Love the Christian, but not the Christianity.

[Mark6]

If your entire argument is based around the Problem of Evil, then I direct you to theodicy and the discussion here is done.

My argument is not entirely based on the Problem of Evil, but I consider PoE alone sufficient to refute old testament, and by extension new testament. Once I came to conclusion god of Torah could not exist, Yehoshua's claim to be his son became moot.

And I suppose my discussion here is done. No one is going to change their minds.

 

[thaiboxerken]

In other words, the Bible seems full of contradictions to anyone who is both very ignorant of it and too lazy to change that.

Bullspit. According to the bibble, it was written so that even the simple could read and understand it. Well, even experts can agree that the bible has quite a few contradictions, not just the "simple." Try something new, try reading the bible as if you didn't already believe it was infallible, as if you were an atheist reading it the first time. You'd see many, many contradictions.

However, since you are of faith, you read it through rose colored glasses, where every absurdity or contradiction isn't really absurd or contradictory. You aren't intellectually honest when it comes to the bible, you are faith-based.

 

[AvalonXQ]

My argument is not entirely based on the Problem of Evil, but I consider PoE alone sufficient to refute old testament, and by extension new testament.

I simply consider them evidence that God is an actual Being with an actual personality, rather than some mental abstraction.
Any argument that's based on showing a logical contradiction at infinity is about as useless when it comes to the real world as it was when the ancient Greek philosophers started doing it.

According to the bibble, it was written so that even the simple could read and understand it.

Citation, please.

You aren't intellectually honest when it comes to the bible, you are faith-based.

You've now made a personal attack on my intellectual honesty. Care to back it up with fact? Or it is just an easy way for you to dismiss me?

 

[154]

Apparent contradictions are opportunities for deeper understandings.

Seriously. I've encountered no apparent contradictions in the Bible that were not resolved with a deeper understanding of the text.

None of which contradicts, refutes, or moots my earlier statement, nor makes your assertion any stronger. Contradictions are more than a learning experience; they can impugn a text.

Obviously.

you arrogant twit.

Nice...

 

[thaiboxerken]

You've now made a personal attack on my intellectual honesty. Care to back it up with fact? Or it is just an easy way for you to dismiss me?

I can't do that. Facts, apparently, play no role in your thought process. You have faith.

 

[154]

I can't do that. Facts, apparently, play no role in your thought process. You have faith.

You have no facts that disprove God. But you also have faith in your beliefs.

 

[thaiboxerken]

You have no facts that disprove God. But you also have faith in your beliefs.

Which god? I simply do not believe there is one. I have no burden to disprove mythical beings' existence.

FYI, I have no faith. I only have opinions.

 

[AvalonXQ]

I can't do that. Facts, apparently, play no role in your thought process.

Yet another personal attack, made without evidence to back it up.

 

[Darth Rotor]

You've now made a personal attack on my intellectual honesty. Care to back it up with fact?

I can't do that.

Actually, while I am messing with a bit of quote mining here, mea culpa to you and Avalon both, your honesty on the citation about what the Bible says in re this assertion is accepted.

According to the bibble, it was written so that even the simple could read and understand it.

Can you tell us where in the Bible it says this?

I can say with some comfort that Martin Luther desired, and Guttenberg among others tried to produce, an outcome much like what you state there, with variable results.

If you go back to the collaboration that resulted in the general agreement on canon, Council of Nicea time frame, I am not sure the intent was to reach the simple, given that in those days most people could not read. Part of Emperor Constantine's remit was a call for standardization. (It appears that his wish was only partly fulfilled).

Which god? I simply do not believe there is one.

No problem.

FYI, I have no faith. I only have opinions.

Avalon did ask you for a citation, and some facts.

Facts, apparently, play no role in your thought process.

Your opening post in this thread, and your thread title, would suggest that you'd rather not use that sort of tactic.
DR

 

[Mirrorglass]

(I took the paragraphs below out of order in order to address the points raised separately)

The Problem of Evil.

I'm an annihilationist; I don't believe in eternal punishment.

That's exactly what He does.

Fair enough. Still cruel and unnecessary, but better than Hell, though. But if you don't believe in Hell, why do you refer to it?

Merciful, but also just. The reason a benevolent, just God would punish someone is because the person deserves it and justice demands it.

This still doesn't make sense. Is your God not all-powerful? Did he not create the universe? If so, why did he create is so "justice" demands annihilation for a crime as minor as homosexuality, yet also made some people gay by nature? Either your God has no choice but to go by these "objective morals", that's to say, he's not all-powerful, or he wants to annihilate people, and is malevolent.

You are assuming that the punishment would be disproportionate, or unjust. But that assumes that we agree on the principles of justice, or that they are objective, to a fine enough resolution to know that this is the case. You certainly haven't established nearly enough about the nature of justice or reality to communicate the point; you seem to be hinging your assertion on an appeal to emotion and little more.

To be clear, I don't believe in justice any more than I believe in Jehovah. I believe in useful social contracts made by men, and I believe in empathy and love. So we certainly don't agree on the principles of justice.

Nevertheless, for the sake of conversation, I can allow the assumption there is an objective morality. That makes no difference, though; if God is the one who made that objective morality, then any punishment decreed by it is a punishment decreed by God - in other words, God wants to annihilate some people and save others. So the point stands. Either he's not all-powerful, or he wants bad things to happen to people.

Seriously. I've encountered no apparent contradictions in the Bible that were not resolved with a deeper understanding of the text.

I'm sure many of the people here would be happy to provide you with a few hundred, but it wouldn't really further the discussion. Let's just agree to disagree on this one and concentrate on the problem of moral rules here.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Fair enough. Still cruel and unnecessary, but better than Hell, though. But if you don't believe in Hell, why do you refer to it?

I believe in Hell (specifically gehenna). I believe souls burn up in it, as opposed to just burning in it. I believe that this is what the Bible describes.

This still doesn't make sense.

I'm not getting your argument. Could you put it forward as a logical syllogism? Then we can argue concretely over your definitions.

To be clear, I don't believe in justice any more than I believe in Jehovah. I believe in useful social contracts made by men, and I believe in empathy and love. So we certainly don't agree on the principles of justice.

Then it's silly for you to call God unjust. If one accepts the ideal of "justice", then one can also accept that what happens to people in the hands of God embodies it.

 

[chillzero]

So "Love the Christian, but not the Christ"?

Just one example of why you know nothing about Christianity and Jesus Christ.



"Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them.

Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst,

they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.

Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?"

This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.

So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first."

And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?"

She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."

John 8:2-12

So ... the message here is that it is ok with Jesus for people to sin, and to break the law of their land ... provided everybody else in the vicinity (apart from himself, presumably) has also sinned? That laws only apply to those who break the ones that no one else breaks? That even if you know someone has sinned and broked the law you are forbidden to point that out and request they be brought to justice if you yourself have ever sinned?

 

[154]

Which god? I simply do not believe there is one. I have no burden to disprove mythical beings' existence.

FYI, I have no faith. I only have opinions.

You have faith that there is no God.

 

[AvalonXQ]

So ... the message here is that it is ok with Jesus for people to sin, and to break the law of their land ... provided everybody else in the vicinity (apart from himself, presumably) has also sinned? That laws only apply to those who break the ones that no one else breaks? That even if you know someone has sinned and broked the law you are forbidden to point that out and request they be brought to justice if you yourself have ever sinned?

No. The message here is that only Jesus has the right to judge sin, and if you try to test Jesus' judgment, or do the judging yourself, you're going to find that it is you that comes out judged and looking foolish.
That, and the idea that Jesus is merciful.

 

[thaiboxerken]

You have faith that there is no God.

No. I just have no reason to believe one exists. If I was provided evidence, I would form the opinion that one exists.

 

[AvalonXQ]

If I was provided evidence, I would form the opinion that one exists.

No, you wouldn't. Evidence, apparently, plays no role in your thought process. You have faith.

 

[154]

No, you wouldn't. Evidence, apparently, plays no role in your thought process. You have faith.

Exactly right. This argumentative tactic works equally well for both sides, yet the God-haters think it is their sole provenance.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Exactly right. This argumentative tactic works equally well for both sides, yet the God-haters think it is their sole provenance.

I really don't like being on your side in the argument.

 

[Mister Agenda]

No, it's not. It's just a convenient justification in excuse.
Apparent contradictions are opportunities for deeper understandings.
Multiple eyewitnesses never give perfectly identical versions of events, and if they did you would simply say they obviously just copied each other.
You are not open-minded or hearted. You are closed. You are set against.

I sometimes wonder what Jesus would say to atheists.

 

[154]

I really don't like being on your side in the argument.

I know, all because of what I said in the abortion thread, that you had such a visceral response to, for some reason... I knew that was the whole reason for your recent antagonism toward me when there was no essential difference in our substance of the moment. You were reacting entirely emotionally and reactionarily. That's ok though. I'm not here for anyone's approval or scorn. I don't care.