Hypothetical question for my fellow atheists

[Spare_change]

In other words there was no "miracle"; just an optical illusion. Not proof of anything.

So you dismiss it without really looking into it. That's the typical atheist reaction, I thought you were different, but guess not.

I did look into it. And your own admission is that the dancing sun is no different than a rainbow. There is nothing miraculous about a rainbow. It is nothing more than an optical illusion.

I mean, you can back this up, and begin with the appearance of the Virgin Mary". It's rather important to note that the "appearance" occurred with small children - impressionable, and highly imaginative. Tell me, do you remember the Salem Witch trials? It started much the same way. Young, impressionable, imaginative children all claiming to have had very similar circumstances. As the trials continued it became socially important to have "experienced" the terrors of the "Witch". Suggestibility, combined with peer pressure, and before long you have hysteria over witchcraft that wasn't happening. There are many cases in history of this same type of shared imagined experience.

As for the dancing sun, itself, it was nothing more than an optical illusion caused by thousands of people looking up at the sky, hoping, expecting, and even praying for some sign from God. It is of course dangerous to stare directly at the sun, and to avoid permanently damaging their eyesight, those at Fátima that day were looking up in the sky around the sun, which, if you do it long enough, can give the illusion of the sun moving as the eye muscles tire.

Sorry to disappoint. There are very few, if any, "miracles", outside of the Bible, which is highly suspect, that have ever happened throughout history, that do not have perfectly rational explanations. I'm sorry that I wasn't wowed by your dancing sun, but it really wasn't all that remarkable.

Since when is a rainbow an optical illusion? You know something about color bands, based on wavelength, thru a medium that seems to have escaped scientists for centuries?

Apparently you don't know what an optical illusion is...

Indeed, a rainbow is an optical illusion. It appears to be "at a certain distance", when it is really the effect of all the water droplets in your line of sight that are at a certain angle to the light source.

Let the squawkers squawk.

So, you accept that the rainbow exists? Or not? Of course, I guess that depends on your definition of "rainbow", wouldn't you think?

Man, it truly is boring talking with dolts who choose not to actually discuss the issue, but merely try to find different ways to phrase the same thought, and then pretend that the rephrasing constitutes proof that the original phase was accurate. Mental gymnastics for idiots, I guess .....

 

[Czernobog]

Question. Since the whole world is illuminated by the same sun, how is it that this "miracle" was only visible in one place, by one group of people?

Because the sun did not actually move. It was an image of the sun, visible to only some. Not everyone there saw it happen.

In other words there was no "miracle"; just an optical illusion. Not proof of anything.

By definition ---- if there was proof, it couldn't be a miracle.

Amazing how you try to pervert the English language in order to support an unsupportable supposition.

Well, you should certainly explain to Blackrook that he is clueless about the nature of miracles, then. After all, he is the one who claimed the Fatima Sun Dance was "proof" of God's existence.

Proof of God's existence CAN be manifested in a miracle ... but that only presumes that you accept the act AS a miracle.

God's existence is NOT the miracle.

never claimed it was, and your statement is completely devoid of reason. What you basically just said is, "If you believe something is a miracle, then it's a miracle. If not, then it wasn't,".

Sooo...what if I think something is a miracle, but you don't. Does that make it a miracle, or a not miracle?

Lemme guess...It makes it a miracle for me, but not a miracle for you. Right?

 

[Spare_change]

Because the sun did not actually move. It was an image of the sun, visible to only some. Not everyone there saw it happen.

In other words there was no "miracle"; just an optical illusion. Not proof of anything.

By definition ---- if there was proof, it couldn't be a miracle.

Amazing how you try to pervert the English language in order to support an unsupportable supposition.

Well, you should certainly explain to Blackrook that he is clueless about the nature of miracles, then. After all, he is the one who claimed the Fatima Sun Dance was "proof" of God's existence.

Proof of God's existence CAN be manifested in a miracle ... but that only presumes that you accept the act AS a miracle.

God's existence is NOT the miracle.

never claimed it was, and your statement is completely devoid of reason. What you basically just said is, "If you believe something is a miracle, then it's a miracle. If not, then it wasn't,".

Sooo...what if I think something is a miracle, but you don't. Does that make it a miracle, or a not miracle?

Lemme guess...It makes it a miracle for me, but not a miracle for you. Right?

Perversion of the English language, again?

I never said that if "If you believe something is a miracle, then it's a miracle. If not, then it wasn't".

But, I can understand why you choose to think that's what was said. Convenient for you, isn't it? Intellectually dishonest, but convenient.

I guess, if you prefer convenience over truth, it works for you.

 

[Syriusly]

Thinking that free will is an illusion- is an illusion.

hmm, no, it is, in fact, an illusion. You are not actually in conscious control of your choices. Now that we have figured out how to test this, we get the same results every single time.

That too is an illusion.

The empirical results are an illusion, eh? fascinating. Are you going to start waving a pocketwatch, and then ask me for $100?

i haven't seen any empirical results- all I have seen is your unsubstantiated claims- less substantial than even an illusion.

That's because you have not looked. I invite you to do so.

Your invitation is as ethereal as your claims.

 

[Slyhunter]

In other words there was no "miracle"; just an optical illusion. Not proof of anything.

So you dismiss it without really looking into it. That's the typical atheist reaction, I thought you were different, but guess not.

I did look into it. And your own admission is that the dancing sun is no different than a rainbow. There is nothing miraculous about a rainbow. It is nothing more than an optical illusion.

I mean, you can back this up, and begin with the appearance of the Virgin Mary". It's rather important to note that the "appearance" occurred with small children - impressionable, and highly imaginative. Tell me, do you remember the Salem Witch trials? It started much the same way. Young, impressionable, imaginative children all claiming to have had very similar circumstances. As the trials continued it became socially important to have "experienced" the terrors of the "Witch". Suggestibility, combined with peer pressure, and before long you have hysteria over witchcraft that wasn't happening. There are many cases in history of this same type of shared imagined experience.

As for the dancing sun, itself, it was nothing more than an optical illusion caused by thousands of people looking up at the sky, hoping, expecting, and even praying for some sign from God. It is of course dangerous to stare directly at the sun, and to avoid permanently damaging their eyesight, those at Fátima that day were looking up in the sky around the sun, which, if you do it long enough, can give the illusion of the sun moving as the eye muscles tire.

Sorry to disappoint. There are very few, if any, "miracles", outside of the Bible, which is highly suspect, that have ever happened throughout history, that do not have perfectly rational explanations. I'm sorry that I wasn't wowed by your dancing sun, but it really wasn't all that remarkable.

Since when is a rainbow an optical illusion? You know something about color bands, based on wavelength, thru a medium that seems to have escaped scientists for centuries?

Apparently you don't know what an optical illusion is...

Nor do you .... if you are so scientifically naive to claim that a rainbow is an optical illusion, I'm afraid we have nothing to discuss.

it is an optical illusion created by wave lengths of light passing through droplets of water.

 

[sealybobo]

So, I've a hypothetical for you guys that I am curious about. I maintain that my atheism is a premise, not a conclusion. When I say, "God does not exist", I am presenting a falsifiable premise that is only awaiting objective, verifiable evidence.

Now, with that in mind, let us say that evidence is discovered tomorrow. Now only do we have absolute proof of the existence of God, but we even have absolute evidence that the Christian version of God exists. Could you just "fall in line"? Could you just "become" a Christian.

See, I don't think I could. If we suddenly had the objective evidence necessary to prove that the Christian God exists, that would mean that we, also, have to accept that the Bible is not just a book of stories, and is, in fact, an accurate record of the nature of that God. And that record indicates that he drown the entire race, as far as man understood it to be at that time. This God demanded his favourites to commit genocide...twice. This God chose one person, and intentionally made his life miserable, just for sport (a wager with Lucifer). In short, the Bible portrays a God that is a sociopath.

I don't know that, even with irrefutable evidence that the Christian God exists, that I could become a follower of that God.

I have always said that, given evidence,. I would change my position from atheism to one of theism. However, if I learned that the Christian God was the "God of Creation", I don't think that theism would be a respectful one. I think my position would have to be, "Okay. God exists...and he's a dick," and would accept whatever consequences taking that position would engender.

So, what about you guys? If we suddenly had evidence that Christians had it right all along, could you just become "Good Little Christians"?

If there really was a heaven where I would see my mom again I could live my life for the lord. I'd be a liberal Christian of course.

 

[sealybobo]

With all due respect, the entire premise of this thread makes about as much sense as arguing whether or not Superman could beat up Ironman, or not.

Translation of the OP; "I refuse to believe in a gentricidal God that allowed the big bad wolf to eat grandma, even if he exists."

C'mon now, you don't have to admit that your premise is ridiculous for other people to notice.

I think the point is that even if god appeared and was real and actually existed if you asked him if Christianity was real he'd say no. Clearly he didn't write that. It's obviously a man made book.

Just look at the Ten Commandments. Honor your mother, honor me, don't worship idols, don't fuck your neighbors wife, steal, lie.

These were all man made problems so men wrote the Bible's to address those problems. God had better things to do

 

[sakinago]

So, I've a hypothetical for you guys that I am curious about. I maintain that my atheism is a premise, not a conclusion. When I say, "God does not exist", I am presenting a falsifiable premise that is only awaiting objective, verifiable evidence.

Now, with that in mind, let us say that evidence is discovered tomorrow. Now only do we have absolute proof of the existence of God, but we even have absolute evidence that the Christian version of God exists. Could you just "fall in line"? Could you just "become" a Christian.

See, I don't think I could. If we suddenly had the objective evidence necessary to prove that the Christian God exists, that would mean that we, also, have to accept that the Bible is not just a book of stories, and is, in fact, an accurate record of the nature of that God. And that record indicates that he drown the entire race, as far as man understood it to be at that time. This God demanded his favourites to commit genocide...twice. This God chose one person, and intentionally made his life miserable, just for sport (a wager with Lucifer). In short, the Bible portrays a God that is a sociopath.

I don't know that, even with irrefutable evidence that the Christian God exists, that I could become a follower of that God.

I have always said that, given evidence,. I would change my position from atheism to one of theism. However, if I learned that the Christian God was the "God of Creation", I don't think that theism would be a respectful one. I think my position would have to be, "Okay. God exists...and he's a dick," and would accept whatever consequences taking that position would engender.

So, what about you guys? If we suddenly had evidence that Christians had it right all along, could you just become "Good Little Christians"?

Kind of a silly hypo, but if there was proof of Christian god...and you chose not to follow, you’d be accepting terrible eternal damnation to hell, lake of fire type torture never ending. I doubt that you’d accept that because of a bunch of people you don’t even know who got flooded out thousands of years ago, that’s quite the “moral” stance. You also are personifying something that can’t be personified, it’s an all powerful being that created space, time, and matter to fill up space time...not bound by its own creation. Who also created morality, to which you’d probably have to admit that something that created a universe we can’t even fathom probably knows a bit more about the morality it created vs its own creation...that does a lot of clearly immoral things over its very short history. Your thinking of god as a leader, a president, playing with chess pieces, when if you can’t even fathom the creation itself, how could you fathom the creator. We humans personify stuff that really can’t be personified at all, like our dogs, other animals, mother earth, etc. We find human faces in the bark on trees, the moon, toast, etc just because that’s the way we are wired. How many times have you heard someone get angry/disgusted with lions because when a new male takes over he eats all the young. Or were grossed out when our dogs eat their own poo. Or we say our dog is giving us kisses when they lick us. That’s us interpreting human action through non human beings.

Two problems. First, one's moral principles are utterly useless, if they abandon them the moment it becomes uncomfortable, or even dangerous, to not do so. As someone once said, "Someone who will not stand for something, will stand for anything," We either have moral principles, or we don't. Jim's Rules #4: The only thing I have that is truly mine is my integrity. No one can take that from me; I can only choose to give it away. A corollary to that rule is that once given away, it is extremely difficult to get back. So, yeah. Even under threat of Hell, I would stand by my principles.

Second, The defence you are giving God is the Nixon defence: "When I do it, that makes it okay,"; "....not bound by its own creation...". See, I have a problem with that. If you are not bound by your own rules, then why the fuck should I be? After all, the Bible presents God as a leader. Shepard, "lead us not...", over, and over, he is presented as a leader to be respected, and admired. Sorry. Not if he is a leader who thinks he is above the very morals to which he will hold me accountable.

No you misinterpret my point there (with your second point). Considering how much you do not know compared to an all powerful creator. How would you know that the decision he made was wrong (remember time does not exist in that realm), so I couldn’t even venture to suppose that a god flooded the earth, and it was for a good reason that we cannot fathom...but that’d be the best reason I could give you. I could go with the farmer and the pigeon scenario, where there are pigeons who are hanging around a farmhouse for the little bit of warmth it provides, a farmer sees them and knows that they’ll freeze to death when the temp drops crazy low at night, so he opens the door to his barn for them, for them to stay and survive the night. They don’t go in BC they can’t put 2 and 2 together. He then tries to leave food by the barn door to bait them, they don’t go, BC they want to stay by the little bit of warmth that’s been keeping them alive thus far. So he tries to chase and herd them into the barn, they fly away and scatter, he throws stuff at them, but nothing he does can make the pigeons understand that he’s trying to help them and save their lives inside the barn. So wouldn’t it seem pretty silly of the pigeons to claim their morality is superior to that of the farmers, and characterize this farmer as a dickhead chasing them away from the warmth (or as pigeons would think, predator we need to escape from). Which is kind of what you are doing in this hypo, even if the Christian god was proven, that god is loving, and fatherly, and sees and knows all, and knows what’s best for us, even though we are clueless to know what that means...according to the Christian bible.

Okay. Now you're presenting the "God works in mysterious ways" defence. That isn't sufficient. That is just claiming that the means justify the ends; they don't. Ever. Once you claim they do, then you can justify any of a number of atrocities in the name of "the greater good". And your justification for God even goes a step further. It is, "I know something you don't". Yes, I snapped your baby's neck. But you can't be angry with me, or demand that I justify my actions, because "I know something you don't", and I am not under any obligation to tell you what that something is.

That's absurd.

Again you misrepresent the argument, this isn’t a god works in mysterious way argument, it is the disparaging levels knowledge between us and a theoretical god can’t even be compared. A.I. at one point will have an IQ of 10,000, that will make our smartest look like children...god would make that A.I. Look like children. Your talking about trying to debate morality to the thing that created everything, and thinking you could win, even though that thing gave you the free will to debate it on purpose...the hubris is incredible. It would be just as incredible if you’d try to debate the AI with a 10,000 IQ. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE BRAINPOWER. You’re better off debating aliens on FTL travel...

 

[sakinago]

What if you could be shown that the image of the nature of God according to a literal interpretation conceals the nature of a living being with a nature not unlike yourself according to a deeper more thoughtful interpretation of the words used,not to mention more accurate translations as in the whole i am a jealous god thing...?

I am not asking if you would worship him but if you would conform to his teaching, which would amount to asking you if you would follow your own advice...

It couldn't. 1 Samuel, Chapter 15. There is simply no way to interpret that as anything less that the God of Christianity commanding genocide. That alone, makes the God of Christians unworthy of worship to me.

Ahem, that was not the God of the NT....

Nope. You don't get to do that. You do not get to separate the two. The God of the new Testament is the God of the old Testament. that is the reason that Christians included the Old testament in the Bible. Christians themselves tell us that the Old Testament is there to reveal the nature of the God they worship. You don't get to pretend that isn't the case, every time the old Testament reveals some element of that nature that you find uncomfortable.

You are wrong. There is a stark contrast between God as described in the OT according to the most ignorant superficial literal interpretation possible and God as described by Jesus who only had the OT to read. In the OT Jesus found a hidden God not necessarily directly connected to the literal meaning of the words used.

If you don't look and look and keep on looking you will never find him.


"The kingdom of Heaven is like hidden treasure lying buried in a field. The man who found it, buried it again..."

Then you negate half of the Christian Bible. What purpose is there for the Old Testament? Why should we feel obligated to any of it, ass it is completely unrelated to the new Testament?

No you do not negate it at all, obviously if the Bible was true, god felt the need to send himself down as an ambassador and do a lot of teaching

 

[cnm]

Meanwhile you and your 'fellow atheists', lol, don't even have enough sense to be embarrassed.

As to the theme of the continuation of sacrifice of sons, I refer to Abraham's command from YHWH to sacrifice his son to YHWH as being in concert with YHWH's sacrifice of his own son. I see a clear pattern even if you do not, the 'two' gods having consistent behaviour.

 

[badger2]

Abraham was suffering from Saturnian tightness. How can we forget a flaming Oedipus concerning this type of sacrifice? "Father, can't you see I'm burning?" (Freud)

 

[Czernobog]

In other words there was no "miracle"; just an optical illusion. Not proof of anything.

By definition ---- if there was proof, it couldn't be a miracle.

Amazing how you try to pervert the English language in order to support an unsupportable supposition.

Well, you should certainly explain to Blackrook that he is clueless about the nature of miracles, then. After all, he is the one who claimed the Fatima Sun Dance was "proof" of God's existence.

Proof of God's existence CAN be manifested in a miracle ... but that only presumes that you accept the act AS a miracle.

God's existence is NOT the miracle.

never claimed it was, and your statement is completely devoid of reason. What you basically just said is, "If you believe something is a miracle, then it's a miracle. If not, then it wasn't,".

Sooo...what if I think something is a miracle, but you don't. Does that make it a miracle, or a not miracle?

Lemme guess...It makes it a miracle for me, but not a miracle for you. Right?

Perversion of the English language, again?

I never said that if "If you believe something is a miracle, then it's a miracle. If not, then it wasn't".

But, I can understand why you choose to think that's what was said. Convenient for you, isn't it? Intellectually dishonest, but convenient.

I guess, if you prefer convenience over truth, it works for you.

So how about you explain the highlighted portion of your statement oh great intellect:

"Proof of God's existence CAN be manifested in a miracle ... but that only presumes that you accept the act AS a miracle."

 

[Czernobog]

So you dismiss it without really looking into it. That's the typical atheist reaction, I thought you were different, but guess not.

I did look into it. And your own admission is that the dancing sun is no different than a rainbow. There is nothing miraculous about a rainbow. It is nothing more than an optical illusion.

I mean, you can back this up, and begin with the appearance of the Virgin Mary". It's rather important to note that the "appearance" occurred with small children - impressionable, and highly imaginative. Tell me, do you remember the Salem Witch trials? It started much the same way. Young, impressionable, imaginative children all claiming to have had very similar circumstances. As the trials continued it became socially important to have "experienced" the terrors of the "Witch". Suggestibility, combined with peer pressure, and before long you have hysteria over witchcraft that wasn't happening. There are many cases in history of this same type of shared imagined experience.

As for the dancing sun, itself, it was nothing more than an optical illusion caused by thousands of people looking up at the sky, hoping, expecting, and even praying for some sign from God. It is of course dangerous to stare directly at the sun, and to avoid permanently damaging their eyesight, those at Fátima that day were looking up in the sky around the sun, which, if you do it long enough, can give the illusion of the sun moving as the eye muscles tire.

Sorry to disappoint. There are very few, if any, "miracles", outside of the Bible, which is highly suspect, that have ever happened throughout history, that do not have perfectly rational explanations. I'm sorry that I wasn't wowed by your dancing sun, but it really wasn't all that remarkable.

Since when is a rainbow an optical illusion? You know something about color bands, based on wavelength, thru a medium that seems to have escaped scientists for centuries?

Apparently you don't know what an optical illusion is...

Indeed, a rainbow is an optical illusion. It appears to be "at a certain distance", when it is really the effect of all the water droplets in your line of sight that are at a certain angle to the light source.

Let the squawkers squawk.

So, you accept that the rainbow exists? Or not? Of course, I guess that depends on your definition of "rainbow", wouldn't you think?

Man, it truly is boring talking with dolts who choose not to actually discuss the issue, but merely try to find different ways to phrase the same thought, and then pretend that the rephrasing constitutes proof that the original phase was accurate. Mental gymnastics for idiots, I guess .....

A rainbow is a multicolored arc made by light striking water droplets.

The most familiar type rainbow is produced when sunlight strikes raindrops in front of a viewer at a precise angle (42 degrees). Rainbows can also be viewed around fog, sea spray, or waterfalls.

A rainbow is an optical illusion—it does not actually exist in a specific spot in the sky. The appearance of a rainbow depends on where you're standing and where the sun (or other source of light) is shining.

rainbow

​

 

[Czernobog]

So, I've a hypothetical for you guys that I am curious about. I maintain that my atheism is a premise, not a conclusion. When I say, "God does not exist", I am presenting a falsifiable premise that is only awaiting objective, verifiable evidence.

Now, with that in mind, let us say that evidence is discovered tomorrow. Now only do we have absolute proof of the existence of God, but we even have absolute evidence that the Christian version of God exists. Could you just "fall in line"? Could you just "become" a Christian.

See, I don't think I could. If we suddenly had the objective evidence necessary to prove that the Christian God exists, that would mean that we, also, have to accept that the Bible is not just a book of stories, and is, in fact, an accurate record of the nature of that God. And that record indicates that he drown the entire race, as far as man understood it to be at that time. This God demanded his favourites to commit genocide...twice. This God chose one person, and intentionally made his life miserable, just for sport (a wager with Lucifer). In short, the Bible portrays a God that is a sociopath.

I don't know that, even with irrefutable evidence that the Christian God exists, that I could become a follower of that God.

I have always said that, given evidence,. I would change my position from atheism to one of theism. However, if I learned that the Christian God was the "God of Creation", I don't think that theism would be a respectful one. I think my position would have to be, "Okay. God exists...and he's a dick," and would accept whatever consequences taking that position would engender.

So, what about you guys? If we suddenly had evidence that Christians had it right all along, could you just become "Good Little Christians"?

Kind of a silly hypo, but if there was proof of Christian god...and you chose not to follow, you’d be accepting terrible eternal damnation to hell, lake of fire type torture never ending. I doubt that you’d accept that because of a bunch of people you don’t even know who got flooded out thousands of years ago, that’s quite the “moral” stance. You also are personifying something that can’t be personified, it’s an all powerful being that created space, time, and matter to fill up space time...not bound by its own creation. Who also created morality, to which you’d probably have to admit that something that created a universe we can’t even fathom probably knows a bit more about the morality it created vs its own creation...that does a lot of clearly immoral things over its very short history. Your thinking of god as a leader, a president, playing with chess pieces, when if you can’t even fathom the creation itself, how could you fathom the creator. We humans personify stuff that really can’t be personified at all, like our dogs, other animals, mother earth, etc. We find human faces in the bark on trees, the moon, toast, etc just because that’s the way we are wired. How many times have you heard someone get angry/disgusted with lions because when a new male takes over he eats all the young. Or were grossed out when our dogs eat their own poo. Or we say our dog is giving us kisses when they lick us. That’s us interpreting human action through non human beings.

Two problems. First, one's moral principles are utterly useless, if they abandon them the moment it becomes uncomfortable, or even dangerous, to not do so. As someone once said, "Someone who will not stand for something, will stand for anything," We either have moral principles, or we don't. Jim's Rules #4: The only thing I have that is truly mine is my integrity. No one can take that from me; I can only choose to give it away. A corollary to that rule is that once given away, it is extremely difficult to get back. So, yeah. Even under threat of Hell, I would stand by my principles.

Second, The defence you are giving God is the Nixon defence: "When I do it, that makes it okay,"; "....not bound by its own creation...". See, I have a problem with that. If you are not bound by your own rules, then why the fuck should I be? After all, the Bible presents God as a leader. Shepard, "lead us not...", over, and over, he is presented as a leader to be respected, and admired. Sorry. Not if he is a leader who thinks he is above the very morals to which he will hold me accountable.

No you misinterpret my point there (with your second point). Considering how much you do not know compared to an all powerful creator. How would you know that the decision he made was wrong (remember time does not exist in that realm), so I couldn’t even venture to suppose that a god flooded the earth, and it was for a good reason that we cannot fathom...but that’d be the best reason I could give you. I could go with the farmer and the pigeon scenario, where there are pigeons who are hanging around a farmhouse for the little bit of warmth it provides, a farmer sees them and knows that they’ll freeze to death when the temp drops crazy low at night, so he opens the door to his barn for them, for them to stay and survive the night. They don’t go in BC they can’t put 2 and 2 together. He then tries to leave food by the barn door to bait them, they don’t go, BC they want to stay by the little bit of warmth that’s been keeping them alive thus far. So he tries to chase and herd them into the barn, they fly away and scatter, he throws stuff at them, but nothing he does can make the pigeons understand that he’s trying to help them and save their lives inside the barn. So wouldn’t it seem pretty silly of the pigeons to claim their morality is superior to that of the farmers, and characterize this farmer as a dickhead chasing them away from the warmth (or as pigeons would think, predator we need to escape from). Which is kind of what you are doing in this hypo, even if the Christian god was proven, that god is loving, and fatherly, and sees and knows all, and knows what’s best for us, even though we are clueless to know what that means...according to the Christian bible.

Okay. Now you're presenting the "God works in mysterious ways" defence. That isn't sufficient. That is just claiming that the means justify the ends; they don't. Ever. Once you claim they do, then you can justify any of a number of atrocities in the name of "the greater good". And your justification for God even goes a step further. It is, "I know something you don't". Yes, I snapped your baby's neck. But you can't be angry with me, or demand that I justify my actions, because "I know something you don't", and I am not under any obligation to tell you what that something is.

That's absurd.

Again you misrepresent the argument, this isn’t a god works in mysterious way argument, it is the disparaging levels knowledge between us and a theoretical god can’t even be compared. A.I. at one point will have an IQ of 10,000, that will make our smartest look like children...god would make that A.I. Look like children. Your talking about trying to debate morality to the thing that created everything, and thinking you could win, even though that thing gave you the free will to debate it on purpose...the hubris is incredible. It would be just as incredible if you’d try to debate the AI with a 10,000 IQ. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE BRAINPOWER. You’re better off debating aliens on FTL travel...

Sooo...God's just too smart for us? How does his being super duper smart negate his ignoring his own moral code?

 

[Czernobog]

It couldn't. 1 Samuel, Chapter 15. There is simply no way to interpret that as anything less that the God of Christianity commanding genocide. That alone, makes the God of Christians unworthy of worship to me.

Ahem, that was not the God of the NT....

Nope. You don't get to do that. You do not get to separate the two. The God of the new Testament is the God of the old Testament. that is the reason that Christians included the Old testament in the Bible. Christians themselves tell us that the Old Testament is there to reveal the nature of the God they worship. You don't get to pretend that isn't the case, every time the old Testament reveals some element of that nature that you find uncomfortable.

You are wrong. There is a stark contrast between God as described in the OT according to the most ignorant superficial literal interpretation possible and God as described by Jesus who only had the OT to read. In the OT Jesus found a hidden God not necessarily directly connected to the literal meaning of the words used.

If you don't look and look and keep on looking you will never find him.


"The kingdom of Heaven is like hidden treasure lying buried in a field. The man who found it, buried it again..."

Then you negate half of the Christian Bible. What purpose is there for the Old Testament? Why should we feel obligated to any of it, ass it is completely unrelated to the new Testament?

No you do not negate it at all, obviously if the Bible was true, god felt the need to send himself down as an ambassador and do a lot of teaching

Either the God of the Old Testament is the God of the new Testament, or it isn't. If it is, then you have to reconcile that God with the new Testament God. If it isn't, then the the inclusion of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible must be explained.

 

[sakinago]

Ahem, that was not the God of the NT....

Nope. You don't get to do that. You do not get to separate the two. The God of the new Testament is the God of the old Testament. that is the reason that Christians included the Old testament in the Bible. Christians themselves tell us that the Old Testament is there to reveal the nature of the God they worship. You don't get to pretend that isn't the case, every time the old Testament reveals some element of that nature that you find uncomfortable.

You are wrong. There is a stark contrast between God as described in the OT according to the most ignorant superficial literal interpretation possible and God as described by Jesus who only had the OT to read. In the OT Jesus found a hidden God not necessarily directly connected to the literal meaning of the words used.

If you don't look and look and keep on looking you will never find him.


"The kingdom of Heaven is like hidden treasure lying buried in a field. The man who found it, buried it again..."

Then you negate half of the Christian Bible. What purpose is there for the Old Testament? Why should we feel obligated to any of it, ass it is completely unrelated to the new Testament?

No you do not negate it at all, obviously if the Bible was true, god felt the need to send himself down as an ambassador and do a lot of teaching

Either the God of the Old Testament is the God of the new Testament, or it isn't. If it is, then you have to reconcile that God with the new Testament God. If it isn't, then the the inclusion of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible must be explained.

It is, but there is one perspective of god (again this all written/handed down through spoken word by men) without the ambassador of god/god himself (which would be jesus according to Christianity) then there is another perspective of god after the ambassador figure. If there is the Christian god, why else would it feel the need to send down himself in human form and travel and do a lot of teaching? Unless that god had felt that something got lost in translation through its prophets and following generations. Both testaments state the unmatched goodness, wisdom, purity, holiness, whatever of god...so if the Christian god was prove, and ipso facto the Bible as well, you’d sill have the problem that then this god is indeed morally superior, good, loving, holy, wise, pure and whatever other positive adjective you want to insert, to a much more superior degree than anything you could ever imagine...which would most certainly mean that you’re idea of morality is obviously wrong. Which is why this is such a silly scenario, your essentially saying “if i was completely and 100% proven wrong about The world being flat, I still wouldn’t believe it to be round because of x,y,z.” It’s a silly scenario because you don’t believe in a god anyway, and on top of that, your view of the Christian god and Christianity in general is kind of an adolescent one, as expressed by your scenario, and plenty of other statements. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. Your pretty much just having a conversation with yourself on why you don’t believe in god, which feel free to do so, but it’s usefulness is limited to people who think the way you do...and that’s pretty much it. The worldview of a pigeon is going to be understood by another pigeon, but if that pigeon were to fly up to some squirrels, and say why do you guys bury your nuts, you can just fly over to this parking lot and grab some fries that people drop, well that conversation doesn’t really work, because the pigeon doesn’t understand the importance of burying nuts to a squirrel, or why nuts are important to a squirrels diet. Now that’s a Bad analogy, I’m just trying to illustrate the point of how this is a silly conversation, since Christians view this scenario as a childish view of God, By trying to simplify and God.

 

[sakinago]

Kind of a silly hypo, but if there was proof of Christian god...and you chose not to follow, you’d be accepting terrible eternal damnation to hell, lake of fire type torture never ending. I doubt that you’d accept that because of a bunch of people you don’t even know who got flooded out thousands of years ago, that’s quite the “moral” stance. You also are personifying something that can’t be personified, it’s an all powerful being that created space, time, and matter to fill up space time...not bound by its own creation. Who also created morality, to which you’d probably have to admit that something that created a universe we can’t even fathom probably knows a bit more about the morality it created vs its own creation...that does a lot of clearly immoral things over its very short history. Your thinking of god as a leader, a president, playing with chess pieces, when if you can’t even fathom the creation itself, how could you fathom the creator. We humans personify stuff that really can’t be personified at all, like our dogs, other animals, mother earth, etc. We find human faces in the bark on trees, the moon, toast, etc just because that’s the way we are wired. How many times have you heard someone get angry/disgusted with lions because when a new male takes over he eats all the young. Or were grossed out when our dogs eat their own poo. Or we say our dog is giving us kisses when they lick us. That’s us interpreting human action through non human beings.

Two problems. First, one's moral principles are utterly useless, if they abandon them the moment it becomes uncomfortable, or even dangerous, to not do so. As someone once said, "Someone who will not stand for something, will stand for anything," We either have moral principles, or we don't. Jim's Rules #4: The only thing I have that is truly mine is my integrity. No one can take that from me; I can only choose to give it away. A corollary to that rule is that once given away, it is extremely difficult to get back. So, yeah. Even under threat of Hell, I would stand by my principles.

Second, The defence you are giving God is the Nixon defence: "When I do it, that makes it okay,"; "....not bound by its own creation...". See, I have a problem with that. If you are not bound by your own rules, then why the fuck should I be? After all, the Bible presents God as a leader. Shepard, "lead us not...", over, and over, he is presented as a leader to be respected, and admired. Sorry. Not if he is a leader who thinks he is above the very morals to which he will hold me accountable.

No you misinterpret my point there (with your second point). Considering how much you do not know compared to an all powerful creator. How would you know that the decision he made was wrong (remember time does not exist in that realm), so I couldn’t even venture to suppose that a god flooded the earth, and it was for a good reason that we cannot fathom...but that’d be the best reason I could give you. I could go with the farmer and the pigeon scenario, where there are pigeons who are hanging around a farmhouse for the little bit of warmth it provides, a farmer sees them and knows that they’ll freeze to death when the temp drops crazy low at night, so he opens the door to his barn for them, for them to stay and survive the night. They don’t go in BC they can’t put 2 and 2 together. He then tries to leave food by the barn door to bait them, they don’t go, BC they want to stay by the little bit of warmth that’s been keeping them alive thus far. So he tries to chase and herd them into the barn, they fly away and scatter, he throws stuff at them, but nothing he does can make the pigeons understand that he’s trying to help them and save their lives inside the barn. So wouldn’t it seem pretty silly of the pigeons to claim their morality is superior to that of the farmers, and characterize this farmer as a dickhead chasing them away from the warmth (or as pigeons would think, predator we need to escape from). Which is kind of what you are doing in this hypo, even if the Christian god was proven, that god is loving, and fatherly, and sees and knows all, and knows what’s best for us, even though we are clueless to know what that means...according to the Christian bible.

Okay. Now you're presenting the "God works in mysterious ways" defence. That isn't sufficient. That is just claiming that the means justify the ends; they don't. Ever. Once you claim they do, then you can justify any of a number of atrocities in the name of "the greater good". And your justification for God even goes a step further. It is, "I know something you don't". Yes, I snapped your baby's neck. But you can't be angry with me, or demand that I justify my actions, because "I know something you don't", and I am not under any obligation to tell you what that something is.

That's absurd.

Again you misrepresent the argument, this isn’t a god works in mysterious way argument, it is the disparaging levels knowledge between us and a theoretical god can’t even be compared. A.I. at one point will have an IQ of 10,000, that will make our smartest look like children...god would make that A.I. Look like children. Your talking about trying to debate morality to the thing that created everything, and thinking you could win, even though that thing gave you the free will to debate it on purpose...the hubris is incredible. It would be just as incredible if you’d try to debate the AI with a 10,000 IQ. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE BRAINPOWER. You’re better off debating aliens on FTL travel...

Sooo...God's just too smart for us? How does his being super duper smart negate his ignoring his own moral code?

Ok what is his moral code then haha? Go ahead and attempt throw it out there. We can’t even settle on our own moral code, and there are a bijillion different denominations of churches and variants of Christianity our there, all looking for that same answer.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Question. Since the whole world is illuminated by the same sun, how is it that this "miracle" was only visible in one place, by one group of people?

Because the sun did not actually move. It was an image of the sun, visible to only some. Not everyone there saw it happen.

In other words there was no "miracle"; just an optical illusion. Not proof of anything.

By definition ---- if there was proof, it couldn't be a miracle.

Amazing how you try to pervert the English language in order to support an unsupportable supposition.

Well, you should certainly explain to Blackrook that he is clueless about the nature of miracles, then. After all, he is the one who claimed the Fatima Sun Dance was "proof" of God's existence.

Proof of God's existence CAN be manifested in a miracle ... but that only presumes that you accept the act AS a miracle.

God's existence is NOT the miracle.

"Proof of God's existence CAN be manifested in a miracle ... but that only presumes that you accept the act AS a miracle. "

.... which is circular and nonsensical.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

So you dismiss it without really looking into it. That's the typical atheist reaction, I thought you were different, but guess not.

I did look into it. And your own admission is that the dancing sun is no different than a rainbow. There is nothing miraculous about a rainbow. It is nothing more than an optical illusion.

I mean, you can back this up, and begin with the appearance of the Virgin Mary". It's rather important to note that the "appearance" occurred with small children - impressionable, and highly imaginative. Tell me, do you remember the Salem Witch trials? It started much the same way. Young, impressionable, imaginative children all claiming to have had very similar circumstances. As the trials continued it became socially important to have "experienced" the terrors of the "Witch". Suggestibility, combined with peer pressure, and before long you have hysteria over witchcraft that wasn't happening. There are many cases in history of this same type of shared imagined experience.

As for the dancing sun, itself, it was nothing more than an optical illusion caused by thousands of people looking up at the sky, hoping, expecting, and even praying for some sign from God. It is of course dangerous to stare directly at the sun, and to avoid permanently damaging their eyesight, those at Fátima that day were looking up in the sky around the sun, which, if you do it long enough, can give the illusion of the sun moving as the eye muscles tire.

Sorry to disappoint. There are very few, if any, "miracles", outside of the Bible, which is highly suspect, that have ever happened throughout history, that do not have perfectly rational explanations. I'm sorry that I wasn't wowed by your dancing sun, but it really wasn't all that remarkable.

Since when is a rainbow an optical illusion? You know something about color bands, based on wavelength, thru a medium that seems to have escaped scientists for centuries?

Apparently you don't know what an optical illusion is...

Indeed, a rainbow is an optical illusion. It appears to be "at a certain distance", when it is really the effect of all the water droplets in your line of sight that are at a certain angle to the light source.

Let the squawkers squawk.

So, you accept that the rainbow exists? Or not? Of course, I guess that depends on your definition of "rainbow", wouldn't you think?

Man, it truly is boring talking with dolts who choose not to actually discuss the issue, but merely try to find different ways to phrase the same thought, and then pretend that the rephrasing constitutes proof that the original phase was accurate. Mental gymnastics for idiots, I guess .....

A rainbow is an optical illusion, in that it gives you the sense of it being "at a certain distance"... i.e., you can bring it in and out of focus. But that is an illusion, as all the light does NOT emanate from points at the same distance from you.

My 8th grader just learned that in his science class. maybe you would benefit from retaking 8th grade science.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

hmm, no, it is, in fact, an illusion. You are not actually in conscious control of your choices. Now that we have figured out how to test this, we get the same results every single time.

That too is an illusion.

The empirical results are an illusion, eh? fascinating. Are you going to start waving a pocketwatch, and then ask me for $100?

i haven't seen any empirical results- all I have seen is your unsubstantiated claims- less substantial than even an illusion.

That's because you have not looked. I invite you to do so.

Your invitation is as ethereal as your claims.

I don't think you understand what the word "ethereal" means, as that was not a appropriate use of the word. Again, I invite you to go look at some of the science on this issue.... the lab trials, on human beings...