist them off on the rest of us.
Is anyone sure what “Proof of God” is arguing?
1) Absolute truth and morals exists
2)???
3) You can’t be certain of anything
4) Romans 1 – you secretly know God exists
5) Proof of God!!
I feel like he’s missing a page from his Hovind script. I’m not sure how anything he argues is connected.
@Proof of God
Could you maybe make a quick summary of your argument with your main points and what approach you’re using so we can evaluate it here? Thanks.
Inaji@629
No, it’s not a joke or sarcasm or anything. I really think a woman is worth more than a bunch of foreskins.
@ Hoosierx, 634
There’s still the worrying idea of buying another human being with the profits from 200 assaults (at best).
There’s still the worrying idea of buying another human being.
Athywren
Apologies. That probably comes across as snarky. Twasn’t meant to be.
Athywren@635
But god said they were bad because REASUNZ.
POG’s god kills people for grins and giggles and POG thinks this is moral and good.
@Daz, 637
Don’t worry, I got your meaning. :)
(Though it is plainly misandry that you so callously disregard the genital mutilation of precious mans simply because they’re not one of your matriarchally preferred feeeemales!)
Tomas C, you gibbertarianism is laughably inane. I simply cannot believe how ridiculous you look, endlessly repeating your esteemed citation of a a childish hypothetical presented via youtube video . You couldn’t look like more of a clown if you tried.
How are you going to enforce it?
Is it like Heaven?
That is in no way analogous to a government or society at all. Try harder.
Athywren #640
Misandry? I’ll have you know I hit every andry I aim at.
@624
Tomas C.
k, look. someone needs to PAY for that kind of service (justice and security) to be delivered for them.
refusing to pay taxes is an initiation of aggression against the society because they need that money to maintain security against aggression.
if you have anything specifically that you think can be compared to the neighbors buying a fence example, let’s hear it. otherwise it looks like you are contradicting yourself.
Just learned apparently there is a new Christian film called God’s Not Dead with the typical straw man angry atheist professor making a Christian student write an essay about how god is dead forcing the poor student to write an essay proving god exists. Of course it is a popular movie. Christians need their myths about evil atheist college professors to reinforce their myths about persecution of believers in the sky daddy, what else is new. Wonder if PZ is their model angry atheist professor.
hoosierx:
No kidding. At best, your comment was gauche, as the biblical god thoroughly approved of the murder and mutilation of 200 men, in order to buy another human being.
If you’re planning to keep commenting, you need to keep up, and try to say something with at least a bit of substance.
Tomas C. #633
I would be happy to provide a quick summary for you. Here it is:
1) There is one true God, the God of the Bible. He has revealed Himself to us through the Bible.
2) God is absolutely Holy, Just, and Perfect. Because of His Holy nature He will not tolerate mankind’s sin/rebellion.
3) God created everything during the creation week. The creation account is laid out in Genesis 1 and 2.
4) Because God exists there is such a thing as absolute morality. God is the standard with which we can judge morality. There is also such a thing as absolute truth. Certain things are always true no matter what. 2+2 always equals 4. While it is true that humans discovered this law it still has always existed. Man did not “invent” it. The way to determine if something is right and/or true is to measure it against the character of God. Notice I did not say to compare it against your perception of the character of God. I said to compare it against THE character of God. God does not have a dual personality. God does not change. He is not one thing in times of old and then something completely different today. GOD DOES NOT CHANGE. All the verses posted by Inaji, among others have been completely taken out of context. I suggest you read the whole passage from which those verses have been taken out of before you decide what they mean. When you post verses and take them out of context, you end up showing how ignorant you are of the Bible. Please read the Bible with the intent to understand what is says, not to read you view into it.
5) God created everything “good”. Look up Genesis 1 and 2 and count how many times the word “good” occurs. The creation was without sin or flaw.
6) In Genesis 3 mankind sinned and brought about what is called the Fall. No longer could man have fellowship with God since he had broken God’s commandments and had set himself up as the ultimate authority. Let me ask you: If I killed stole something from the grocery and was brought before a judge, would I deserve to be let go? Without paying a fine and/or jail time? If the judge was just he would punish me for breaking the law. It is the same way with God. God will not let our sin go unpunished. God has decreed that the punishment for sin is eternal torment in hell. You think it is a harsh punishment? God is the standard against which all is compared. God is infinitely holy so the punishment for out sins is indeed just. We are not being punished for the sin of Adam and Eve, we are being punished for our own sin. Each one of us was born in sin and deserves only death.
7) The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) are God’s laws, not man’s. God decreed that if even one of them was broken then that person had sinned. Please read through the Ten Commandments and honestly ask yourself if you have broken any of them. Have you lied? Have you ever stole something, no matter how small? Have you ever committed adultery? Have you ever set up for yourself any idols? An idol is anything that you value more highly than God. Please remember, this is not my standard, it is God’s. I am not determining the definition for idols or of stealing. God is the standard against everything is judged.
8) The only Man who ever kept the whole law without fault was Jesus. Jesus Christ was 100% God and 100% Man. (Read the four gospels and believe what they say.) Jesus came to this earth to take upon Him the sin of the whole world. He came to die on the cross so that all may have eternal life if they would simply trust and believe on Him. After three days Jesus Christ arose from the grave and was seen by more than 500 of His followers (1 Corinthians 15:6). After 40 days Christ descended into heaven where He is even now sitting on the right hand of the Father.
9) Sometime in the future Christ is coming back to gather the Church to Himself. In the New Testament the Church is described as the bride of Christ. He is coming back again to gather His bride.
The most important decision you could ever make would be to trust Christ as your savior. You can’t just believe He exists, rather you must “put Him on”. If you would like to know more please read the Gospel of John and the Epistle to the Romans. In Romans, especially, Paul outlines the process of salvation/justification. Please read carefully as your eternal future is at stake.
If you would like to talk to someone about trusting Christ please call: (1-888-need-him).
Your deity is imaginary, existing only as a delusion between your ears. Anybody believing your fuckwittery has no mind. They can’t think, can’t look at evidence, and are sheeple to be fleeced by religious con men.
Until you provide that conclusive physical evidence, you are a delusional fool, and everything you say is dismissed as buffonery, bullshit, and utter and total ignorance.
One thing I do agree with POG -read the bible, see if it really is taken out of context, all the slavery, homophobia, genocide, patriarchal misogyny, etc.etc.. I think not, but please read carefully in context and judge for yourself.
I now have license to get bears to come down the hill and maul kids to death if they call me baldy, god said so (2 Kings 2:23-24; fully in context since it’s a 2 verse story).
Proof of God @ #648:
If by some unbelievable chance you actually believe even the smallest sliver of that swill you just vomited out, you have less brains than the average tapeworm.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls #649
Look around you, all the evidence is right there in front of you. If you are so blind as to not see then providing you evidence would fall on deaf ears. Don’t think so? Then let me ask you a question: If I could prove to you that God existed would you worship Him? Remember that if I proved His existence to you that means that the Bible is true and that He created you. That means He is Holy and Just and without sin. It also means that you as a human being area sinner worthy of eternal damnation.
GOD DOES NOT CHANGE.
But TheBible assuredly has.
Where does that leave you, since the only access you have to TheMindOfGod is TheBible?
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge #651
I fully believe what I just wrote. And I have way more evidence to believe that than you do to believe in evolution. You must take evolution on faith just as I have faith in what I believe.
There is no evidence equivalent to an eternally burning bush. All is explained by science, including every presup argument I’ve seen to date. If you don’t presume a deity, you can’t get to one.
Not the imaginary deity of the babble. But then, it won’t happen. You don’t have and never will have the level of evidence required as you have no idea of what is involved with that evidence. So, you are nothing but a loudmouthed buffoon, talking nonsense about a delusion that exists only between your ears, and you couple that with the inerrancy of a book of mythology fiction with sick morals, self-refuation, non-evidenced “history”, etc. Including your jebus figure.
Gee, evolution has a million or so scientific papers to back it up. You have :
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*crickets chirring*
Proving the existance of the Abrahamic Monogod would in no way prove the Truth of TheBible.
Tomas C
(Warning, wall o text)
Here is a brief summary of the ways that the Non-Agression principle is absurd, and libratarianism ridiculous. Feel free to ask for help with the bigger words. Please address the points here in your next response. Links to a video do not count. Enter text into the field provided.
Libertarians like to talk a lot about what they call the Non Aggression principle, which they define as prohibiting “… the initiation or threatening of violence against a person or legitimately owned property of another. “(wiki) Like most libertarian principles, this fails to account for the reality of how liberty and freedom are actually encroached upon. Taken as it stands, it will inevitably serve to defend and entrench privilege, while denying the oppressed any ‘legitimate’ recourse. Economic and social coercion can be tools of tyranny as great as any thuggish secret police, unless they are actively combated. Under a libertarian regime, however, these types of coercion are enshrined into law, and defended by the full (physical) force of the state and society at large (since private violence is acceptable under the NAP in case of threats to legally owned property).
Economic coercion takes many forms, but one of the most blatant is the company town, which I will use as a salutary example. Keep in mind that the company town is not a thought experiment; it is a phenomenon which exists today where not prohibited by force of law. In the company town, the company owns every scrap of land within the town. The town is centered on a factory or extractive operation, which is the town’s primary source of employment. Other potential employment is found in support occupations: a general store, a bar, sometimes a brothel depending on local mores, possibly a school and a clinic. These are also run by the company. Housing is provided as an employment benefit, or is rented to workers at exorbitant rates. The company store’s prices are likewise high, and wages at the factory are low, ensuring that money never lasts until the next pay check and the workers are forced to buy necessities on credit. In this situation, the workers cannot fight the company in any respect: anyone who tries to buck the system will be fired, and their spouse, if any, as well. They will then be evicted, either because they and their families are no longer entitled to employment benefits. And/or are in debt of the rent. They have no money to leave town, because they’re in debt to the company store. Anyone who offers them shelter or assistance is subject to the same treatment. This means that, practically speaking, the company threatens their lives if they disobey; they will be thrown out to freeze or starve, and there is no recourse for them. Libertarians insist that this is different from a gun to the head, but are unable to explain how, except that they declare it so.
A more diffuse but equally real example of economic aggression is redlining. Once again, this is a real practice, and one which continues to a degree today. Redlining consists of financial institutions simply refusing services to certain areas, which are largely inhabited by black people.
Banks drew red lines on city maps around the black neighborhoods, and deny mortgages, home improvement loans, and business loans to people who lived there. Insurance companies likewise would not insure homes or businesses owned by people within those boundaries. Denied even the possibility of acquiring capital, the inhabitants of those neighborhoods are at the mercy of rent-seeking landlords and whatever low wage employment may be offered to them (see social coercion, below). They have no opportunity to start a business, own a home, or even acquire significant savings, since they are forced into low wage employment, and the price of rent and groceries is elevated by the need for an absentee owner to gouge out a share. Such money as comes into the neighborhood rapidly flees again, into the pockets of the absentee owners, and the residents are trapped in a permanent cycle of poverty.
Social coercion also takes many forms, from which I will select sexism, simply because I happen to have seen a great deal of discussion of it lately and it’s fresh in my mind. In America today (and also other places, to a greater or lesser extent; I use the U.S. due to personal familiarity), to be a woman means to be denied choices in many ways. There are certain fields that are designated as ‘women’s fields’ in society, while other professions are assumed to be ‘men’s professions.’ When a woman seeks to enter any field that is not designated as appropriate, she will face a large number of obstacles, which will in many case prove insurmountable. To begin with, female students in ‘inappropriate;’ fields are routinely excluded from class discussions by professors, graded more harshly than male counterparts, and often subject to continued ridicule from professors and classmates alike. As a brief digression, before you start up with the ‘toughen up, words will never hurt me’ bullshit, just stop right there. Harassment and ridicule do take a psychological toll, and ongoing psychological stress can and does create medical problems of both psychiatric and non psychiatric types (e.g. ulcers). Suffering from that type of stress also degrades actual performance relative to those who are not under such stresses. Those who persevere will find that they are hired less often, let go sooner, promoted more rarely and paid less than men with the same qualifications. They will also typically continue to suffer harassment, often of a sexual nature, and ongoing ridicule in the course of doing their jobs. They will be assigned to demeaning and subservient tasks and put in positions which ignore their training and credentials. Once again, this constitutes coercion of women into certain areas of life, denying them the free agency men take as their due. PoCs suffer equivalent problems in re: workplaces, although the details differ somewhat.
chigau (違う) #653
The Bible has not changed. Have you even researched any of your claims. I am surprised at the lack of knowledge you have concerning the inerrancy of the Bible. Have you ever heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Look them up sometime and prepare to be amazed.
@Daz, 644
Well, as long as you’re accurate, it’s ok. Just don’t get sloppy and miss any!
@PoG, 652
Yeah, no. If you proved his existence, it would mean that the bible is true when it says that he exists. It still doesn’t necessarily mean he created us and, if the descriptions of him and his actions are accurate, then it still doesn’t make him holy or just, at least not without changing the meanings of both words. Nor does it mean that we’re all sinners, worthy of damnation. If you prove that your god exists, that means that your god exists. Further claims require further support – they don’t just come along for the ride when you prove a related claim.
For instance, I could prove to you that John Lennon existed, but if that’s all I prove to you, then I have no reason to expect you to believe that he had anything to do with the Beatles. To prove that second claim, I would have to demonstrate his association with Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, and show that their association was professionally named “The Beatles.” If I failed to do that, it would be irrational of me to expect you to believe more than that, and this is regarding an issue that, as far as spirituality is concerned, is of absolutely no importance. Why would your standards of evidence fall with the increasing importance of the claims?
@Proof of God
really? please give an example.
then fucking list some. just repeating “i have evidence” over and over is not very convincing!
Just for the lurkers, since Pog won’t listen and can’t learn, belief is what one must have without evidence. All godbots have belief, as there is no proper and conclusive physical evidence for their deity. As is shown by either the refusal to provide real evidence, or the handwaving that explains nothing, like “look around you”.
Evolution has a million or so interlocking scientific papers over a few centuries that include not just biology, but geology, chemistry, physics, and all the places in between. It’s latest confirmation is in the genomes of all living things. So it is a scientific conclusion, not a belief, that evolution has occurred. One can say that with solid and conclusive physical evidence.
648 Pog:
Let’s see:
1. Same old assumption as always. You realize that, if 1 is your starting premise for arguing, then this is the most blatant confession of using a presuppositional argument that I have ever seen?
2. Your Bible has a strange definition of “Holy, Just, and Perfect”
3. Yes, Genesis is literally true, even if Chapter 1 and 2 contradict each other. Because Hovind is Lord.
4. Spot the Bad Reasoning:
If God, then absolute morality
No God.
No absolute morality.
If I am driving, then I am in a car.
I am not driving.
So I’m not in a car!
Also: claiming “out of context” is the oldest, laziest Bible defense in the book.
5. Zzzzz….
6) …zzzzz. Huh. So justice is eternal punishment in hellfire, huh? I guess the judge let the grocery thief off easy. Wonder if God will punish the judge for that! And glad that we are getting punished for being born. Let me guess: you’re still against abortion though, right? Because “innocent babeez”?
7) God’s laws, as communicated via burning bush, to one man, written down, and then recorded on paper by another man. It is amazing how often you Christianists ignore how indirect your lines to God really are!
8) The only man who didn’t break the Ten Commandments was Jeebus Christ. Because disrespecting Mary didn’t count, because she wasn’t His Real Mom. And breaking the Sabbath didn’t count, because fuck your Old Ways! Selectively!
9) Christians won’t let two men get married, but they are perfectly fine with a half-man half-gods marrying buildings. What a world!
*snicker* Stop lying and bullshitting. Your word is dismissed as fast as you speak without supporting evidence.
Proof of God, you arrogant shit
I have read about the Dead Sea Scrolls. Nothing amazing there. And they aren’t written in English.
I have read several versions of TheBible, not all of them in English.
If TheBible hasn’t changed, why are there so many versions.
Which version do you use?
brianpansky #661
How about starting with yourself? Your existence is proof in itself that God exists.
Proof, you just said that the evidence is all around us, just a few comments after saying that God has revealed himself through the Bible. So is your god evident through the world or through the book?
The book, by the way, is definitely man-made. I have walked through bible printshops, and I have walked through the Grand Canyon. I know where I will look, and I know you won’t look.
By the way, Exodus 20 doesn’t have the ten commandments, like you seem to believe. It keeps going with what turns into a long list of strictures placed upon the children of Israel. Your ten get lost in the litany of things that you don’t obey, and probably have never even noticed. The list of commandments starts with a statement by God his ownself that makes it quite clear that they are addressed at the Hebrews—nothing, nowhere states that anyone else has to follow them, in Exodus—just God’s special little people. (The ten never mentioned Hell, as you seemed to think earlier.)
Yeah, the Dead Sea Scrolls! That proves…umm….
UNCHANGING!!!
Ooooo, Proof of God got the magic number! You know what that means!!!?
Using the Bible to prove the Bible is a logical fallacy. Your god is as fictitious as the Bible is. Hint: According to non-Biblical literalist archeologists Exodus never happened.
According to your own propaganda your god is a sadistic, murderous bully who kills people because they pissed him off. He’s got the morals of a mafia thug, except that most mafiosi don’t approve of rape, unlike your god.
a. That’s “IF god exists….” You haven’t shown any evidence for the existence of your asshole of a god.
b. Anyone who thinks genocide, slavery, rape and murder are “absolute morality” is as immoral as Yahweh.
Imaginary beings don’t create anything, good bad or indifferent.
Even if Adam and
SteveEve did sin, that has nothing to do with anyone else. If you steal something, why should I be punished? Punishing the innocent for someone else’s crime is just another case of Yahweh’s basic immorality.No, they’re the laws of the Hebrew priests, made up to keep the hoi polloi in line and keep the priesthood supplied with money and power. That’s how priests work. Look at Kent Hovind as an example.
If you don’t believe what they say, you’ll recognize them as bullshit.
Yep, that’s been predicted as gonna happen any time now for the past two thousand years. Besides, why does a Hovindite care about Jesus gathering the Catholics (who are the true church, just ask the Pope)?
Nope, scientifically explained by evolution. You lose loser. Three wild swings and you are out….
@666
Proof of God
try being less cryptic silly. HOW am i evidence that a god exists? you keep simply asserting your position, it’s really obvious that you don’t know what you are doing.
So POG you believe in a god who will roast people for eternity because they don’t see any evidence or have the wrong theology. Don’t you see that this sort of evil would make the kind Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer did utterly miniscule in comparison. If my children disobey me, I don’t lock them in a dungeon and torture continuously for the rest of their lives. How can you accept such an utterly vile notion.
If creation was without sin or flaw, how did it come to be in a fallen state? How did Adam & Eve rebel against god if they were without sin when sin is defined as rebellion against god? How were they fooled by the serpent, when to be fooled requires flawed thought? How did the serpent fool Adam & Eve, when such an action was a rebellion against god, which is the definition of sin? How do you sin when you are without sin? How can you be flawed when you are without flaw? With seven words, you disprove your own theology.
Spoof of Zod tells us the proof of god in #666.
That itself is proof of demonic possession.
=============
@Spoof of Zod:
Okay, let’s say that my existence can be used to prove some god, any god exists, maybe even no god in particular but the necessity of something that has attributes of something that we could agree would be appropriately called god.
What is your proof. Give me your proof step by step.
I exist, therefore X?
X therefore a being with attributes Y?
Y qualifies the being for definition Z?
Z = god?
Let’s see the proof.
“Hah. You exist! I win,” is not an argument nor is it a proof. It’s a bald assertion.
Show your work. I’m not going to say that I don’t exist, but I will say that there is no proof that any god exists. How do you counter that?
exactly.
“proof of god” has no idea what they talking about. it’s concerning how much they are wrong about reality.
Clown Posse of God:
“I seen shit that would shock your eyelids!”
How many
Rules of AcquisitionCommandments did they eventually end up with? I seem to remember the number 618….Right Reverend Battleaxe, you jarred memory just enough for me to find out myself.
613
God damn, why do I keep forgetting to type helping verbs, pronouns, and articles!?
Goof of Prod
The Bible you say hasn’t changed.
brianpansky #661
You already know in your heart of hearts that God exists and is real. I do not have to prove God exists to anyone since all already know.
Goof of Prod #682
Hate to have to break this to you, old chap, but I have never in my life believed in the existence of your, or any, god.
Shocking, innit!
Ditto Daz.
Proofiness, I’m not going to be tricked by a Bible verse into thinking that I really really truly deeply super double plus secretly believe in the Bible. I’m sure it placates Bible worshippers, but the pretzel logic involved doesn’t fool anyone else.
@682
Proof of God
lol, false. (and lol at the use of the phrase “heart of hearts”) did you think this would make me view you as more credible? your credibility has been nosediving for quite a while, maybe you should try something that isn’t so easy for me to see is wrong.
but more importantly, how do you think you know what is in other people’s heart of hearts? and can you please acknowledge that you are incorrect about the bible being edited?
So can you read minds, Proof? Because i can’t see any other way you can know what I know.
I know that I don’t believe God exists. You can teach me otherwise by trying to tell me what I know. Or claiming that people, or a tree, or a puppy are somehow inherent proof of God.
Just like you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that YOU were proof of evolution just standing there.
Daz: Experiencing A Slight Gravitas Shortfall #683
I didn’t say you “believed in His existence”. I said you KNOW He exists. Period!
Where is my heart of hearts, is it another homunculus in my chest. Is it where my soul resides. Why can’t I find it in a medical dictionary.
We don’t. Period.
Proof Of God #648:
Assertions lacking any evidence at all, other than the already dealt with circular logic of God existing due to the Bible saying so, and the Bible being accurate because God tells us it is (in the Bible, of course).
It’s a twofer – non-sequitur that is also an assertion lacking evidence.
Which means, for example, that the ‘punishment’ for a guy raping a girl is that he has to pay a whole thirty shekels of silver to her father to buy her from him so that the rapist can then marry her, and can’t divorce her. And this is perfectly moral.
Except when 2 isn’t 2 and 4 isn’t 4. ‘2’ and ‘4’, along with all other numbers, are simply labels used as part of mathematics in order to study the concepts of quantities and how they relate to each other. That some humans noticed that when you take one object and add another to it, you no longer have just one, then tried to investigate this, and came up with some labels to try to help them do this is in no way any kind of evidence for God.
So, if we can’t trust what the Bible appears to indicate what the character of God actually is, what do we use to ascertain the character of God in order to judge something against that character to decide whether it is right and/or true? When you answer this, please give some evidence, not merely assert something with no evidence.
Hate to burst your bubble, but many people here quite possibly know the Bible, and the context of those passages, better than you do. You know why? They’re ex-Christians. Why are they ex-Christians? They actually read the Bible.
Well, leaving aside that this is another re-iteration of the circular logic of the Bible saying something, and we know that’s true because God said so, in the Bible, then we have the problem of creation being without sin or flaw, but then going to shit, which kinda suggests it wasn’t completely without sin or flaw. For an omniscient, omnipotent being, that God fella makes a piss-poor effort of making things without sin or flaw.
If somebody else killed someone or stole something, but you were arrested, tried, and convicted, despite there being no evidence of your guilt, on the basis that you must be guilty of something anyway, would you find that just? By the way, if God is the ultimate example of morality, and you have just said this is what God’s doing, your answer must be ‘yes’. If it’s ‘no’, then you’ve just admitted that God is NOT the ultimate example of morality.
Yet another re-iteration of the ‘Bible says this, and we know it’s true because God says the Bible’s accurate (in the Bible)’ crap.
Sounds like Buffalo Bill from the Silence of the Lambs, except making a Jesus suit, not a woman suit. Creepy.
Proof of God
Why won’t you tell us which version of TheBible you use?
@687
Proof of God
do you know how knowledge works? how is it even possible for someone to just know that a god exists? please give us something other than barely comprehensible bizarre assertions.
No we don’t, Proof.
Tell me, has that argument ever worked?
Did you ever say to a non-believer “You KNOW God exists” and they looked up and said “Yes, you’re right. Now that I think of it, I DO know God. Praise Jesus!”?
Of course you didn’t. As that’s a profoundly bad argument.
<blockquote #685
The Bible tells me what all know to be fact: That God exists. Romans 1:18-25.
I’ve never read the Dead Sea Scrolls (the canonical Bible is enough of a terrible slog), but my impression of them is that their discovery and what they had written in them wasn’t really a great and wonderful thing for the Christian establishment. I could be wrong, I guess, they could be like Bible 2.0, now with even less polytheistic content and more homophobia, but I don’t think that’s the case.
I do I know something you can’t/won’t evidence exists? This is an oxymoron, from an intellectual buffoon, meaning nothing, as it isn’t logical….
I’m tired of this.
We’re in an infinite loop.
Come on guys. God, the Ultimate Perfect Being, created everyone imperfect, but he totally hates that, so he’s going to punish everyone eternally for being created imperfect. But don’t worry, he changed his mind about that after he atoned for everyone’s imperfectness by pretending to be one of us and having himself sacrificed to himself for a couple days.
You know this in your heart of heart and kidney of kidneys.
(1) So you claim that your god is perfect and just. And yet it apparently created creatures that are by nature imperfect, and that it is going to torture for all of eternity just because those flawed creatures, that this allegedly perfect creature created, are imperfect? If this god of yours is so perfect, how did he manage to create such clearly flawed creatures? To put it in more mundane terms, if 90% or so of the houses that an architect designed ended up collapsing within the first year, would you consider that architect to be perfect? And would you really believe the architect when it tried to blame the houses for collapsing and says that those houses will burn for all of eternity? Either your god is perfect, in which case all of its creations, including us, are perfect, or your god is flawed. And by flawed I mean that it doesn’t actually exist.
(2) If your god is unique, why is it gendered? Gender implies at the very least a dichotomy, which means that at least two of the things have to exist. If there’s only one god, doesn’t that imply that it’s non-gendered, and that you ought to use a neuter pronoun to refer to it? And if your god is gendered, doesn’t that imply that there is at least one other god creature that is of a different gender?
@ 648 Proof of God
Proof, thanks so much for the quick(ish) summary of your beliefs! I guess I’m still stuck on #1:
Not even all of #1. I can’t move past “There is [a] God.” That’s the claim you said you were going to prove and then didn’t.
You know that it would be rude of me to tell you “I have SO MUCH evidence that Saturn’s rings are made entirely out of flying toaster screen savers from the 90s” and then, when asked to present some of that evidence, told you “Just look around! You already believe it — everyone does!” That is not the way evidence works.
@695
Proof of God
yes i know it SAYS that.
how do you know that what it says is CORRECT???
I’m going to join a debate team and use Proof’s strategy.
I’m Right because YOU KNOW I’m right. You know I’m right because I have a paper here that says “All man knows I’m right.”
How could my opponent possibly refute that logic?
The god–>babble—>god—>babble circular reasoning of the godbots is a fallacy of the highest order.
Their imaginary deity must be evidenced separately to show it exists, or the they my evidence the babble as being inerrant separately. Since they can’t do either, they tie themselves into what they pretend to be a tight argument, but it is nothing but more buffoonery from delusional fools.
See comment #447:
So I’m guessing probably none of the above.
The “proof”, I’m guessing, is the Bible. It’s a really old book, you see, with flowery and oftentimes unreadable language in it. And they went into a cave by the Dead Sea and found even more of it! Isn’t that great?
Really, that’s the level of mind being dealt with here. I only hang around because it’s rainy this weekend.
Rey Fox #699
Wrong! God created everything PERFECT. Read your Bible. And another thing; God doesn’t change.
660- Athywren
So how would you go about getting evidence that the Beatles did indeed exist? You would either have to have seen them with your own eyes or you would have to have direct revelation(knowledge) from someone who has, correct?
The Bible was written down by eye witnesses of the actions of Jesus Christ and/or have been inspired by the Holy Spirit as to what they were to write. (2 Peter 2:21).
As PoG (#659) has stated, look at the accuracy of the Dead Sea Scrolls to see the accuracy with with the scribes copied the Scriptures.
Since as you say, the Bible is true then the account in Genesis, where God created everything(including human beings), would thereby also be true.
Proof of God, do you keep kosher? If you have a wife, do you avoid contact with her when she is having her period? If your employer asks you to work on the Sabbath, do you do so?
Your deity doesn’t exist, as you can’t/won’t evidence it. Your babble is a book of mythology/fiction, and you, like with your imaginary deity, provide no evidence to change that conclusion.
We don’t take you word for anything but the delusions of an intellectual flea, repeating the same slogans over and over as if we have to believe everything you say because you have nothing else to say.
But your intellectual dishonesty and lack of integrity is there for all to see.
You fail every time you try and by a large large margin. Pitiful, just pitiful.
Rey Fox #705
I read it in all of these. You should do the same.
@708
impact
haha.
so let me get this straight, some book makes a claim, a bald assertion, therefore that assertion is true? you don’t understand anything about evidence, you are laughable.
Clearly he didn’t.
Oh. My. Cthulhu.
The obtuseness is reaching critical mass.
I am reading it. It’s crap.
If I poke it a few more times, will it explode?
POG uses the same strategy and logic GWB used in the Iraq War, repeat the same lies consistently over and over again and hope it eventually sticks.
Goof of Prod #687
You read minds now?
• Your mind-reading skill: zero.
• Your god: not real.
• Your devil: not real.
• Your Bible: not truthful.
• Your logic: non-existent.
• Your evidence: nowhere to be seen.
• Your novelty-value: gone.
It is apparent that no one got my earlier summary. SO, here it is again. Please read it this time.
Also: Your Bible did change, because it is a book written by men, of which the first half is largely attributable to a much older religion.
Also also: Your God did change within the Bible, because the first half is largely attributable to a much older religion and the God in Version 2.0 transforms into a man, walks the Earth, and throws out half the laws he has established before.
Creationists denying the existence of change? Why am I surprised?
Proof,
Start with #1
How do you know the Bible to be true?
719:
Point 1: Several people already addressed that nonsense.
Point 2: You didn’t post it that long ago anyway.
Point 3: It is stupid shit that doesn’t really need to be addressed.
Point 4: Stop repeating yourself you fucking idiot.
impact #708:
Well, assuming verifying this with Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr wasn’t possible, there’s documentary evidence of multiple different types from multiple different sources, not least, their albums (I’m discounting eyewitness evidence, even though there’s plenty, because eyewitness evidence actually isn’t that reliable). In the case of the existence of God, we seem to have a single book of unproven accuracy and dubious provenance that claims to be a historical account, plus prophecies for the future, but seems to have more in common with badly written fiction than any kind of documentary content, and that’s about it.
712- brainpansky
What evidence do you have that proves conclusively that the Bible isn’t true?
He created flawed humans, apparently.
Rey Fox #713
Please read your Bible. If you do not have a Bible you can go onto “Blue Letter Bible” and read it there. It is because of man’s sin that things are no longer in a perfect state. God originally created everything perfect.
POG has something in common with his god. He belches out monologues and expects us to swallow it whole uncritically cuz he says its the divine truth. And only what he says matters, all else must be ignored.
God created everything perfect. But then something went wrong. Because that’s something that can totally happen when things are perfect.
@ 709 timgueguen
NO WAI BRO that ish is OLD COVENANT
NEW COVENANT ALL THE WAY WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
woooooooooooooo
oo
god never changes except when he does; it’s a mystery so that proves it
Proof of G., I apologize ahead of time if this is a misrepresentation of your postion; I am getting a little woozy from all the failure to answer simple questions and the accusing people who obviously have extensive knowledge of the bible of not reading the bible with enough context.
thing is though, Proof, we haven’t accepted the Bible as any kind of authoritaitve document yet, let alone The Unchanging Revealed Word of God, so you’ll have to either establish that or set it aside. Assume anti-Christian nanobots destroyed all copies of the Bible — what evidence of God can we look for in that case?
U Frood
Because Poggle was threatened with eternal torture if he didn’t beeeellllliiiieve. As good a reason as any.
Exodus never happened. No trace of it in Egyptian records, are archeological evidence from the Sinai of a large group traipsing through it. Prove otherwise with solid and conclusive physical evidence. Don’t even bother to quote your babble, which can’t be used to evidence itself, or your imaginary deity until you provide the conclusive physical evidence for it.
We are waiting for your third party links, because anything you say without a link is automatically dismissed as buffoonery.
I find it interesting that godbots blame an imperfect world on human sin. Because obviously humans themselves didn’t use some uberpowerful dark magic to warp all of existence into an imperfect state. Either sin itself is somehow magical, or human sin is to blame for an imperfect world insofar as it is the excuse God and his sycophants use to justify God intentionally corrupting the universe to spite humans. Either one or the other, Godbots. Either sin is corruptive with super-powerful magical properties or God is ultimately the one who really made has perfect world imperfect in order to teach us uppity humans a lesson. Have fun avoiding that just like every other Biblical problem.
Daz: Experiencing A Slight Gravitas Shortfall #725
He didn’t create flawed humans. His original creation was without flaw or sin. As a result of Adam and Eve’s sin the whole world fell under the domination of sin.
And then instead of fixing it, he made all his flawed and imperfect humans (whose flaws and imperfections are somehow not his fault) go through a lifelong morality test. After sending himself down to Earth and having himself sacrificed to himself. It all makes perfect sense.
@723
And in the case of the Bible we have many claims which are directly refuted by scientific and historical evidence.
(Though in 732, my conundrum really doesn’t stop the blame from ultimately resting with God: No matter how you slice it, even if sin is dark magic, it is within God’s control, just like human behavior. The difference is in between actively and directly fucking humans or passively setting humans up for being fucked over by processes He created and chooses to do nothing about)
That was good. Now try contradicting yourself within ONE sentence. I know you can!
Oh feck. I forgot the bloody auto-embed
@anteprepro:
I actually find the ‘human sin’ problem a direct contradiction to the idea that ‘God created everything perfectly’, because, after all, God supposedly also created humans. If humans can sin, they’re obviously not perfect.
U Frood #721
How do you know it to be untrue? If you say reason and logic then you are using reason and logic to determine what is untrue. Could your reason and logic be deceiving you?
Pr-O-God
Explain please how perfect creations can make a teensy mistake that overturns all of history.
My version of 733:
“I didn’t create flawed robots! My original creation was without flaw or error! As a result of Prototype 1 and 2’s decisions, they introduced an error! And they killed a man. But my design was completely flawless!”
Technically there are third party links if you include bible believing scholars who write in bible journals about their great bible discoveries. These are the so-called scholarly consensus that William Lane Craig refers to in his debates. Of course this is mainly a circular firing squad of like minded believers congratulating themselves on how their deep bible scholarship reconfirms what they already believe based on the bible, which involves almost entirely circular reasoning as Richard Carrier and many others have exposed.
Proof of God
When you read comments stating that the commenter considers the bible to be a load of crap,
why do tell them to read the bible?
Don’t you understand how stupid that is?
You got one thing right. Since you deity doesn’t exist, he didn’t create humans. Humans evolved from primate/ape/hominid ancestors. No deity involved in any part of that link.
How to make a “perfect” creation.
Do chew-toys work if your teeth just bounce off?
Goof of Prod #73He didn’t create flawed humans. His original creation was without flaw or sin. As a result of Adam and Eve’s sin the whole world fell under the domination of sin.
How did sin come to exist in this perfect creation?
Jebus, I really need to learn to preview.
In the beginning god created the sabre tooth tiger with them big ol’ teeth, so they could chew on some nice big veggies provided by god in the garden of eden.
@ 719
Proof of God, no We all saw your wall of text. Didn’t you notice the many responses to what you posted? The problem is not that you gave us a beautiful account of your evidence and we just missed it because of all the posts; it’s that your wall of text is MORE ASSERTIONS that have not been established, beginning with the original and still unsupported claim, “God exists.”
I am happy that you have posted your whole belief system for us. That is actually very helpful in understanding where you’re coming from! But assertions of controversial claims are not evidence for those claims. If you just want to talk about what you believe, that’s fine! However, it is very rude to assert that we ALSO believe it, or pretend that you have plenty of evidence while withholding it from everyone.
Here is an example of what I mean. I am not very good at math. But knowing some math is a valuable skill that I can benefit from learning. If my math teacher, who was charged with teaching me algebra, handed me a complicated equation and said, “You already KNOW how to solve it! Look into your heart of hearts! I don’t need to explain to you what you can just look around you and see!” that would be a very poor math teacher. You could even say that this math teacher was doing me harm, by refusing to teach me something they knew was important, because they felt it should be obvious.
Things that are obvious to you are not obvious to everyone. Please don’t be that bad math teacher, Proof.
#723- zmidponk
Well the Bible was written by 40 authors writing 66 books and it was written on at least 2 different continents (Europe and Asia); over about 1,500 years (~1445 BC — ~50 AD). All authors have generally the same theme, with each original manuscript being completely inerrant. And as POG said before, look at the Dead Sea Scrolls to see the accuracy with which the scribes copied the Scriptures.
POG 741: Are you afraid to use logic and reasoning? Is it the tool of Satan? Could you use that tool of Satan to discover that it is just as likely that Satan himself wrote the Bibble as your Gawwd? Is that why you cower and caress your Bibble, and bleat out about what the Bibble sez, lest you stray too far from its comforting covers and into the torrid, pagan orgy that is secular logic? You should be afraid. You should be frightened, it is the correct response for you. The maw of logic has shredded up and feasted upon the scraps of many poor little Christians before. Just hide in the comfort of your churches. Let the Bibble keep you warm. Make sure Brave Sir Hovind tucks you in at night and sits outside your door with kitchen knife and trash can mail. Because logic just be right outside your door. Be afraid, be very afraid.
@724
impact
hahaha!
i asked you first what evidence you have that it is true. are you implying that you don’t have any good reason to think it is true? or are you trying desperately to dodge my question?
and others have pointed out so many things about the bible which you simply ignore.
Reason and logic supplied by evolution, since your deity is imaginary. It makes your holy book untrue, as your deity doesn’t exist. You have to demonstrate its existence with solid and conclusive physical evidence, like an eternally burning bush.
I know there is ample scientific evidence that the major events of Genesis didn’t happen. Events in other books are strangely lacking in support in other historical records.
When you start the book out like that, it doesn’t make sense to just assume it to be true. So why should I believe it?
And then you have the existence of other religions. You can’t just assume they’re all true. Which one do you pick? I assume you picked the one your parents taught you. That’s what I did, until I thought about it and realized I had no reason to believe it other than “That’s what my parents told me.” Ultimately, that wasn’t good enough.
chigau (違う) #745
The Bible is the inspired Word of God. It is the only written work that was written without flaw. It can be completely trusted. All other written works are the work of man. The Bible is the work of God and more specifically the Holy Spirit.
impact and proof of god.
important question here: do either of you realize just how brainwashed you all look to us? can you imagine? it’s really stunning.
impact @ 724:
The hundreds of contradictions aren’t good enough for you?
@758
Proof of God
assertion dismissed.
I can’t be. You deity doesn’t exist, as you haven’t evidenced its existence. Where the fuck is your evidence from third party sources? Take you, your deity, and your babble out of the equation, and try evidence from other sources. *snicker* you can’t do it…..
753
1. Not really, no.
2. Citation needed.
3. Already refuted.
In my heart of hearts (I’m 1/32 Klingon), I know that if I had the One Ring, I would have done a right good job.
You don’t see what an INCREDIBLE claim that is to make without evidence?
How do you know? Were you there? Were there to see that God guiding the hand of every single Bible author? Were you there to see God instructing the humans who decided which book to include in Biblical canon? Were you there to see every other written work of man being written and confirming that God was nowhere to be seen and that it was a completely different affair? Because otherwise you just relying on the Word of Men who say that they saw that God was involved with the Other Men who wrote the Word of God.
The silliness of the Genesis account is obvious. God is sufficiently powerful to create an entire Universe, including the Earth and all its creatures, in 6 days. Yet he is unable to keep a grand total of two beings, who have nothing approaching his power, from sinning, which is apparently touching a single thing they aren’t supposed to. Then, instead of fixing his creations so they won’t do stupid things again, or creating two new beings that won’t have the same flaws, he pulls a hissy fit, kicks them out of their home, and lets them and their descendants run around causing worse and worse messes. Things eventually get so bad, due to his unwillingness to fix things, that God decides to kill everyone, except for a tiny handful, regardless of how minor their individual crimes might be.
Proof of God
Which version of The Bible do you use?
Answer the question.
and don’t lie
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls #756
Wrong again! Evolution is a scientific theory that cannot supply either reason or logic. Evolution is unproven. You do not have one shred of evidence for evolution. You have to accept it with faith.
this stuff from impact and proof of god is some of the saddest attempts at religious apologetics i have ever seen.
769:
And more blatant falsehoods! Predictable creationist is predictable.
anteprepro #766
You are just relying on the Word of Men when you believe evolution.
I was not there but I know Someone who was…
I’d like to request a ban.
But I’m tired and bored and my judgement is off.
Are you all still enjoying this?
—
I could just go to bed.
@769
Proof of God
entirely false.
the fossil record, the dna record, morhpology, all of it points towards common ancestry and evolution. that is mountains of evidence, much much more than a shred.
So all the evidence for evolution is just God being a jerk planting fake evidence for scientists? That God, he’s such a kidder. When he’s not ordering his followers to commit genocide.
The Koran is the inspired Word of Allah. It is the only written work that was written without flaw. It can be completely trusted. All other written works are the work of man. The Koran is the work of Allah and more specifically the Spirit of Allah.
Please read your Koran. If you do not have a Koran you can go onto “Blue Letter Koran” and read it there. It is because of man’s sin that things are no longer in a perfect state. Allah originally created everything perfect.
POG you must answer to Allah.
chigau (違う) #768
I already told you: KJV, NKJV, NASB, ESV, NLT, NET, NIV………….
Which translation of the Bible do you use?
@773
they are pretty boring…
they aren’t really very fun, they’re so sparse and repetitive.
anyways, i’ve got to go cut my hair.
Don’t listen to @ anteprepro, Proof Of G.! The maw of logic is really quite a lovely maw when you get to know it. Unless A Grain of Wheat Shall Die and all that. You only feel chawed on for a little while, and then you’ll feel so much better. Not like dying at all — like going to sleep and waking up more refreshed than you’ve felt in years. The best part is being able to learn things. You can say, “I don’t know!” and “I’ll have to think about it!” You can say, “How do you know?” and then listen to the answer! SO SATISFYING.
When the somewhat brighter ones like John A come around, they deny that this is all what the great mass of Christians believe. At least the ones who do any thinking at all about it and aren’t just going along with the cultural tide to get venues for weddings and such.
Goof of Prod
Somehow disproving evolution, even if you managed it, would not, in any way, provide supporting evidence for your own “god” hypothesis.
Stick to the point.
The ellipsis tells me you’re lying for effect. Probably went to that Blue Letter site and copied all the abbreviations you could find. Unless you’re a monk cloistered away in an abbey somewhere, in which case you really shouldn’t be on the internet.
I will freely admit that I am wandering away from whatever point this thread actually has or had, but it just strikes me as the biggest waste of a lifetime to be like “I’VE READ EVERY BIBLE!”
Proof Of Glod writes
How do you know the Vedas and the Eddas and Works and Days and Theogeny and the Mahabharata and Quran and Australian Dreamtime songs are untrue? How do you know Doctor Doolittle isn’t the One True Revealed Book?
If the Bible were Pure Truth there would be other evidence for its claims. There isn’t. In fact the evidence absolutely 100% contradicts them. And as has been pointed out several hundred times on this thread it’s obvious to even the most casual scholar that your Book is fragmentary and has worse provenance than an original Da Vinci done in ballpoint pen.
brianpansky #774
All point to a Creator. Nothing cannot create something. Evolution is utterly false.
#760-The Reverend
Just taking a quick look at the contradictions you provided on the link.
First, ALL are UNIMPORTANT and could be argued either way to no significance. End result… Biblical theology does not change at all.
and Second, most all display extreme IGNORANCE of the Bible.
and Third, most all take the accused passage EXTREMELY out of CONTEXT.
@773 chigau
Yeah, I don’t know; sorry to keep poking Proof. I keep hoping I’ll get some non-biblical “evidence” from the Proofster that isn’t just another assertion, but I dunno if that’s ever going to happen and if it’s wasting everyone else’s time, I’m happy to bow out.
… Or a letter dated “30BC.”
Been a while since I heard argumentum ab Ouroboros. One wonders why Aquinas even bothered.
POG wingman impact has come on the scene for comic relief.
barnestormer
No worries. I just tired.
@impact
Oh, you’re back. Answer my question now, please. Do you believe the devil exists?
Impact @ 786:
You’re full of shit. You fucking bible-thumpers always fall back on that “out of context” crap.
You say “2+2=5”.
I say: “No it doesn’t”.
You say: “You’re taking what I said out of context!”
If TheBible is the inerrant word of god, how is it possible to take anything out of context?
Isn’t each and every word (and jot and tittle) inerrant?
Well, you may be technically right that it is unproven, as science doesn’t deal with proof, but rather evidence that is consistent with the theory. And there is a million or so scientific papers, that back evolution, both directly and indirectly, whereas there are essential NO scientific papers backing creationism. Which is a religious idea, not a scientific idea.
As to reason and logic, your presupposition that your imaginary deity is required is rejected due to the lack of existence for your deity. there is no evidence for one, and you continue to not supply any concrete physical evidence for one. So, that claim is dismissed without evidence, and what you say is nothing but lies and bullshit until you do provide the evidence, or you shut the fuck up about the existence of your imaginary deity.
Your deity doesn’t exist. Deal with that fact elsewhere.
Impact -is it out of context for bears to maul children to death for calling prophets baldy (2 Kings 2:23-24), your buddy POG refuses to address the issue.
LIAR. Most of us here have read the babble cover to cover. Whereas you, undoubtedly, miss various parts in your scanning of the book of mythology/fiction.
A. Noyd #792
I believe the Bible. Every word in it is true. The Bible says that the Devil is real. He is known as Satan. I am sure impact believes in the Bible as well.
Who the fuck cares, delusional fool, that you believe in a book of mythology/fiction, and think foolishly it is inerrant, despite the solid evidence showing otherwise?
Who gives a shit you delusionally believe in something that doesn’t exist, like your imaginary deity?
Who gives a shit about your word? Not me.
So the Devil and Satan are capitalized, so there is at least one more god.
797- Nerd of Red
Actually look at what I said, I said the examples display ignorance.
Proof, the Bible cannot be shown to be inerrant. It is strictly a belief on your part, a matter of faith.
First, many errors can be shown in the Bible. Your preacher friends say they can explain them, of course, and you believe them, of course.
My two favorites are the placard over Jesus’ crucifixion, and the lost child of Adonikam. The words that were written on the sign that was hung over Jesus’ head during the most important event of all time, are given differently in the different gospels. There are two places where the children of Adonikam are given as a number, both referring to the same event, and they differ by one—that missing child destroys the inerrancy of the Bible.
Don’t bother to try to explain, there are many more.
Even if the Bible were completely internally consistent, with no errors at all, it would have to be compared to reality. You would need complete proof, from other sources, that the events took place as described—court records from Sheba, and from Pilate, and archeological evidence for everything. And the Bible would have to win every disagreement by us finding proof it was correct.
It doesn’t do that, by the way.
And, if all that worked out in the Bible’s favor, you would still need to see the future, both events and scientific discoveries, to prove that it would never be in error.
To say that the Bible is inerrant, you either have to be God or be delusional.
You can believe anything you want, and you will. You take it on faith, of course, but your faith is indistinguishable from conspiracy, obsession and illness.
A bible length book of all the prime numbers that fit in that book would be error free. The Lord of the Rings and Hamlet are error free, since they are fictional no errors have occurred. So why aren’t these examples considered divine holy inspired books.
Look at this: your deity doesn’t exist, you have presented no solid and conclusive physical evidence for it. Your word on that subject is dismissed. You babble is a book of mythology/fiction, and you haven’t evidenced it being inerrant, so your claims there are also dismissed. In fact, since you lie and bullshit about those two items, everything you say without third party evidence is not taken at face value. the lies and bullshit aren’t hard to find, and those lies and bullshit includes your unevidenced presuppositions. Take the argruement outside of yourself, as you on your word alone cannot forward your argument.
Proof of God (#798)
Well, I wasn’t asking you. I want impact to answer in their own words, even if you’re, like, a husband and wife team sitting in the same room or something. I’m not sure why you’re even bothering to answer it since you’re neglecting the questions others are asking you. Pay attention to those.
To ALL who read this:
Once AGAIN I repeat that without God you and I couldn’t know anything. Without God there would be no such thing as absolutes. And yet even you all believe in absolutes. You believe that rape is always wrong. You believe that you are absolutely right! You believe that the Law of Gravity is absolute. It is present in all the world. It has always existed and will always exist.
ALL human beings know that God is real. God has revealed this to them. Romans 1. I do not need to prove to you God’s existence since you already know He exists. You can say you don’t believe in God all you want. In the end I choose to believe the Bible over you.
Please forsake your ignorance and truly read the Bible.
1) There is one true God, the God of the Bible. He has revealed Himself to us through the Bible.
2) God is absolutely Holy, Just, and Perfect. Because of His Holy nature He will not tolerate mankind’s sin/rebellion.
3) God created everything during the creation week. The creation account is laid out in Genesis 1 and 2.
4) Because God exists there is such a thing as absolute morality. God is the standard with which we can judge morality. There is also such a thing as absolute truth. Certain things are always true no matter what. 2+2 always equals 4. While it is true that humans discovered this law it still has always existed. Man did not “invent” it. The way to determine if something is right and/or true is to measure it against the character of God. Notice I did not say to compare it against your perception of the character of God. I said to compare it against THE character of God. God does not have a dual personality. God does not change. He is not one thing in times of old and then something completely different today. GOD DOES NOT CHANGE. All the verses posted by Inaji, among others have been completely taken out of context. I suggest you read the whole passage from which those verses have been taken out of before you decide what they mean. When you post verses and take them out of context, you end up showing how ignorant you are of the Bible. Please read the Bible with the intent to understand what is says, not to read you view into it.
5) God created everything “good”. Look up Genesis 1 and 2 and count how many times the word “good” occurs. The creation was without sin or flaw.
6) In Genesis 3 mankind sinned and brought about what is called the Fall. No longer could man have fellowship with God since he had broken God’s commandments and had set himself up as the ultimate authority. Let me ask you: If I killed stole something from the grocery and was brought before a judge, would I deserve to be let go? Without paying a fine and/or jail time? If the judge was just he would punish me for breaking the law. It is the same way with God. God will not let our sin go unpunished. God has decreed that the punishment for sin is eternal torment in hell. You think it is a harsh punishment? God is the standard against which all is compared. God is infinitely holy so the punishment for out sins is indeed just. We are not being punished for the sin of Adam and Eve, we are being punished for our own sin. Each one of us was born in sin and deserves only death.
7) The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) are God’s laws, not man’s. God decreed that if even one of them was broken then that person had sinned. Please read through the Ten Commandments and honestly ask yourself if you have broken any of them. Have you lied? Have you ever stole something, no matter how small? Have you ever committed adultery? Have you ever set up for yourself any idols? An idol is anything that you value more highly than God. Please remember, this is not my standard, it is God’s. I am not determining the definition for idols or of stealing. God is the standard against everything is judged.
8) The only Man who ever kept the whole law without fault was Jesus. Jesus Christ was 100% God and 100% Man. (Read the four gospels and believe what they say.) Jesus came to this earth to take upon Him the sin of the whole world. He came to die on the cross so that all may have eternal life if they would simply trust and believe on Him. After three days Jesus Christ arose from the grave and was seen by more than 500 of His followers (1 Corinthians 15:6). After 40 days Christ descended into heaven where He is even now sitting on the right hand of the Father.
9) Sometime in the future Christ is coming back to gather the Church to Himself. In the New Testament the Church is described as the bride of Christ. He is coming back again to gather His bride.
The most important decision you could ever make would be to trust Christ as your savior. You can’t just believe He exists, rather you must “put Him on”. If you would like to know more please read the Gospel of John and the Epistle to the Romans. In Romans, especially, Paul outlines the process of salvation/justification. Please read carefully as your eternal future is at stake.
If you would like to talk to someone about trusting Christ please call: (1-888-need-him).
PoG @798: So, what were Jesus’ last words;
a) Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit
b) It is finished
Can’t be both, can it?
@ 785 Proof of God
Proof, Proof, if I promise to read the Bible all the way through without skipping a single begat or slaughter or rule about menstruation, will you read a couple of books on evolution that I or other commenters here can recommend? I will totally do it; I’ve been meaning to anyway. Will you please? It will take you much less time to read a couple of accessible introductions to evolutionary biology than it will take me to read the Bible, and it is one of the most rewarding things to learn about.
If you’d like to get started right away, the Talk.Origins Archive is full of useful information and helpful explanations.
YOUR GOD DOESN’T EXIST, making this a fallacious statement to start with.
Knowledge is a by-product of the mind, which must accurately interpret the environment. No deities needed, no babbles needed, nothing you say is needed anywhere, except in your delusional mind.
Pog
Evidence this claim from the peer reviewed scientific literature. Or shut the fuck up.
POG: “Please forsake your ignorance and truly read the Bible.”
I did and it reconfirmed my atheism.
Proof of God
You have failed.
You keep repeating the same vomit but because it is totally wrong, it doesn’t work.
You have failed your Lord Jesus.
Failed.
Driven in another nail.
Failed.
Be ashamed.
Proof, if God doesn’t change, why do people pray to him to change his mind and his plans?
Why do people pray for rain instead of thanking him for his ineffable way?
Yes, I am sure that you are going to say that you never do that, but why do all the other Christians do that, and why don’t they know better?
And how much Hell do they deserve for their error?
Proof of God
If you paste that list one more time, a troll-alert goes to PZ.
Repeating the same fucking shit over and over again does not make it true.
PROOF, hi! I made some attempt to address the rape issue back on page one. The Bible’s objection to rape and my objection to rape are not the same. I oppose rape on bodily-autonomy grounds; the Bible’s rape rules are based on male ownership of women. Other people have also addressed this. That’s why, under current law, we don’t require that convicted rapists marry their victims (for example). The fact that we both have rules against rape is a false convergence, like the deceptive resemblance of a marsupial “wolf” to true wolves.
Poggie, can you manage even one single proof of your little deity’s existence without your man-made book of myths?
Proof,
When asked which version of the bible you use, you listed these:
Why did you list seven instead of the one you use the most? Or perhaps two?
In any case, what difference does it make which version you use? Do the differences matter? How can they be different, but still all be equally correct?
P.S. I use the RSVCE, because the Deutercanonical books provide some insights into the NT. On the other hand, the KJV has unicorns.
Proof of God:
In addition to Rob Grigjanis’ question @807:
Maybe you could also tell us, out of all those different versions of the Bible you’ve read, which ending to the Gospel of Matthew is the most inerrant-est?
This has been a pretty epic train wreck that’s been phenomenally hard to look away from for whatever reason.
PoG#785:
Where did you get the notion that evolution claims that “nothing can create something”? Because it definitely wasn’t from anyone who legitimately works in any of the various fields of evolutionary science. If your view of evolution is demonstrably false and clearly diverges from what actual evolutionary theory says, then it wouldn’t be surprising if you reach the wrong conclusions about it.
Why do you so consistently and thoroughly dodge all of the legitimate questions thrown at you? You respond to pretty much everything with “because God, shut up,” and apparently can’t even handle the idea that people might honestly hold different beliefs from you. You are going to have to learn to deal with the fact that there are people who, while doing their very best to understand the universe they are presented with in a rational and objective fashion, legitimately and honestly come to the conclusion that there are no gods (as well as people who find that there are god(s) that are different from yours, people who conclude that it is beyond our ability to know for sure, etc.). Other people have (rightly) impugned the character of God as depicted in the Old Testament, but in exchange for not having to truly die I’d seriously consider his team if I could find a way to believe the whole thing is real. Instead for 35 years and counting the silence has been deafening. If your God does exist, he’s done a staggeringly good job of hiding himself and constructing the cosmos in such a way that his nonexistence is completely plausible. If he’s real, he managed to let his book get covered in the fingerprints of mortal men, to look indistinguishable from all the other holy books out there, to contain many things that are demonstrably false, to show every sign of being a document from a particular culture and era.
Also, there’s a HUGE excluded middle between “absolute knowledge/morality” and “utter anarchy.” It’s where most (all) of us live. The idea that without Absolute Morality there is No Morality is as far as I can tell exclusively a thing from certain kinds of Christians, and pretty much no one else in the world has that kind of trouble figuring things out. If for you morality totally falls apart when God is out of the equation, you’re doing something wrong. Not having an objective standard for morality makes things more challenging, but that’s why we keep working at it and getting better. We’re already far better than the ancient Hebrews or early Christians (or any number of other societies from 2,000+ years ago), having become substantially less violent and more egalitarian.
Funny, from so-called sophisticated theologians like Alvin Plantinga, CS Lewis, WLC or Paul Tillich to run of the mill fundies like POC or John A, I have yet to ever hear even a decent philosophical argument or evidence for the existence of god anywhere close to remotely convincing.
Since people have been at this for thousands of years, such a thing likely doesn’t exist or someone way smarter than me would have come up with it by now.
Proof of God, this part is your essential problem:
You have got it into your deluded little mind that you know what other people do or do not know, think and/or believe better than they do. And you have that delusion because you read a book that said everybody knows XXXXX. Your argument falls down because of a simple little question – what if your book is wrong? I can easily consider the opposite proposition, that the Bible is right, and quickly and easily falsify it, not least because the very passage you refer to says that I know God exists, and that’s simply not true, but everything you have said in this thread seems to indicate that you will not even begin to consider the possibility the Bible is wrong. It’s something that you simply point blank refuse to do. If you start from a premise with no real evidence to support it, but refuse to even consider the possibility it’s wrong, you can quickly find yourself spiraling down a rabbit-hole of conclusions that aren’t really based in reality at all.
#805- A. Noyd
Like POG said, obviously I believe that the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore the originals, like God, are inerrant. It would therefore follow that I believe that the Devil exists because the Bible says so.
All in all it boils down to the fact that God exists because without Him knowledge can’t be known to be absolutely true. You say one can know truth through science and logic; Science=”knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation”(Websters Dictionary). Science is the study of what already exists therefore true facts can’t come from the study of science unless you believe in a God of truth and order that allows you to do so. Logic= “a proper or reasonable way of thinking about or understanding something”(Websters Dictionary). Simply put, without a God of reason/logic, you cannot come to any possible logical conclusions.
How does that prove God exists?
I have never understood how people can believe the bible is the inerrant word of god. Even the synoptic gospels of Mathew, Mark and Luke, while being related, have significant differences. They are examples of ancient biographies, a genre that has significant differences to our modern conception of biography. While they usually try to sound objective, ancient biography was largely used as a propaganda tool, they were not concerned with reporting exact quotes or historical truth. Their goal was to present a life, they incorporate fictional elements, the quotations are not actual quotations but are largely created by the author to represent what they believe the subject would say. These are historical documents with limitations and it seems few true believers understand this. The Limits of Ancient Biography is an interesting series of essays dealing with this, or Philip Harland’s podcast series, Early Christian Portraits of Jesus
@ Tomas C:
But you don’t seem to understand what property is. There’s a reason I can’t go into a restaurant and eat without paying. It’s that we as a society agree that the food is their property, and we agree that once they have let me eat some of that food, the bill has become property I owe.
Physically in most restaurants, it’s easy enough to leave without paying. Or it’s easy to go in the back and start gorging myself, or if it isn’t, to start grabbing food from other people’s plates. But you’d stop me, because “defense of property”, and society agrees that stuff isn’t mine.
Well, taxes are the same thing. Just as you don’t eat at a restaurant without paying, you don’t live in society without paying. Because property is defined by social agreement, and society agrees that when you live here, the taxes have become property you owe. It’s not your money to keep; trying to keep it is taking public property, exactly the same way dining and dashing is taking the restaurant’s property.
So by your own principle, the public is entitled to defend its property. Insisting they get their taxes is no more or less an example of force than the restaurant insisting it gets its bill, which I think you probably accept.
impact (#822)
So you mean you worship the devil.
Think I’ve finally caught up to current, though I didn’t read the first page.
Dalilama @658: [Much applause]
—
If the genocidal maniac torture-loving god of the bible is “just,” “holy,” and “perfect,” I think we can just forget using those words in a positive manner ever again. If this god defines morality, he effectively removes any sort of purpose for it aside from possibly informing us what rules he’s made up to decide who suffers for his enjoyment.
Oh, and I never believed in your god, PoG. I did once believe in one god that was taught in my church. That god would have called yours a guise of Satan since “obviously” god wouldn’t be like yours. Then I read the bible, and decided it was too monstrous to be a holy book. When I read it, I saw all the worst parts of humanity celebrated and made into a false idol.
I did eventually get into logical reasons for atheism when I accepted that my old god was just the product of wishful thinking, projecting my desires onto the universe. Along with that realization came the humility that I didn’t need the universe and a designer to retroactively make it fit my ideology, I needed an ideology that would adapt to fit the universe.
@815 — sorry, shouldn’t have said “false” convergence; it’s a partial convergence and a deceptive resemblance.
Thanks for that link, Travis. That’s going to be hours of listening pleasure.
No problem jagwired. It is refreshing to see these topics approached from a historical perspective rather than a theological one and I have found them to be fascinating. BTW: He has released Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society as a pay-what-you-want pdf ebook and I highly recommend it. http://philipharland.com/associations/associations-synagogues-and-congregations-home/download-the-book/
PoG, Impact:
A brief summary of the conversation here
@822
Impact, you were actually able to type the following sentences together and not get an immediate sense that they are utterly incoherent and ludicrous. That’s … impressive.
All in all it boils down to the fact that God exists because without Him knowledge can’t be known to be absolutely true.
1. Knowledge can’t be known to be absolutely true. So this doesn’t prove anything. This is like saying without Santa Claus, kids in different households would get different presents.
2. With God things still can’t be known to be absolutely true.
Science is the study of what already exists therefore true facts can’t come from the study of science unless you believe in a God of truth and order that allows you to do so.
Huh? Does this even make sense in your mind? Okay… let me try to understand. Science is the study of things that already exist… okay …. so they can’t be true because they already exist? … no, sorry. That just doesn’t make any sense.
Seriously. It doesn’t. Try writing it again.
Logic= “a proper or reasonable way of thinking about or understanding something”(Websters Dictionary). Simply put, without a God of reason/logic, you cannot come to any possible logical conclusions.
Uh…. why not? Do I need a god of hunger to eat food. Do I need a god of idiocy and bad decisions to come to a wrong conclusion. Do I need a god of gravity to stay on my couch?
@ Proof of God:
Romans 1 doesn’t say that anyone here believes in a god. At best it claims that once upon a time everyone did, but those people are all dead, and many of us are on a continent they didn’t know about. So when you pretend we’re lying, you’re not even trusting your precious bible over us, you’re just making things up on your own. And as a nice catch-22, assuming we all trust you makes your chances of convincing anyone to trust you even less, to the extent that is possible.
@785
Proof of God
what a word salad response you gave me.
you don’t even attempt to support your assertion in the first section, you don’t make any attempt to connect the vomit of the second sentence to the topic at hand…and then just assert a conclusion as a third sentence.
what a mess.
@806
Proof of God
actually i already told you, i know that i exist.
but please explain how your god is anything but REDUNDANT. do you know that your bank has not been robbed while you weren’t looking? you have uncertainty in your life like we all do, your god is redundant. the best you can do is the best any of us can do, use reasoning. and YOU can still be wrong about things.
#826- A. Noyd
You exist, do I worship you?
Only God is worthy of Worship because he is just that, God.
But you didn’t answer my question where do you get truth without God?
Since it is already established that in this universe knowledge actually CANNOT be known to be absolutely true, this actually proves that God DOES NOT exist.
Thanks for conceding the argument.
You can’t get truth with God either.
When it comes to truth claims, “God” is just a rather dishonest way of saying “I don’t know” when a person is too afraid to admit that he cannot know.
The reality of THIS UNIVERSE is that humans CANNOT know the truth. The best we can do is get arbitrarily close to it, and if we’re REALLY lucky, get an estimate of how likely what we believe is actually close to the truth.
Inventing an imaginary thing called “god” and pretending it can give you access to Truth doesn’t actually mean you get access to Truth. A delusion is not Truth, no matter how fervently you try to believe it.
That is the reality of this world, and it is reality for atheist and theist alike.
Live with it.
impact (#835)
You do!
Nope, you said the terms belief and worship go together. If you believe in the devil, you must worship the devil.
You’ve been given the answer to this a dozen times already. If you were actually here to learn, you wouldn’t still be asking.
Monitor Note:
From The Rules.
Please do not repeat your own text. If you feel compelled, use a link by employing <a href=”url here“> Text describing link here. </a>
@A Noyd:
I don’t disbelieve you, but even though I’ve read this, I sort of missed that assertion. I’d love to see the quote if you can find it. Thanks.
I don’t know which is more pathetic: The fact that these nimrods have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than post this inane codswallop, or that I have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than sit here reading it.
822-woozy
In other words YOU CAN’T KNOW IF ANYTHING IS TRUE! If you say something is not ABSOLUTELY TRUE then you don’t really know at all.
Are you absolutely sure about that?
.
.
I rest my case: by your own statement, you can’t know anything.
Crip Dyke (#840)
It’s from the first 500 comments of this thread. I added some context.
impact (#194): “If I could prove to you, to you satisfaction, that my God of the Bible does indeed exist would you worship Him?”
U Frood (#196): “If your God did exist, I still wouldn’t count him worthy of worship.”
impact: “If you would not believe in my God anyway then why do I need to try to prove Him to you that he exists.”
anteprepro (#224): “Wow, you are fucking unbelievably dishonest. Your question was whether we would worship God if you proved God was real. Worship =/= Believe in.”
impact (#272): “If you actually truly believed (accepted) God then you would worship Him, so the two terms go together. So by admitting that you would not worship God you said that you would not believe (accept) God.”
Mr. Snuffleupagus provides my truth. Without Mr. Snuffleupagus there is no truth , you can know nothing without Mr. Snuffleupagus.
At first only Big Bird believed in Mr. Snuffleupagus. There is no proof of his existence everyone cried, but slowly more and more of the neighbourhood children saw the truth of Mr. Snuffleupagus and in 1985 he revealed himself for all. We also have television footage of Mr. Snuffleupagus. My source of truth clearly exists.
@842
impact
we can make reasonable conclusions.
you are playing the game of saying either 100% certainty or 0% certainty. this is dishonest of you.
again, see my bank example. there are things YOU do not know for certain, so your god is redundant and indeed with god there are still things you must admit you do not know to be absolutely true. face this.
Impact @ 842:
This is where the fundamental disagreement lies between you and us. Nobody here will ever agree to this. You might as well stop wasting your time. Just because we don’t know the “Absolute Truth™” (which doesn’t exist anyway) doesn’t mean we can’t know plenty—and know more all the time.
Many of us here have dedicated our lives to knowing more and more all the time, while you numbnuts seem to be interested only in knowing less and less. It’s sad, really. If you and others like you weren’t pretty successfully trying to destroy my country right now, I could even feel sorry for you. But I don’t. It’s not too much to say I hate you.
I also hate your evil, capricious, genocidal, sadistic, stupid, spiteful, and malicious god. If he did exist and I ever met up with him, I’d kick his ass. I’ve got an iron chariot parked right outside, so I think I’m good to go.
impact
Neither can you as the “source” of your knowledge is a book of contradictory fiction. Absolute knowledge is impossible, reality deals with knowledge “beyond reasonable doubt” or in mathematical terms, to within certain limits of probability. “Absolute knowledge” is a delusion.caused by a lack of critical thinking skills and a lack of education..
So what?
You have a peculiar and sadly limiting mental hang-up over a childish and apparently desperate need for certainty.
But Uncertainty is the reality of this universe. Embrace the thrill of it!
We don’t have to be. In our reality, there are more gradations of surety than just 0 and 1.
to be consistent, impact better not be going around ever saying anything like “i have some money in my bank” because then they would be committing the same error they accuse others of.
just like you can be reasonably certain about your bank, so can we be reasonably certain about the implausibility of your fairy story, and the incoherence of your proposed pixie dust solution to uncertainty.
@849
Amphiox
exactly.
@impact:
What is your definition of “know” or “knowledge”?
It seems you use a very different definition than others.
You really should read this discussion of knowledge, but if you can’t, you should at least acknowledge that your definition of “know” is very much at odds with common definitions such as:
1. be aware of through observation, inquiry, or information.
“most people know that CFCs can damage the ozone layer”
synonyms: be aware, realize, be conscious, be informed;
have knowledge or information concerning.
“I would write to him if I knew his address”
synonyms: have knowledge of, be informed of, be apprised of; More
be absolutely certain or sure about something.
“I just knew it was something I wanted to do”
2. have developed a relationship with (someone) through meeting and spending time with them; be familiar or friendly with.
“he knew and respected Laura”
and for knowledge:
1. facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
“a thirst for knowledge”
2. awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.
“the program had been developed without his knowledge”
@A Noyd:
Thanks for the help. I’m always happy when you’re contributing to a discussion ‘cuz I know that you’re on top of things.
@brianpansky
I was just wanting to check in with you (given this is thunderdome and nothing is off topic) about your thinking on gender. I remember our big conversation about it several months ago, and I know you were in a place of…anxiety? distress? something milder like confusion, but a bit more serious than confusion because it stuck with you and made you really want to sort it out rather than just saying, “oh well, I’m confused” and turning the page?
I was hoping that you’d gotten somewhere better and wondered if you had anything to say that would let me know about your process of learning/thinking about this stuff.
Hey guys!
I figured what’s really wrong with (human) evolution. No, not the standard creationist bable. A real, testable, serious problem. As just witnessed by yours truly in person.
So, we know that human propagate by sex (not butt sex, the type that makes sperm and egg go Berlin wall 1989 kind of sex). The problem with that type of species maintenance is obviously the product, kids. The most unreasonable, annoying, brain dead people (except for Kent Hovind type of creationists, of course). So, well, in the age of 6 month to 24 month those “kids” push their teeth out. An otherwise trivial phenomenon for we all went through that stage of development, but ….. Considering that I have a half-baby half-toddler to attend to right now that is screaming its lungs out to a level the frat boys next door have to tune up their amplifiers, I have one serious concern about evolution. How did our alleged ancestors survive in the savanna with a buck load of miniature sirens in their group calling hyenas and lions and other predators for a late dinner. Or early breakfast, I don’t really know what time is it right now?
Argh.
Y.
Crip Dyke (#852)
Aww, thanks! It’s nice to know I can fake it, anyway. ;D
~*~*~*~*~*~
yubal (#855)
Here’s an article relating to that which at least attempts to be scientific. (I don’t know if their references are credible, but at least they have a ton of academic ones!) Unfortunately, they don’t give much of an answer.
Well Crip Dyke, I haven’t really been worrying too much about it, thanks for asking. I still haven’t read the recommended book, but maybe after my winter classes are over…
Ya, I really am not sure what to say there. The whole thing seemed urgent at the time because I guess it was the first time that gender as a social construct really hit me and seemed clear. It seemed like a veil lifting.
Now that I really think about it again, I guess my understanding still isn’t really settled or comprehensive.
PoG @ 806
Why are you here? No seriously. If you TRULY think that we know god exists but we’re just stubborn and stiff-necked and proud why are you here? What exactly will it get you to argue for the existence of something with people you claim already know that that particular something exists? Are you just doing it for brownie points? Why are you telling us to “forsake our ignorance”? I mean if we know something we aren’t ignorant of it are we? You can’t both be telling us to learn what you say is the truth and say that we know your truth but deliberately refuse it.
Impact @842
Physics tells us that there’s nothing to stop all the oxygen in my room from flying off into a corner and leaving me sucking vacuum. The very idea we can breathe in an appropriately oxygenated environment is not even absolute. Fortunately the odds on something like that happening are smaller than a quark. Those are about the same odds as your god (or any other) possibly existing. And if you’re hedging your bets about your god’s existence on a homeopathic possibility than you’re being very very stupid.
@impact
I swear they’re chat bots. What other explanation could there be for Perry Mason over here to think he’s tricked someone into “admitting” something we’ve been explicitly stating for 1000 posts?
omnicrom
Endlessly repeating religious mantras in public is part of the act. Stop the repetition and the brainwashing might just wear off, leaving you to face cold, hard reality.
@brianpansky:
I do remember that part.
Yeah, that can be a heavy blow, and it can be really uncertain if it knocked off blinders and what you’re suddenly seeing is clear and real… or fried your occipital lobe and what you’re seeing is clearly unreal.
It’s such a different perspective from what we’re taught growing up that it’s hard to integrate. It makes a ton of things make much more sense…but other things that we thought were settled make much less.
Anyway, if you ever do have more thoughts on this, I thought the openness you displayed around your confusion and your search was an excellent example of honest searching through an easily confused batch of data and observations. It was my hope at the time that more people than you were getting something out of it – Pharyngula has far more lurkers than commenters after all. Though you may not be interested and I certainly don’t want to coerce you to do something that you don’t wish, if you do ever follow up, I think seeing a post-facto reflection might be very helpful as well.
@842
Well, actually that only means one can’t know *everything*. But more importantly, So? That was *entirely* my point! We *DON”T* know anything absolutely! Therefore your hypothesis “God must exist or else we wouldn’t know anything absolutely” is utterly pointless *because* we don’t know anything absolutely anyway!
You gave a really simple modus nolens argument.
1) If A than B.
2) A.
Therefore B.
Except that you FORGOT THAT YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY DEMONSTRATE HYPOTHESIS “B”
1) If we can know everything there is a god….
Therefore there is a god
1) If all children get the same presents on christmas there is a santa claus
Therefore there is a santa claus
1) If you were a martian then you’d have green skin
Therefore you have green skin.
Do you notice the one *little* thing that all three of those arguments are missing?
Yes, WE DO NOT KNOW EVERYTHING!!!!!!! That strengthens ****OUR***** argument; not yours!
Your argument
1) If there were no god, we wouldn’t know everything
2) We do not know everything
Hence…..
we can reach no conclusion.
Well, duh! We don’t know if things are absolutely true now ’cause we are disagreeing on them. Would things be different if god existed? Well, according to you god does exist so, no, they wouldn’t be.
We don’t have absolute certainty now. So either god doesn’t assure absolute certainty, or god doesn’t exist.
Which one? It’s *your* stupid argument.
Uh…. right? So …. you’re proving my point? I mean, seriously. What do you think you’ve just demonstrated.
Dear Inaji:
You are, as ever, oblivious and narcissistic. You were the asshole on the Kagin thread.
I posted a lone question mark in reference to a single phrase in the OP. You could have ignored it, just let it sit there vaguely like everybody else. Or if for some reason you cared, you could have asked what it was supposed to mean. Instead you jumped to an assumed maximally uncharitable conclusion and posted an OT personal attack.
Asshole.
(the first person who calls this a ‘whine’ or a ‘complaint’ can go jump in a lake; I don’t care about being attacked. I just can’t let stand the eye-rollingly oblivious self-righteousness that followed.)
Tangentially, am I the only one who remembers how little-respected Kagin was when he blogged here? Pretty much completely ignored (as comment counts will show), except for this and its sequel, and of course this. And the gun stuff.
Condolences to his family and friends are one thing, but don’t pretend you liked him. (I’m talking to certain commenters, not the ECO.)
Tomas C, I notice that you can easily identify the logical flaws in what our current batch of godbots are saying. Dare I ask if that doesn’t suggest something to you ….?
Actually I’m kind of serious here: just as a thought experiment, just for a few minutes, if you take a copy of all your posts and replace “free market” with “god” (or alternatively take all the godbots’ posts and replace “god” with “the free market” and “bible” with “george ought to help” or whatever text or video you personally find most convincing) and compare the logic and the way the “arguments” (I think you’ll find they’re actually bald assertions) are put … you might notice something?
That’s why they’re so very, very scared. They can’t allow themselves to think, even for a second, because it endangers the entire edifice of their lives.
Uhm, sorry CD
I noticed it the moment it posted. I wished there was a 30 seconds editing window…
Thomas C.
You got it the wrong way round. Since I didn’t believe in any gods in the first place they would have needed evidence to convince me of their existence in the first place.
The first was “god is love”, which obviously collided with the state of the world.
Then it was sophisticated bullshittery, transcendental yadda yadda, how the universe could not be without god. Not convincing either.
When I finally enountered creationists I was more shocked by their ignorance than anything else.
mikeyb
Which raises a question: If PoG saw a bear attacking a child, would he try to save the child? How could he know that this bear wasn’t sent by god in order to punish the sinful child for some horrible sin like not eating their greens?
PoG
Does not compute.
Just because I can be wrong about some things doesn’t mean I can’t know other things. I’m working with probabilities every day. I don’t know that putting my foot down on the break will slow the car enough so I will stop at the red light. After all a marten could have chewed the cables in the night or there could be another malfunctioning. But I am reasonable confident that it will indeed work so I get into the car and drive to work. Where does the need og a deity arise in that scenario?
Like pi=3?
So much for being allmighty…
Please consider that there is as little evidence for your Jesus as there is for your god…
Which still leaves me unsure if killing a few million people is right or wrong. Clearly some of them are asking for it….
That’s basically true for a glass of water
There is no god but Allah and Muhamed is his prophet!
I said you LIKE celery. Period!
How can something that is flawless and perfect fuck up so badly?
Let’s get back to my car above. I take the car to the mechanic, who does maintenance and tells me that everything is in perfect condition. At the next crossroads the breaks fail and I have an accident. Can the mechanic have been right?
Martin Luther’s
U Frood
THIS
And whenever a fight was truely won against the religious powers they did a full 180° swing and declared that this was what the christian god wanted all along. End of slavery! No more divine kings! Votes for women! Interracial marrigae! I will live long enough to see them cheer on gay marriage, mark my words.
++++
Somehow PoG reminds me of my children who will sometimes claim and swear under tears that it was really their stuffed dog who peed in their bed and that I am therefore utterly unfair in making them change the sheets.
@mikeyb
To be fair , I think that’s due mostly to the “no universally compelling arguments in philosophy” thing. I think any worldview in general (if you’re a naturalist or idealist or anything) tends to be problematic the same way.
@Travis
From what I’ve read the educated believers like Licona , Bauckham and NT Wright who study the history tend to acknowledge the fact that they are bioi.
Out of curiousity , have you read any of the cultural anthropological stuff of the New Testament world? Malina has a lot of great stuff. The way ancients thought was really very different from the way modern people think and that shows a lot in the bible.
@Gillel
Well the prophet Jesus from Palestine is pretty well established as a historical figure. You should be asking for evidence he is divine.
Is that the ‘free’ version in Germany , the way the King James Version is in the English speaking world.
No, he isn’t. Even many mainstream biblical historians acknowledge that the methodology in the field is utter shit. Nobody using anything resembling a reliable methodology will call the historicity of Jesus “well established.”
@opposablethumbs
I just looked at the arguments and started questioning the big government dogma. I honestly felt that there were better ways to go about things than threaten peaceful people for money. I think guys have shown that the free market leads to more prosperity and freedom for the nation.
You should check out libertarianism. There are many moral and economic reasons to look at it. Just ask yourself if there are better ways to go about things than threaten peaceful people for money
@Seven of mine
So what ‘methodology’ are you using to conclude Jesus never existed and how is it more reliable than the methodology used by mainstream historians?
Tomas, it’s really amazing how, in one post you can be completely coherent and, the second the subject turns to libertarianism, variations the phrase “it’s immoral to threaten peaceful people for money” become the entirety of your vocabulary.
@868 Tomas
Check out Richard Carrier’s blog. He’s written extensively on the subject and his blog contains tons of links to other blogs and book recommendations, etc.
The TL;DR version is that biblical historians arrive at vastly different conclusions about who Jesus was all from applying the same methodology to the same evidence. A sound methodology doesn’t do that. It may not produce identical conclusions, but the conclusions it does produce will all converge on the same point.
NEW THREAD.
Jebus, but Goof of Prod is an idiot.