Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: jakswan on June 09, 2015, 01:04:49 PM
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For this to be a good argument (that God raised Jesus from the dead), the probability of it being true needs to be higher than the probability of it not being true, i.e. >50%. On occasions people here have said that there are infinite number of possible other explanations for what is recorded in the NT (the empty tomb, etc.). That may be the case, but it is irrelevant. If the probability of those individual other explanations total less than 50%, it means that the probability of God having raised Jesus from the dead is greater than 50%. The percentages I quoted as examples, i.e. 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125% and so on were part of a sequence where, though infinitely long, only total 25%, thus showing that it is possible to have an infinite number of other possible explanations, yet still have a total of less than 50%.
Be interested to see Al show his workings.
We all know we'll see confirmation bias but it would be nice to see it openly exposed.
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Supernatural claims are not subject to probability, it being based on naturalistic assumptions and methodology. The entirety of the post isn't even wrong.
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And that's ignoring it is taking claims as facts so isn't sensible in doing even a naturalistic analysis.
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The probability of a supernatural event occurring is always going to be zero; anything supernatural would be incalculable by definition
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The probability of a supernatural event occurring is always going to be zero; anything supernatural would be incalculable by definition
Then it isn't zero. It is just a non answer.
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Alan's outline isn't really probability in any meaningful sense of the term since all he is saying is something like 'if there are more guesses in favour of God then God becomes more likely' which is, quite frankly, nuts for a variety of reasons.
1. Probability requires a method that encompasses data that can be demonstrated to represent the various scenarios that are being described and compared.
2. The application of statistical tests is also essential, where this includes an estimation of random chance accounting for the outcomes of the method used , and again this requires an appropriate methodology that also involves data that is suitable for statistical testing.
3. The NT is anecdotal so it is difficult to see that it contains any data that is suited to statistical analysis in terms of assigning calculated weightings, which I assume is what the percentage approach Alan uses would involve.
Assuming that Alan isn't suggesting that looking at probability using a 'research methods' approach (which I confess was a major element of my education and career) then what is left seems to be something along the lines of 'what can reasonably be believed', which raises other problems if he is attempting to use probability in an argument in favour of the Christian God based on the NT narrative.
1. If all that is available are the anecdotal events as noted in the NT accounts, such as the 'empty tomb' that Alan often mentions, then it seems that Alan's approach to probability involves assuming that these events are actual historical facts.
2. Accepting these NT anecdotal claims as being factual would be an unjustified assumption unless there is a method being used that satisfactorily addresses the risks that these anecdotes might contain mistakes or lies: that they might is a risk that those claiming the NT accounts as factual would need to address, and to date there seems to be no method employed that has done so, and since assertion that the NT is 'inerrant' is clearly insufficient where levels of probability are being claimed.
3. Using anecdotal accounts as evidence that a supernatural event occurred is evidence only that this is what the people concerned claimed: but it isn't evidence that their claim is correct without a method that can be shown to confirm supernatural events independently of human testimony that may contain mistakes or lies. As yet no such method has been proposed that addresses this weakness.
The obvious conclusion is that attempts to claim God based on 'probability' arguments is nonsensical without an accompanying methodology, and since this would involve demonstrating a basis on which claimed supernatural events can be considered as being probability-apt then any claims that God is 'probable' is just so much white noise: as is often said, 'not even wrong'.
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I think it shows that some Christians abuse terms such as probability. They are treating supernatural stuff as if it were natural. For example, how can you have a supernatural event - it doesn't make sense.
Why they do this, I'm not sure, I suppose accepting that religious claims are guesswork is a bit humiliating. But more seriously, it suggests that there are no constraints - since all supernatural claims, e.g. that Mohammed flew on the magical Winged-Horse of fire, with the glittering wings of an eagle - are also not even wrong.
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The argument that because a lot of people believe in the Biblical deity it must exist, and everything attributed to it must be true, is often used by more extreme Christians to defend their faith.
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The argument that because a lot of people believe in the Biblical deity it must exist, and everything attributed to it must be true, is often used by more extreme Christians to defend their faith.
Since it isn't any part of the discussion here, what is the point of your post?
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It's also quite clearly associated with confirmation bias, as while Alien will happily accept these claims for Jesus rising from the dead, or performing miracles, he will not consider this reasonable for others such as Sai baba.
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Sorry, no offence, but the quote is a nonsense.
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Sorry, no offence, but the quote is a nonsense.
I agree.
There is nothing that could be written in any book to justify the belief that a dead man came back to life.
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There is, of course, another side to this which is that the attempted but not even wrong approach to rationalise the belief in miracles has a diminishing affect on the god offered by other believers in it seeks to reduce what are miracle claims to the status of naturalist probability. It makes the event a mere set of monkeys typing.
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Sorry, no offence, but the quote is a nonsense.
I agree.
There is nothing that could be written in any book to justify the belief that a dead man came back to life.
Good try, BR!
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Sorry, no offence, but the quote is a nonsense.
I agree.
There is nothing that could be written in any book to justify the belief that a dead man came back to life.
Good try, BR!
Well, it helps that the statement is true of course.
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Sorry, no offence, but the quote is a nonsense.
I agree.
There is nothing that could be written in any book to justify the belief that a dead man came back to life.
Good try, BR!
Well, it helps that the statement is true of course.
Oh no - it can't be proved or disproved? Let's not go there again!
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Sorry, no offence, but the quote is a nonsense.
I agree.
There is nothing that could be written in any book to justify the belief that a dead man came back to life.
Good try, BR!
Well, it helps that the statement is true of course.
Oh no - it can't be proved or disproved? Let's not go there again!
You misunderstand.
Even if Jesus did actually rise from the dead, you would still be WRONG to believe that because it said so in a book.
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Sorry, no offence, but the quote is a nonsense.
I agree.
There is nothing that could be written in any book to justify the belief that a dead man came back to life.
Good try, BR!
Well, it helps that the statement is true of course.
Oh no - it can't be proved or disproved? Let's not go there again!
You misunderstand.
Even if Jesus did actually rise from the dead, you would still be WRONG to believe that because it said so in a book.
Right. Fair enough.
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Well then; Alan's misuse of probability has been given a comprehensive filletting with some outstanding posts, so we needn't waste further time on it.
Anybody fancy a pint?
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No thanks I dislike beer, and rarely partake of alcohol until after 8pm.
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The sun's always over the yardarm ... somewhere ;D
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Well then; Alan's misuse of probability has been given a comprehensive filletting with some outstanding posts, so we needn't waste further time on it.
Anybody fancy a pint?
Yep - a pint of 'Old Probability' for me please :)
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Behave ;D
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Well then; Alan's misuse of probability has been given a comprehensive filletting with some outstanding posts, so we needn't waste further time on it.
Anybody fancy a pint?
Yep - a pint of 'Old Probability' for me please :)
And a pint of Bitter for Al ;)
ht
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For this to be a good argument (that God raised Jesus from the dead), the probability of it being true needs to be higher than the probability of it not being true, i.e. >50%. On occasions people here have said that there are infinite number of possible other explanations for what is recorded in the NT (the empty tomb, etc.). That may be the case, but it is irrelevant. If the probability of those individual other explanations total less than 50%, it means that the probability of God having raised Jesus from the dead is greater than 50%. The percentages I quoted as examples, i.e. 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125% and so on were part of a sequence where, though infinitely long, only total 25%, thus showing that it is possible to have an infinite number of other possible explanations, yet still have a total of less than 50%.
Be interested to see Al show his workings.
We all know we'll see confirmation bias but it would be nice to see it openly exposed.
I can see an example of confirmation bias. It is in the person who asks for information and decides beforehand that it won't be any good.
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Supernatural claims are not subject to probability, it being based on naturalistic assumptions and methodology. The entirety of the post isn't even wrong.
So you claim. Please demonstrate your claim is correct.
Yes, I will reply to jakswan.
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The probability of a supernatural event occurring is always going to be zero; anything supernatural would be incalculable by definition
Why?
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Alan's outline isn't really probability in any meaningful sense of the term since all he is saying is something like 'if there are more guesses in favour of God then God becomes more likely' which is, quite frankly, nuts for a variety of reasons. ...
No, I am not saying that. That was quick off the mark for this thread's first straw man. Congrats.
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It was interesting to see 24 posts about my method before I even replied. Good to see the atheists are keen on looking at evidence before making up their mind.
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I'll actually reply when I have done the reply I promised JeremyP elsewhere.
Do continue to discuss how my reply will not make sense though.
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Supernatural claims are not subject to probability, it being based on naturalistic assumptions and methodology. The entirety of the post isn't even wrong.
So you claim. Please demonstrate your claim is correct.
Yes, I will reply to jakswan.
Because probability as it is taught in maths and used in history and taught in history as a method works that way. Further philosophically since we have no method to determine anything as a 'supernatural' cause it cannot be used in a method based around it.
Until you provide such a method and show how it would work, you aren't t even wring.
Further until you deal with the issue that any method taught in any university course in the UK for determining probability is methodologically naturalistic and you provide no other your posts will be mere hand flapping.
As for your note about atheists judging you before you present the evidence, then note 1 that not all comments were by atheists and 2 you and I (and others on here) have gone down these arguments before. This makes your statement incorrect , quite possibly disingenuous and certainly a lazy generalization.
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As for your note about atheists judging you before you present the evidence, then note 1 that not all comments were by atheists and 2 you and I (and others on here) have gone down these arguments before. This makes your statement incorrect , quite possibly disingenuous and certainly a lazy generalization.
You are right, yer know. Only 22 of the 24 statements were by atheists (that I know of).
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As for your note about atheists judging you before you present the evidence, then note 1 that not all comments were by atheists and 2 you and I (and others on here) have gone down these arguments before. This makes your statement incorrect , quite possibly disingenuous and certainly a lazy generalization.
You are right, yer know. Only 22 of the 24 statements were by atheists (that I know of).
Then either your awareness or your ability to count is at fault.
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Of course it may be to quote the ex Secretary of State of Scotland you may just have 'mis - stated your awareness'
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Alan's outline isn't really probability in any meaningful sense of the term since all he is saying is something like 'if there are more guesses in favour of God then God becomes more likely' which is, quite frankly, nuts for a variety of reasons. ...
No, I am not saying that. That was quick off the mark for this thread's first straw man. Congrats.
Not really, Alan, based on what you said, which included.
If the probability of those individual other explanations total less than 50%, it means that the probability of God having raised Jesus from the dead is greater than 50%. The percentages I quoted as examples, i.e. 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125% and so on were part of a sequence where, though infinitely long, only total 25%, thus showing that it is possible to have an infinite number of other possible explanations, yet still have a total of less than 50%.
What you seem to be saying here is that probability of a single 'explanation', this being God, can be determined as being more likely by accounting for more than 50% of the total probabilities derived from all possible 'explanations'. So, my questions are;
1. What is the full list of possible 'explanations': 'God did it' is one, but what are the rest?
2. What method has been used to collect the data about each of the various 'explanations'.
3. What statistical tests are you using to determine probabilities in each case? You seem to be suggesting a multiple regression type of approach, and what levels of association and statistical significance have been found amongst all the variables that have been analysed?
I suspect, as I said earlier, that all you really doing here is juggling with guesses (with an added dash of confirmation bias) - unless of course you can show your workings.
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As for your note about atheists judging you before you present the evidence, then note 1 that not all comments were by atheists and 2 you and I (and others on here) have gone down these arguments before. This makes your statement incorrect , quite possibly disingenuous and certainly a lazy generalization.
You are right, yer know. Only 22 of the 24 statements were by atheists (that I know of).
Then either your awareness or your ability to count is at fault.
Apologies if I have included as atheists anyone who is not. I know ht and wigginhall are not. Have I missed anyone?
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Supernatural claims are not subject to probability, it being based on naturalistic assumptions and methodology. The entirety of the post isn't even wrong.
So you claim. Please demonstrate your claim is correct.
Yes, I will reply to jakswan.
The demonstration is quite simple and is encapsulated in the answer to the question:
How do you estimate the probability of a supernatural event?
Until you can answer that question, all bets are off. And you can't do your subtraction method because all of the probabilities of the different options are interdependent.
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As for your note about atheists judging you before you present the evidence, then note 1 that not all comments were by atheists and 2 you and I (and others on here) have gone down these arguments before. This makes your statement incorrect , quite possibly disingenuous and certainly a lazy generalization.
You are right, yer know. Only 22 of the 24 statements were by atheists (that I know of).
Then either your awareness or your ability to count is at fault.
Apologies if I have included as atheists anyone who is not. I know ht and wigginhall are not. Have I missed anyone?
BA
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As for your note about atheists judging you before you present the evidence, then note 1 that not all comments were by atheists and 2 you and I (and others on here) have gone down these arguments before. This makes your statement incorrect , quite possibly disingenuous and certainly a lazy generalization.
You are right, yer know. Only 22 of the 24 statements were by atheists (that I know of).
Then either your awareness or your ability to count is at fault.
Apologies if I have included as atheists anyone who is not. I know ht and wigginhall are not. Have I missed anyone?
BA
Sorry, BA.
Only 21 of the 24 statements were by atheists (that I know of).
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As for your note about atheists judging you before you present the evidence, then note 1 that not all comments were by atheists and 2 you and I (and others on here) have gone down these arguments before. This makes your statement incorrect , quite possibly disingenuous and certainly a lazy generalization.
You are right, yer know. Only 22 of the 24 statements were by atheists (that I know of).
Then either your awareness or your ability to count is at fault.
Apologies if I have included as atheists anyone who is not. I know ht and wigginhall are not. Have I missed anyone?
BA
Sorry, BA.
Only 21 of the 24 statements were by atheists (that I know of).
Can I suggest you stop rushing at this since this is your third mistake on a simple point. BA made three posts not one.
Perhaps rather than making such egregious repeated errors, you stop with the desperate and incorrect attempt to portray yourself as some sort of victim and just deal with the arguments rather than being irrelevantly wrong multiple times.
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... irrelevantly wrong multiple times.
Bagsey that as a band name.
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Probability of some not believing, even if one rose from the dead : 100% (Luke 16:31)
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Probability of some not believing, even if one rose from the dead : 100% (Luke 16:31)
Same point as to Alien, surely: how do you assign a probability to this?
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Probability of some not believing, even if one rose from the dead : 100% (Luke 16:31)
Early poisoning of the well
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Probability of some not believing, even if one rose from the dead : 100% (Luke 16:31)
Well you don't need much of a brain to realise that. If I told you my brother rose from the dead and I had seen him, would you believe it?
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Probability of some not believing, even if one rose from the dead : 100% (Luke 16:31)
Then it is up to you guys to make your case without resorting to the usual bunch of fallacies, and if you really are going to base your case on probability then you need to explain your methods and workings.
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Well I'm waiting, as I'm sure you are Gordon!
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I think some Christians use the notion of probability as some kind of subjective feeling, rather than a mathematical concept. Well, God probably exists = I have a gut feeling about it.
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That's the one wiggles ::)
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Well I'm waiting, as I'm sure you are Gordon!
Edge of my seat, Shaker!
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Probability of some not believing, even if one rose from the dead : 100% (Luke 16:31)
But if Christians went around visibly healing people and raising the dead, there would be great interest. But it ain't happening. Why not?
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Wiggy, by all means pull me up if I am wrong, but since I've been back on R & E I've noticed a distinct change in the tone and tenor of your posts - you come across as being considerably more sceptical and considerably harsher on sloppy, careless thinking and bad arguments than I remember you of old.
It's just an impression, mark you well, but a strong one based on what I've noticed these past few weeks :)
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As for your note about atheists judging you before you present the evidence, then note 1 that not all comments were by atheists and 2 you and I (and others on here) have gone down these arguments before. This makes your statement incorrect , quite possibly disingenuous and certainly a lazy generalization.
You are right, yer know. Only 22 of the 24 statements were by atheists (that I know of).
Then either your awareness or your ability to count is at fault.
Apologies if I have included as atheists anyone who is not. I know ht and wigginhall are not. Have I missed anyone?
BA
Sorry, BA.
Only 21 of the 24 statements were by atheists (that I know of).
Can I suggest you stop rushing at this since this is your third mistake on a simple point. BA made three posts not one.
Perhaps rather than making such egregious repeated errors, you stop with the desperate and incorrect attempt to portray yourself as some sort of victim and just deal with the arguments rather than being irrelevantly wrong multiple times.
Point taken about the sums.
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Wiggy, by all means pull me up if I am wrong, but since I've been back on R & E I've noticed a distinct change in the tone and tenor of your posts - you come across as being considerably more sceptical and considerably harsher on sloppy, careless thinking and bad arguments than I remember you of old.
It's just an impression, mark you well, but a strong one based on what I've noticed these past few weeks :)
Spot on, Shaker. I think I'm getting old, and I can't stand crap arguments and equivocation. Christianity seems to have plenty of both.
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For this to be a good argument (that God raised Jesus from the dead), the probability of it being true needs to be higher than the probability of it not being true, i.e. >50%. On occasions people here have said that there are infinite number of possible other explanations for what is recorded in the NT (the empty tomb, etc.). That may be the case, but it is irrelevant. If the probability of those individual other explanations total less than 50%, it means that the probability of God having raised Jesus from the dead is greater than 50%. The percentages I quoted as examples, i.e. 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125% and so on were part of a sequence where, though infinitely long, only total 25%, thus showing that it is possible to have an infinite number of other possible explanations, yet still have a total of less than 50%.
Be interested to see Al show his workings.
We all know we'll see confirmation bias but it would be nice to see it openly exposed.
Before we proceed down a road of arguments about the probability of someone being raised from the dead let us look how the percentage is
Justified....
Show us the evidence and prove the percentage and basis are factual.
You cannot do this.. If comparing the unexplained which men have seen with their own eyes even caught on camera today. UFO's, poltergeist, Ghostly apparitions and other strange entities... not to mention we supposedly exist in a universe showing no other signs of life...Healing etc. Then there is NO way of showing a percentage for possibility of God raising Christ from the dead...
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Then there is NO way of showing a percentage for possibility of God raising Christ from the dead...
I agree, may I introduce to Al, he disagrees, discuss....
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Wiggy, by all means pull me up if I am wrong, but since I've been back on R & E I've noticed a distinct change in the tone and tenor of your posts - you come across as being considerably more sceptical and considerably harsher on sloppy, careless thinking and bad arguments than I remember you of old.
It's just an impression, mark you well, but a strong one based on what I've noticed these past few weeks :)
Spot on, Shaker. I think I'm getting old, and I can't stand crap arguments and equivocation. Christianity seems to have plenty of both.
Have you had your blood sugar checked. Crabbiness might be a bad sign.
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More likely to be mature onset bullshit intolerance.
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More likely to be mature onset bullshit intolerance.
What MOBI?
You only get that if you're a Dick.
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:D ;D
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Wiggy, by all means pull me up if I am wrong, but since I've been back on R & E I've noticed a distinct change in the tone and tenor of your posts - you come across as being considerably more sceptical and considerably harsher on sloppy, careless thinking and bad arguments than I remember you of old.
It's just an impression, mark you well, but a strong one based on what I've noticed these past few weeks :)
Spot on, Shaker. I think I'm getting old, and I can't stand crap arguments and equivocation. Christianity seems to have plenty of both.
Have you had your blood sugar checked. Crabbiness might be a bad sign.
Fuck off.
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;D ;D
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Wiggy, by all means pull me up if I am wrong, but since I've been back on R & E I've noticed a distinct change in the tone and tenor of your posts - you come across as being considerably more sceptical and considerably harsher on sloppy, careless thinking and bad arguments than I remember you of old.
It's just an impression, mark you well, but a strong one based on what I've noticed these past few weeks :)
Spot on, Shaker. I think I'm getting old, and I can't stand crap arguments and equivocation. Christianity seems to have plenty of both.
Have you had your blood sugar checked. Crabbiness might be a bad sign.
Fuck off.
OOOooooooo! Did you 'ear wot 'e said?
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Did somebody a swears?
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Did somebody a swears?
It's alright for troopers, but not for refeened gentlemen. ;)
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Did somebody a swears?
It's alright for troopers, but not for refeened gentlemen. ;)
I'm one of the last few left, sweetie. :D
Well done wigginhall: they're bringing you down to their level. :(
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No no, Wiggles is his own chap, and speaks for himself as he has always done; he doesn't need anybody else's influence to
be a Sweary Mary pottymouth speak as he sees fit.
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Then there is NO way of showing a percentage for possibility of God raising Christ from the dead...
Correct.
There are several ways to estimate the probability of a dead person coming alive again. The simplest way is to pick a random selection of the people who have died and count how many of them came alive again. If we take everybody who died in the 20th century (OK not a random sample, but it will do for illustrative purposes), and count how many were resurrected, we get a probability of 0/5.5 billonish. Even accepting all of the reports of resurrection at face value, it's still probably millions to one against.
Of course, if God is involved, he could choose to resurrect just a handful of people in the whole of history in which case the sample size needs to be enormous to get anything other than zero. My methodology above would be equivalent to selecting 100 people who bought lottery tickets yesterday, checking if any of them win the jackpot on Saturday and, when they don't, concluding that it is impossible to win the lottery jackpot.
I could try calculating the probability another way, just as with the lottery we can figure out the probability of winning the jackpot through permutations and combinations. I could look at the probability in quantum mechanical terms of the particles of the dead person spontaneously jumping into a state where they constitute a living person. This is possible but astronomically unlikely. There again, if God exists, he could nudge the particles into the correct configuration.
Unfortunately, we can't assume God exists for two reasons. Firstly, the death and resurrection of Jesus is one of Alan's Flakey Five arguments for God. If God id necessary to make the resurrection credible as well, we have a circular argument. Secondly, it's impossible to calculate probability if somebody is loading the dice. If you want to use probability at all, you have to assume God does not exist - or at least is not influencing the experiments.
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Then there is NO way of showing a percentage for possibility of God raising Christ from the dead...
Correct.
There are several ways to estimate the probability of a dead person coming alive again. The simplest way is to pick a random selection of the people who have died and count how many of them came alive again. If we take everybody who died in the 20th century (OK not a random sample, but it will do for illustrative purposes), and count how many were resurrected, we get a probability of 0/5.5 billonish. Even accepting all of the reports of resurrection at face value, it's still probably millions to one against.
Of course, if God is involved, he could choose to resurrect just a handful of people in the whole of history in which case the sample size needs to be enormous to get anything other than zero. My methodology above would be equivalent to selecting 100 people who bought lottery tickets yesterday, checking if any of them win the jackpot on Saturday and, when they don't, concluding that it is impossible to win the lottery jackpot.
I could try calculating the probability another way, just as with the lottery we can figure out the probability of winning the jackpot through permutations and combinations. I could look at the probability in quantum mechanical terms of the particles of the dead person spontaneously jumping into a state where they constitute a living person. This is possible but astronomically unlikely. There again, if God exists, he could nudge the particles into the correct configuration.
Unfortunately, we can't assume God exists for two reasons. Firstly, the death and resurrection of Jesus is one of Alan's Flakey Five arguments for God. If God id necessary to make the resurrection credible as well, we have a circular argument. Secondly, it's impossible to calculate probability if somebody is loading the dice. If you want to use probability at all, you have to assume God does not exist - or at least is not influencing the experiments.
If it is the resurrection of the soul, you won't see the bodies, will you. Don't assume, like the cheap films, that the resurrected are like a bunch of zombies, stomping about.
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If it is the resurrection of the soul, you won't see the bodies, will you. Don't assume, like the cheap films, that the resurrected are like a bunch of zombies, stomping about.
So you are of the opinion that Christ was not raised physically? Only his soul was resurrected?
That is a genuine question. Some Christians do believe that.
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If it is the resurrection of the soul, you won't see the bodies, will you. Don't assume, like the cheap films, that the resurrected are like a bunch of zombies, stomping about.
So you are of the opinion that Christ was not raised physically? Only his soul was resurrected?
That is a genuine question. Some Christians do believe that.
I admit that I do not know; but I do not rule anything out: only a fool does that.
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I'm one of the last few left, sweetie. :D
In your dreams! You may not resort to swearing, but your vituperative and insulting jibes are as far from refined as expletives. Sweetie. :-*
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I was rather hoping Al would give us an insight into his process even if (its not even wrong - agree with NS).
Lets take two historical narratives.
1. Yesterday I took my dog, Charlie, for a walk.
2. Two thousandish years ago a man was killed and came back to life again
So is it more probable that I took my dog for a walk yesterday? If not why not?
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I was rather hoping Al would give us an insight into his process even if (its not even wrong - agree with NS).
Lets take two historical narratives.
1. Yesterday I took my dog, Charlie, for a walk.
2. Two thousand ish years ago a god allowed himself, in human form, to be killed but made himself alive again.
So is it more probable that I took my dog for a walk yesterday? If not why not?
No, because god can be added to any scenario and not be falsified. If you changed 1 to, "Yesterday I took my dog, who is god in canine form, for a walk" and compared that with 2, which is more probable? That's where we need a method to at least begin calculating some probability, but at the moment I don't see how that is possible as we are confined to perceiving naturalistic phenomena plus the added problem of a god not being constrained where nature is.
However, if you remove god from 2 and change it to, "Two thousandish years ago a man was killed and came back to life again" then I would undoubtedly say 1 is more probable.
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I was rather hoping Al would give us an insight into his process even if (its not even wrong - agree with NS).
Lets take two historical narratives.
1. Yesterday I took my dog, Charlie, for a walk.
2. Two thousand ish years ago a god allowed himself, in human form, to be killed but made himself alive again.
So is it more probable that I took my dog for a walk yesterday? If not why not?
No, because god can be added to any scenario and not be falsified. If you changed 1 to, "Yesterday I took my dog, who is god in canine form, for a walk" and compared that with 2, which is more probable? That's where we need a method to at least begin calculating some probability, but at the moment I don't see how that is possible as we are confined to perceiving naturalistic phenomena plus the added problem of a god not being constrained where nature is.
However, if you remove god from 2 and change it to, "Two thousandish years ago a man was killed and came back to life again" then I would undoubtedly say 1 is more probable.
Will take that advice and have edited post, I wonder if Al will reply?
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It's obviously true. Look, it says so in this 'ere book.
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I'm one of the last few left, sweetie. :D
In your dreams! You may not resort to swearing, but your vituperative and insulting jibes are as far from refined as expletives. Sweetie. :-*
If you say so, sweetie.
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Then there is NO way of showing a percentage for possibility of God raising Christ from the dead...
Correct.
There are several ways to estimate the probability of a dead person coming alive again. The simplest way is to pick a random selection of the people who have died and count how many of them came alive again. If we take everybody who died in the 20th century (OK not a random sample, but it will do for illustrative purposes), and count how many were resurrected, we get a probability of 0/5.5 billonish. Even accepting all of the reports of resurrection at face value, it's still probably millions to one against.
Of course, if God is involved, he could choose to resurrect just a handful of people in the whole of history in which case the sample size needs to be enormous to get anything other than zero. My methodology above would be equivalent to selecting 100 people who bought lottery tickets yesterday, checking if any of them win the jackpot on Saturday and, when they don't, concluding that it is impossible to win the lottery jackpot.
I could try calculating the probability another way, just as with the lottery we can figure out the probability of winning the jackpot through permutations and combinations. I could look at the probability in quantum mechanical terms of the particles of the dead person spontaneously jumping into a state where they constitute a living person. This is possible but astronomically unlikely. There again, if God exists, he could nudge the particles into the correct configuration.
OK, rather later than planned, here is an attempt at working out a probability.
Quoting from p 271 of Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig where he is pointing out some problems with stuff David Hume wrote:
Letting M = some miraculous event, E=the specific evidence for that event and B=our background knowledge apart from the specific evidence, the so-called "odds form" of Bayes' Theorem states:
Pr(M|E&B) = Pr(M|B) x Pr(E|M&B)
----------- ------------ -------------
Pr(non-M|E&B) Pr(not-M|B) Pr(E|not-M&B)
On the left-hand side of the equation P(M|E&B) represents the probability of the miracle given the total evidence and Pr(not-M|E&B) represents the probability of the miracle's not occurring given the total evidence. The odds form of Bayes Theorem gives us the ratio of these two probabilities. If the ratio is 1/1 then M and not-M have the same probability; the odds of M's occurring are, as they say, fifty/fifty or 50 percent. If we represent this ratio as A/B, what Hume wants to show is that, in principle, A<B - for example, 2/3 or 4/9 or what have you. So given the odds, one could never rationally believe, no matter what the evidence that a miracle has taken place.
Now whether the miracle is more probable than not will be determined by the ratios on the right hand side of the equation. In the first ratio, the numerator Pr(M|B) represents the intrinsic probability of the miracle and the denominator Pr(not-M|B) represents the probability of the miracle's not occurring. We're asking here which is more probable, M or not-M, relative to our background knowledge along, abstracting from the specific evidence for M. In the second ratio the numerator Pr(E|M&B) represents the explanatory power of the miracle and the denominator Pr(E|not-M&B) represents the explanatory power of the miracle's not occurring. We're asking here which best explains the specific evidence we have, M or not-M.
Now notice that even if the ratio of the intrinsic probabilities weighs heavily against M, that improbability can be offset if the ratio representing the explanatory power of M or not-M weighs equally or greater in favour of M. For example, (1/100) x (100/1) = 100/100 = 1/1 or a 50% probability of M.
It would be hard to assign actual numbers to the above equation. I would suggest that the first ratio on the right hand side (let's call it RHS1)
Pr(M|B)
------------
Pr(not-M|B)
is either low or difficult to determine.
The second ratio on the right hand side (RHS2) is high, i.e. the dozen or so alleged appearances written recorded by apparently honest people and the empty tomb after Jesus had been killed on the cross is much more likely if he had been raised than if he had not.
The most important question here then boils down to whether RHS1 x RHS2 > 0.5. Is RHS1 sufficiently small to bring the overall calculation down to less than 0.5, RHS2 being large?Unfortunately, we can't assume God exists for two reasons. Firstly, the death and resurrection of Jesus is one of Alan's Flakey Five arguments for God. If God id necessary to make the resurrection credible as well, we have a circular argument. Secondly, it's impossible to calculate probability if somebody is loading the dice. If you want to use probability at all, you have to assume God does not exist - or at least is not influencing the experiments.
If we assume God exists, then yes it would be circular. Let's not assume he exists and leave it as a "don't know". That makes RHS1 difficult to calculate though. I think we might find ourselves discussing this at length.
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Supernatural claims are not subject to probability, it being based on naturalistic assumptions and methodology. The entirety of the post isn't even wrong.
Don't tell jakswan, he can't stand the logical nature of such a comment.
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Dearie me, what fresh pish is this? Miracles only work if they work out they have no probability.
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There are several ways to estimate the probability of a dead person coming alive again.
But there are very few ways to estimate the probability of anything to do with God, as you know full well, jeremy.
Unfortunately, we can't assume God exists for two reasons. Firstly, the death and resurrection of Jesus is one of Alan's Flakey Five arguments for God.
No, jeremy, the death and resurrection of Jesus isn't a flakey anything for the existence of God.
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Dearie me, what fresh pish is this? Miracles only work if they work out they have no probability.
Why do you claim that?
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Dearie me, what fresh pish is this? Miracles only work if they work out they have no probability.
Why do you claim that?
Because the claim is precisely that it is in natural terms an impossibility (having no probability).
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Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead
Low probability there's a god in the first place. It doesn't get any lower.
ippy
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Dearie me, what fresh pish is this? Miracles only work if they work out they have no probability.
Didn't realise that miracles worked anything out, NS ::)
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Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead
Low probability there's a god in the first place. It doesn't get any lower.
ippy
Well, if probability refers to natural outcomes, neither has any probability. Or more accurately, we cannot apply such a term to such cases. The trouble with supernatural outcomes is that they seem to be unlimited and unspecified, so cannot be calculated. It's like asking what is north of green.
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Well, if probability refers to natural outcomes, neither has any probability. Or more accurately, we cannot apply such a term to such cases. The trouble with supernatural outcomes is that they seem to be unlimited and unspecified, so cannot be calculated. It's like asking what is north of green.
wiggi, the problem with that post, as far as ippy is concerned, is that it is too logical and rational. :P
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Well, if probability refers to natural outcomes, neither has any probability. Or more accurately, we cannot apply such a term to such cases. The trouble with supernatural outcomes is that they seem to be unlimited and unspecified, so cannot be calculated. It's like asking what is north of green.
wiggi, the problem with that post, as far as ippy is concerned, is that it is too logical and rational. :P
And presumably that applies to Alan as well.
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Well, if probability refers to natural outcomes, neither has any probability. Or more accurately, we cannot apply such a term to such cases. The trouble with supernatural outcomes is that they seem to be unlimited and unspecified, so cannot be calculated. It's like asking what is north of green.
wiggi, the problem with that post, as far as ippy is concerned, is that it is too logical and rational. :P
Well, I wonder if there is anybody else who that might apply to?
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Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead
Low probability there's a god in the first place. It doesn't get any lower.
ippy
Well, if probability refers to natural outcomes, neither has any probability. Or more accurately, we cannot apply such a term to such cases. The trouble with supernatural outcomes is that they seem to be unlimited and unspecified, so cannot be calculated. It's like asking what is north of green.
I like that skewed logic that's a good one it's about as logical as religious belief.
ippy
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Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead
Low probability there's a god in the first place. It doesn't get any lower.
ippy
There is an extremely low probability of human-like life existing elsewhere; but it doesn't stop twerps here arguing the case.
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There are several ways to estimate the probability of a dead person coming alive again.
But there are very few ways to estimate the probability of anything to do with God, as you know full well, jeremy.
If you bring God into the equation it becomes impossible to assign a probability to anything. In Alan's quote from WLC, the logic is absolutely fine. In purely natural terms, given what we know of quantum mechanics and entropy (this is B the background knowledge), Pr(M) is virtually zero. If M is "Jesus was resurrected" then Pr(M|B) is a tiny tiny number. This means that the probability of the evidence we have existing given the resurrection must vastly outweigh the probability of the evidence existing if there was no resurrection.
And by the way calculating the probability of the evidence we have mustn't just take into account the evidence that exists, it must take into account the evidence that doesn't exist. For example let's say the "miracle" is Boris Johnson made a speech in the House of Commons today. So we look for evidence and we find a TV report purporting to show Boris Johnson making a speech today. So we say P(E|M) is reasonably high and P(E| not M) is fairly low on the grounds we don't normally expect people to fabricate TV news reports. But wait, we would also expect the speech to be recorded in Hansard. If the speech is not there, that fact is part of E and it substantially lowers P(E|M).
That's all well and good, but if God exists, what probability do we assign to M? If it's the Christian god, it's 1. If it's the Muslim god, it's 0. The whole calculation goes out the window because a fundamental assumption where probability is concerned is that there isn't somebody behind the scenes rigging the odds.
Unfortunately, we can't assume God exists for two reasons. Firstly, the death and resurrection of Jesus is one of Alan's Flakey Five arguments for God.
No, jeremy, the death and resurrection of Jesus isn't a flakey anything for the existence of God.
You have been on this forum long enough to know what we mean by Alan's "flakey five". Stop being a dick.
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The second ratio on the right hand side (RHS2) is high, i.e. the dozen or so alleged appearances written recorded by apparently honest people and the empty tomb after Jesus had been killed on the cross is much more likely if he had been raised than if he had not.
Apparently honest people whose are unknown, there are levels of probability who wrote the gospels, that they were honest, that they were copied accurately, that they haven't been changed.
High, my arse.
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The second ratio on the right hand side (RHS2) is high, i.e. the dozen or so alleged appearances written recorded by apparently honest people and the empty tomb after Jesus had been killed on the cross is much more likely if he had been raised than if he had not.
Apparently honest people whose are unknown, there are levels of probability who wrote the gospels, that they were honest, that they were copied accurately, that they haven't been changed.
High, my arse.
It's just Alan lying about claims and presenting them as facts as usual.
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Dearie me, what fresh pish is this? Miracles only work if they work out they have no probability.
Why do you claim that?
Because the claim is precisely that it is in natural terms an impossibility (having no probability).
Er, no. A miracle is something without a purely natural cause, surely.
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Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead
Low probability there's a god in the first place. It doesn't get any lower.
ippy
That was well thought out.
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Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead
Low probability there's a god in the first place. It doesn't get any lower.
ippy
Well, if probability refers to natural outcomes, neither has any probability. Or more accurately, we cannot apply such a term to such cases. The trouble with supernatural outcomes is that they seem to be unlimited and unspecified, so cannot be calculated.
Why "unspecified"?It's like asking what is north of green.
Why?
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Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead
Low probability there's a god in the first place. It doesn't get any lower.
ippy
Well, if probability refers to natural outcomes, neither has any probability. Or more accurately, we cannot apply such a term to such cases. The trouble with supernatural outcomes is that they seem to be unlimited and unspecified, so cannot be calculated. It's like asking what is north of green.
I like that skewed logic that's a good one it's about as logical as religious belief.
ippy
Do you have a reply to that, wiggs?
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Dearie me, what fresh pish is this? Miracles only work if they work out they have no probability.
Why do you claim that?
Because the claim is precisely that it is in natural terms an impossibility (having no probability).
Er, no. A miracle is something without a purely natural cause, surely.
So everything is a miracle then, as you don't believe anything is a purely natural cause.
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Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead
Low probability there's a god in the first place. It doesn't get any lower.
ippy
There is an extremely low probability of human-like life existing elsewhere; but it doesn't stop twerps here arguing the case.
I'm a twerp then.
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Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead
Low probability there's a god in the first place. It doesn't get any lower.
ippy
There is an extremely low probability of human-like life existing elsewhere; but it doesn't stop twerps here arguing the case.
Who has argued that human-like life exists elsewhere in the cosmos, exactly?
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Dearie me, what fresh pish is this? Miracles only work if they work out they have no probability.
Why do you claim that?
Because the claim is precisely that it is in natural terms an impossibility (having no probability).
Er, no. A miracle is something without a purely natural cause, surely.
Which in natural terms is an impossibility.
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There are several ways to estimate the probability of a dead person coming alive again.
But there are very few ways to estimate the probability of anything to do with God, as you know full well, jeremy.
If you bring God into the equation it becomes impossible to assign a probability to anything. In Alan's quote from WLC, the logic is absolutely fine.
I appreciate that confirmation. Onto the rest now though... :) In purely natural terms, given what we know of quantum mechanics and entropy (this is B the background knowledge), Pr(M) is virtually zero.
Why? No-one is arguing that Jesus was resurrected naturally. I would agree with you that this probability would be "virtually zero" if that were the claim, but it isn't. If M is "Jesus was resurrected" then Pr(M|B) is a tiny tiny number.
But Pr(M|B) is the probability that Jesus was raised by God. This means that the probability of the evidence we have existing given the resurrection must vastly outweigh the probability of the evidence existing if there was no resurrection.
N/a, because it is comparing the wrong thing.
And by the way calculating the probability of the evidence we have mustn't just take into account the evidence that exists, it must take into account the evidence that doesn't exist. For example let's say the "miracle" is Boris Johnson made a speech in the House of Commons today. So we look for evidence and we find a TV report purporting to show Boris Johnson making a speech today. So we say P(E|M) is reasonably high and P(E| not M) is fairly low on the grounds we don't normally expect people to fabricate TV news reports. But wait, we would also expect the speech to be recorded in Hansard. If the speech is not there, that fact is part of E and it substantially lowers P(E|M).
I would count that as part of the evidence. If there were no speech recorded in Hansard, that would be better counted as part of the evidence, would it not? It would keep the maths simpler.
That's all well and good, but if God exists, what probability do we assign to M? If it's the Christian god, it's 1. If it's the Muslim god, it's 0. The whole calculation goes out the window because a fundamental assumption where probability is concerned is that there isn't somebody behind the scenes rigging the odds.
"Rigging the odds" is a perjorative way of saying "Fitting the scenario."
Unfortunately, we can't assume God exists for two reasons. Firstly, the death and resurrection of Jesus is one of Alan's Flakey Five arguments for God.
No, jeremy, the death and resurrection of Jesus isn't a flakey anything for the existence of God.
You have been on this forum long enough to know what we mean by Alan's "flakey five". Stop being a dick.
I sort of agree (don't faint). We have to avoid arguing in a circle here. We must not assume that God actually does exist in order to demonstrate that Jesus probably was raised from the dead and then use Jesus having been raised from the dead to demonstrate that God exists. Avoiding this means that the first part of the RHS, i.e. B below, is difficult to calculate
A B C
Pr(M|E&B) = Pr(M|B) x Pr(E|M&B)
----------- ------------ -------------
Pr(non-M|E&B) Pr(not-M|B) Pr(E|not-M&B)
This is the bit I am trying to get my head around. Would you agree that C is a large figure? I'm not asking you to say that C x B >1, but just wanting to see what we do agree on, even if it does bring us to an agreed probability A.
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The second ratio on the right hand side (RHS2) is high, i.e. the dozen or so alleged appearances written recorded by apparently honest people and the empty tomb after Jesus had been killed on the cross is much more likely if he had been raised than if he had not.
Apparently honest people whose are unknown, there are levels of probability who wrote the gospels, that they were honest, that they were copied accurately, that they haven't been changed.
High, my arse.
Would you try putting that a bit more clearly (the first sentence. I get the second one).
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The second ratio on the right hand side (RHS2) is high, i.e. the dozen or so alleged appearances written recorded by apparently honest people and the empty tomb after Jesus had been killed on the cross is much more likely if he had been raised than if he had not.
Apparently honest people whose are unknown, there are levels of probability who wrote the gospels, that they were honest, that they were copied accurately, that they haven't been changed.
High, my arse.
It's just Alan lying about claims and presenting them as facts as usual.
Playing the man again, I see, NS. How about playing the ball sometimes?
-
Dearie me, what fresh pish is this? Miracles only work if they work out they have no probability.
Why do you claim that?
Because the claim is precisely that it is in natural terms an impossibility (having no probability).
Er, no. A miracle is something without a purely natural cause, surely.
Which in natural terms is an impossibility.
"Natural terms"? What's a "natural term"? If you mean that it has no purely natural cause then why repeat what I have said?
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The second ratio on the right hand side (RHS2) is high, i.e. the dozen or so alleged appearances written recorded by apparently honest people and the empty tomb after Jesus had been killed on the cross is much more likely if he had been raised than if he had not.
Apparently honest people whose are unknown, there are levels of probability who wrote the gospels, that they were honest, that they were copied accurately, that they haven't been changed.
High, my arse.
It's just Alan lying about claims and presenting them as facts as usual.
Playing the man again, I see, NS. How about playing the ball sometimes?
Please stop being a hypocrite as well. You spend 20 to 25 % of your posts making comments about others behaviour, about the same as I do, possibly slightly lower.
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Why chose only "natural terms"?
I suppose because most people like their beliefs about the world to have at the very least a nodding acquaintance with reality.
Why go for only part of the possible picture?
That possible picture also includes certainly a very, very, very large number and possibly an infinite number of other things which you find entirely implausible - in fact downright ridiculous - and in which you disbelieve, though, doesn't it? Some of us happen to include in the "Ludicrously implausible" pile things you take as true, that's all.
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Dearie me, what fresh pish is this? Miracles only work if they work out they have no probability.
Why do you claim that?
Because the claim is precisely that it is in natural terms an impossibility (having no probability).
Er, no. A miracle is something without a purely natural cause, surely.
Which in natural terms is an impossibility.
"Natural terms"? What's a "natural term"? If you mean that it has no purely natural cause then why repeat what I have said?
If you did not understand the phrase, how could you have made your first answer? I have naturalistic terms and approaches to evaluate things, probability being one of those.
So far we have nothing from you.
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No-one is arguing that Jesus was resurrected naturally. I would agree with you that this probability would be "virtually zero" if that were the claim, but it isn't.
There is a natural explanation for it though, regardless of whether a god did or didn't intervene. This is an event purported to have happened within the natural world, so it is, by definition, a natural phenomena. You're argument is that nature wasn't used in the way that god originally set it all up, he basically had to change the rules in order to make it possible for the resurrection to happen. Here, I see no way of distinguishing between nature being set up so god didn't have to intervene and nature set up so that he would have to. This is one of the fundamental problems I see that theists have - that theism is indistinguishable from deism.
-
The second ratio on the right hand side (RHS2) is high, i.e. the dozen or so alleged appearances written recorded by apparently honest people and the empty tomb after Jesus had been killed on the cross is much more likely if he had been raised than if he had not.
Apparently honest people whose are unknown, there are levels of probability who wrote the gospels, that they were honest, that they were copied accurately, that they haven't been changed.
High, my arse.
It's just Alan lying about claims and presenting them as facts as usual.
Playing the man again, I see, NS. How about playing the ball sometimes?
Please stop being a hypocrite as well. You spend 20 to 25 % of your posts making comments about others behaviour, about the same as I do, possibly slightly lower.
Where have a accused anyone of lying though?
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Why chose only "natural terms"?
I suppose because most people like their beliefs about the world to have at the very least a nodding acquaintance with reality.
So you assume the supernatural does not exist and therefore the only reality is the physical world, therefore the supernatural does not exist. Cool.Why go for only part of the possible picture?
That possible picture also includes certainly a very, very, very large number and possibly an infinite number of other things which you find entirely implausible - in fact downright ridiculous - and in which you disbelieve, though, doesn't it?
So what? Some of us happen to include in the "Ludicrously implausible" pile things you take as true, that's all.
So what?
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Dearie me, what fresh pish is this? Miracles only work if they work out they have no probability.
Why do you claim that?
Because the claim is precisely that it is in natural terms an impossibility (having no probability).
Er, no. A miracle is something without a purely natural cause, surely.
Which in natural terms is an impossibility.
"Natural terms"? What's a "natural term"? If you mean that it has no purely natural cause then why repeat what I have said?
If you did not understand the phrase, how could you have made your first answer?
The reason I answered orginally was because I assumed you meant "having a natural cause". Having looked at it a second time, I wondered whether that was what you meant. I have naturalistic terms and approaches to evaluate things, probability being one of those.
So far we have nothing from you.
? Have a look at the "pish" on the "Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead" thread.
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No-one is arguing that Jesus was resurrected naturally. I would agree with you that this probability would be "virtually zero" if that were the claim, but it isn't.
There is a natural explanation for it though, regardless of whether a god did or didn't intervene.
Is it a good explanation though? This is an event purported to have happened within the natural world, so it is, by definition, a natural phenomena.
By "natural phenomenom" do you mean "the result of only physical causes"? If so, why?You're argument is that nature wasn't used in the way that god originally set it all up, he basically had to change the rules in order to make it possible for the resurrection to happen. Here, I see no way of distinguishing between nature being set up so god didn't have to intervene and nature set up so that he would have to. This is one of the fundamental problems I see that theists have - that theism is indistinguishable from deism.
I'm not sure I get your point here. Deism means no intervention - no miracles, including no raising of Jesus from the dead. If Jesus was raised from the dead then deism is incorrect and some some form of theism is correct, specifically Christianity.
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Dearie me, what fresh pish is this? Miracles only work if they work out they have no probability.
Why do you claim that?
Because the claim is precisely that it is in natural terms an impossibility (having no probability).
Er, no. A miracle is something without a purely natural cause, surely.
Which in natural terms is an impossibility.
"Natural terms"? What's a "natural term"? If you mean that it has no purely natural cause then why repeat what I have said?
If you did not understand the phrase, how could you have made your first answer?
The reason I answered orginally was because I assumed you meant "having a natural cause". Having looked at it a second time, I wondered whether that was what you meant. I have naturalistic terms and approaches to evaluate things, probability being one of those.
So far we have nothing from you.
? Have a look at the "pish" on the "Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead" thread.
And? What is your problem with that? Even if you are not familiar with the demotic term, it is understandable in context and could of course be searched for on line.
Are you suggesting pish is not a natural term? Perhaps there is supernatural pish - there certainly seems to be some of it on here.
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The second ratio on the right hand side (RHS2) is high, i.e. the dozen or so alleged appearances written recorded by apparently honest people and the empty tomb after Jesus had been killed on the cross is much more likely if he had been raised than if he had not.
Apparently honest people whose are unknown, there are levels of probability who wrote the gospels, that they were honest, that they were copied accurately, that they haven't been changed.
High, my arse.
It's just Alan lying about claims and presenting them as facts as usual.
Playing the man again, I see, NS. How about playing the ball sometimes?
Please stop being a hypocrite as well. You spend 20 to 25 % of your posts making comments about others behaviour, about the same as I do, possibly slightly lower.
Where have a accused anyone of lying though?
You mean apart from stating that people were deliberately misrepresenting their views on here to avoid having to admit to OM ?
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No-one is arguing that Jesus was resurrected naturally. I would agree with you that this probability would be "virtually zero" if that were the claim, but it isn't.
There is a natural explanation for it though, regardless of whether a god did or didn't intervene.
Is it a good explanation though?
Seems you're missing the point. I'm saying there is a mechanism used which would resurrect a dead body. Whatever that is (and I wouldn't claim to know what it is as I currently don't believe it's possible) god would have to use it, but we could only ever investigate the natural explanation and wouldn't know if god used it or not.
This is an event purported to have happened within the natural world, so it is, by definition, a natural phenomena.
By "natural phenomenom" do you mean "the result of only physical causes"? If so, why?
Yes, it has to be. How does physical change happen without physical cause? But as I said, this says absolutely nothing about whether a god did or didn't sit hidden outside of nature twiddling knobs and pulling levers to allow it to happen, so to speak. However, you can apply that to absolutely any natural phenomena.
Edit: Missed the "only". No, I'm not saying only physical, but that physical causes are necessary.
You're argument is that nature wasn't used in the way that god originally set it all up, he basically had to change the rules in order to make it possible for the resurrection to happen. Here, I see no way of distinguishing between nature being set up so god didn't have to intervene and nature set up so that he would have to. This is one of the fundamental problems I see that theists have - that theism is indistinguishable from deism.
I'm not sure I get your point here. Deism means no intervention - no miracles, including no raising of Jesus from the dead. If Jesus was raised from the dead then deism is incorrect and some some form of theism is correct, specifically Christianity.
There is one miracle in deism - the existence of nature itself. Then god pisses off and leaves it be. A god has the power to set the universe up in such a way that he never ever has to intervene. You're weakening god by saying Jesus wouldn't be resurrected under deism. Deism is not falsified by a being that requires intervention. If anything, if it needs to intervene, why call it god?
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...I have naturalistic terms and approaches to evaluate things, probability being one of those.
So far we have nothing from you.
? Have a look at the "pish" on the "Low Probability that god raised someone from the dead" thread.
And? What is your problem with that? Even if you are not familiar with the demotic term, it is understandable in context and could of course be searched for on line.
Are you suggesting pish is not a natural term? Perhaps there is supernatural pish - there certainly seems to be some of it on here.
I'm not fussed what you call it. What I was referring to was the stuff I had posted on that thread (and which you termed "pish" without, apparently, reading it through and understanding it).
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The second ratio on the right hand side (RHS2) is high, i.e. the dozen or so alleged appearances written recorded by apparently honest people and the empty tomb after Jesus had been killed on the cross is much more likely if he had been raised than if he had not.
Apparently honest people whose are unknown, there are levels of probability who wrote the gospels, that they were honest, that they were copied accurately, that they haven't been changed.
High, my arse.
It's just Alan lying about claims and presenting them as facts as usual.
Playing the man again, I see, NS. How about playing the ball sometimes?
Please stop being a hypocrite as well. You spend 20 to 25 % of your posts making comments about others behaviour, about the same as I do, possibly slightly lower.
Where have a accused anyone of lying though?
You mean apart from stating that people were deliberately misrepresenting their views on here to avoid having to admit to OM ?
Where?
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No-one is arguing that Jesus was resurrected naturally. I would agree with you that this probability would be "virtually zero" if that were the claim, but it isn't.
There is a natural explanation for it though, regardless of whether a god did or didn't intervene.
Is it a good explanation though?
Seems you're missing the point. I'm saying there is a mechanism used which would resurrect a dead body. Whatever that is (and I wouldn't claim to know what it is as I currently don't believe it's possible) god would have to use it, but we could only ever investigate the natural explanation and wouldn't know if god used it or not.
The only thing we could investigate using scientific methods would be something which was open to a natural explanation and, yes, we would not know if God used it or not. However, raising Jesus from the dead would require a combination of natural events which would be absolutely minute in probability. However, we Christians are not restricted in having to claim that God did it that way. For the creator who created the universe in the first place, why not do it supernaturally? What is most important is, surely, whether he did it rather than how he did it.
This is an event purported to have happened within the natural world, so it is, by definition, a natural phenomena.
By "natural phenomenom" do you mean "the result of only physical causes"? If so, why?
Yes, it has to be. How does physical change happen without physical cause? But as I said, this says absolutely nothing about whether a god did or didn't sit hidden outside of nature twiddling knobs and pulling levers to allow it to happen, so to speak. However, you can apply that to absolutely any natural phenomena.
Scripture teaches that God sustains the universe. If that is try, I find it helpful to think of God as a diving Matt Groenig. If you watch The Simpsons you can see humans standing on the face of the earth held there by gravity, but that is because Groenig and friends are "causing" that gravity. There are two reasons, at different levels, why Homer can stand on the ground. One is gravity and the other is Matt Groenig.
Edit: Missed the "only". No, I'm not saying only physical, but that physical causes are necessary.
Not in Springfield they are not. Groenig could raise Homer above the ground then drop him back. No "physical" cause necessary.
You're argument is that nature wasn't used in the way that god originally set it all up, he basically had to change the rules in order to make it possible for the resurrection to happen. Here, I see no way of distinguishing between nature being set up so god didn't have to intervene and nature set up so that he would have to. This is one of the fundamental problems I see that theists have - that theism is indistinguishable from deism.
I'm not sure I get your point here. Deism means no intervention - no miracles, including no raising of Jesus from the dead. If Jesus was raised from the dead then deism is incorrect and some some form of theism is correct, specifically Christianity.
There is one miracle in deism - the existence of nature itself. Then god pisses off and leaves it be. A god has the power to set the universe up in such a way that he never ever has to intervene. You're weakening god by saying Jesus wouldn't be resurrected under deism.
I have no need to avoid weakening the idea of a deistic god.Deism is not falsified by a being that requires intervention. If anything, if it needs to intervene, why call it god?
Why not? If he wants to do something different once in a while for a good reason, why not?
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It's the 'why not' that kills these arguments. Sure, God could resurrect Jesus, or the old lady next door. Come to that, he could make it snow in July, etc. etc. 'Why not?' is Christianity's intellectual suicide.
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The only thing we could investigate using scientific methods would be something which was open to a natural explanation and, yes, we would not know if God used it or not. However, raising Jesus from the dead would require a combination of natural events which would be absolutely minute in probability. However, we Christians are not restricted in having to claim that God did it that way. For the creator who created the universe in the first place, why not do it supernaturally? What is most important is, surely, whether he did it rather than how he did it.
And as wigs has just said, there's your whole problem right there when providing a methodology for when god does something or not. You're not restricted to where you can say god did it. There's no means to distinguish between where god causes one phenomena or another. Perhaps it's vanishingly improbable for anyone to fart without god intervening. Why not - I mean it's not like we're restricted is it?
Scripture teaches that God sustains the universe. If that is try, I find it helpful to think of God as a diving Matt Groenig. If you watch The Simpsons you can see humans standing on the face of the earth held there by gravity, but that is because Groenig and friends are "causing" that gravity. There are two reasons, at different levels, why Homer can stand on the ground. One is gravity and the other is Matt Groenig.
I've seen you use it aplenty and it does you no good. Groening isn't just causing the gravity in the Simpsons - he's the cause of everything in the Simpsons. Singling out gravity as a signpost for Groeningism is to use special pleading, analogous to you and the resurrection of Jesus for god.
Edit: Missed the "only". No, I'm not saying only physical, but that physical causes are necessary.
Not in Springfield they are not. Groenig could raise Homer above the ground then drop him back. No "physical" cause necessary.
I'm pretty sure the creators of the Simpsons don't escape the physical when creating the Simpsons. Not a great analogy.
There is one miracle in deism - the existence of nature itself. Then god pisses off and leaves it be. A god has the power to set the universe up in such a way that he never ever has to intervene. You're weakening god by saying Jesus wouldn't be resurrected under deism.
I have no need to avoid weakening the idea of a deistic god.Deism is not falsified by a being that requires intervention. If anything, if it needs to intervene, why call it god?
Why not? If he wants to do something different once in a while for a good reason, why not?
I wasn't suggesting that the god you believe in needs to intervene, but maybe it should know beforehand that it could do all it needs to do (including all those different things for good reasons) at the initial set up, being omniscient 'n all.
Anyway, as you've pretty much scooted past the meat of that quote, deism is not falsified by events that appear miraculous.
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It's the 'why not' that kills these arguments. Sure, God could resurrect Jesus, or the old lady next door. Come to that, he could make it snow in July, etc. etc. 'Why not?' is Christianity's intellectual suicide.
Nonsense! Another lame-brained answer from one of these shallow thinking characters who seem to picture God as some kind of Father Christmas, who should be bowing to our every need, and bailing us out of every difficulty, like some ancient IMF!
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It's the 'why not' that kills these arguments. Sure, God could resurrect Jesus, or the old lady next door. Come to that, he could make it snow in July, etc. etc. 'Why not?' is Christianity's intellectual suicide.
Nonsense! Another lame-brained answer from one of these shallow thinking characters who seem to picture God as some kind of Father Christmas, who should be bowing to our every need, and bailing us out of every difficulty, like some ancient IMF!
Well, thanks very much for the character analysis. It's always good to feel that Christian love.
I thought it was the other way round, that the question 'why not?, in effect says that God could do anything, and why wouldn't he? That's why I termed it intellectual suicide, since nothing is excluded, except maybe square circles, but hang on ...
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It's the 'why not' that kills these arguments. Sure, God could resurrect Jesus, or the old lady next door. Come to that, he could make it snow in July, etc. etc. 'Why not?' is Christianity's intellectual suicide.
Nonsense! Another lame-brained answer from one of these shallow thinking characters who seem to picture God as some kind of Father Christmas, who should be bowing to our every need, and bailing us out of every difficulty, like some ancient IMF!
Well, thanks very much for the character analysis. It's always good to feel that Christian love.
I thought it was the other way round, that the question 'why not?, in effect says that God could do anything, and why wouldn't he? That's why I termed it intellectual suicide, since nothing is excluded, except maybe square circles, but hang on ...
The usual inane come-back. Since when have Christians been excluded from vigorous debate? Any comment that irks you, and you play the" Christian love" card. As an atheist, agnostic, or whatever you are, that then leaves the ground open for you to say what you like, because you don't have to show Christian love! Well, try to understand: Christian love is irrelevant to debating, here or anywhere.
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It's the 'why not' that kills these arguments. Sure, God could resurrect Jesus, or the old lady next door. Come to that, he could make it snow in July, etc. etc. 'Why not?' is Christianity's intellectual suicide.
Nonsense! Another lame-brained answer from one of these shallow thinking characters who seem to picture God as some kind of Father Christmas, who should be bowing to our every need, and bailing us out of every difficulty, like some ancient IMF!
Well, thanks very much for the character analysis. It's always good to feel that Christian love.
I thought it was the other way round, that the question 'why not?, in effect says that God could do anything, and why wouldn't he? That's why I termed it intellectual suicide, since nothing is excluded, except maybe square circles, but hang on ...
The usual inane come-back. Since when have Christians been excluded from vigorous debate? Any comment that irks you, and you play the" Christian love" card. As an atheist, agnostic, or whatever you are, that then leaves the ground open for you to say what you like, because you don't have to show Christian love! Well, try to understand: Christian love is irrelevant to debating, here or anywhere.
Is that why you ignored the substantive point of my post, that saying, 'why not?' about what God could do, is a kind of intellectual suicide?
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It's the 'why not' that kills these arguments. Sure, God could resurrect Jesus, or the old lady next door. Come to that, he could make it snow in July, etc. etc. 'Why not?' is Christianity's intellectual suicide.
Nonsense! Another lame-brained answer from one of these shallow thinking characters who seem to picture God as some kind of Father Christmas, who should be bowing to our every need, and bailing us out of every difficulty, like some ancient IMF!
Well, thanks very much for the character analysis. It's always good to feel that Christian love.
I thought it was the other way round, that the question 'why not?, in effect says that God could do anything, and why wouldn't he? That's why I termed it intellectual suicide, since nothing is excluded, except maybe square circles, but hang on ...
The usual inane come-back. Since when have Christians been excluded from vigorous debate? Any comment that irks you, and you play the" Christian love" card. As an atheist, agnostic, or whatever you are, that then leaves the ground open for you to say what you like, because you don't have to show Christian love! Well, try to understand: Christian love is irrelevant to debating, here or anywhere.
Is that why you ignored the substantive point of my post, that saying, 'why not?' about what God could do, is a kind of intellectual suicide?
I have no idea as to why God does or does not do things in any given situation; and it is arrogance on anybody's part, atheist or atheist, to purport to know.
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It's the 'why not' that kills these arguments. Sure, God could resurrect Jesus, or the old lady next door. Come to that, he could make it snow in July, etc. etc. 'Why not?' is Christianity's intellectual suicide.
Nonsense! Another lame-brained answer from one of these shallow thinking characters who seem to picture God as some kind of Father Christmas, who should be bowing to our every need, and bailing us out of every difficulty, like some ancient IMF!
Well, thanks very much for the character analysis. It's always good to feel that Christian love.
I thought it was the other way round, that the question 'why not?, in effect says that God could do anything, and why wouldn't he? That's why I termed it intellectual suicide, since nothing is excluded, except maybe square circles, but hang on ...
The usual inane come-back. Since when have Christians been excluded from vigorous debate? Any comment that irks you, and you play the" Christian love" card. As an atheist, agnostic, or whatever you are, that then leaves the ground open for you to say what you like, because you don't have to show Christian love! Well, try to understand: Christian love is irrelevant to debating, here or anywhere.
Is that why you ignored the substantive point of my post, that saying, 'why not?' about what God could do, is a kind of intellectual suicide?
I have no idea as to why God does or does not do things in any given situation; and it is arrogance on anybody's part, atheist or atheist, to purport to know.
how do you know the difference between a God action/inaction?
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It's the 'why not' that kills these arguments. Sure, God could resurrect Jesus, or the old lady next door. Come to that, he could make it snow in July, etc. etc. 'Why not?' is Christianity's intellectual suicide.
Nonsense! Another lame-brained answer from one of these shallow thinking characters who seem to picture God as some kind of Father Christmas, who should be bowing to our every need, and bailing us out of every difficulty, like some ancient IMF!
Well, thanks very much for the character analysis. It's always good to feel that Christian love.
I thought it was the other way round, that the question 'why not?, in effect says that God could do anything, and why wouldn't he? That's why I termed it intellectual suicide, since nothing is excluded, except maybe square circles, but hang on ...
The usual inane come-back. Since when have Christians been excluded from vigorous debate? Any comment that irks you, and you play the" Christian love" card. As an atheist, agnostic, or whatever you are, that then leaves the ground open for you to say what you like, because you don't have to show Christian love! Well, try to understand: Christian love is irrelevant to debating, here or anywhere.
Is that why you ignored the substantive point of my post, that saying, 'why not?' about what God could do, is a kind of intellectual suicide?
I have no idea as to why God does or does not do things in any given situation; and it is arrogance on anybody's part, atheist or atheist, to purport to know.
But you interpreted my first post as if I was saying that, whereas I was criticizing it. The 'why not?' is from Alan (Alien), who seemed to be saying, yes, God could do X, why not? But you seem to be saying that I was saying that, God as a Father Christmas. How come?
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It's the 'why not' that kills these arguments. Sure, God could resurrect Jesus, or the old lady next door. Come to that, he could make it snow in July, etc. etc. 'Why not?' is Christianity's intellectual suicide.
Nonsense! Another lame-brained answer from one of these shallow thinking characters who seem to picture God as some kind of Father Christmas, who should be bowing to our every need, and bailing us out of every difficulty, like some ancient IMF!
Well, thanks very much for the character analysis. It's always good to feel that Christian love.
I thought it was the other way round, that the question 'why not?, in effect says that God could do anything, and why wouldn't he? That's why I termed it intellectual suicide, since nothing is excluded, except maybe square circles, but hang on ...
The usual inane come-back. Since when have Christians been excluded from vigorous debate? Any comment that irks you, and you play the" Christian love" card. As an atheist, agnostic, or whatever you are, that then leaves the ground open for you to say what you like, because you don't have to show Christian love! Well, try to understand: Christian love is irrelevant to debating, here or anywhere.
Is that why you ignored the substantive point of my post, that saying, 'why not?' about what God could do, is a kind of intellectual suicide?
I have no idea as to why God does or does not do things in any given situation; and it is arrogance on anybody's part, atheist or atheist, to purport to know.
But you interpreted my first post as if I was saying that, whereas I was criticizing it. The 'why not?' is from Alan (Alien), who seemed to be saying, yes, God could do X, why not? But you seem to be saying that I was saying that, God as a Father Christmas. How come?
I was referring to atheists generally, when they seem to think that God should behave like a Father Christmas, attending to our every need, whatever. It is a simplistic and untenable position to adopt; and rather immature.
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It's the 'why not' that kills these arguments. Sure, God could resurrect Jesus, or the old lady next door. Come to that, he could make it snow in July, etc. etc. 'Why not?' is Christianity's intellectual suicide.
Nonsense! Another lame-brained answer from one of these shallow thinking characters who seem to picture God as some kind of Father Christmas, who should be bowing to our every need, and bailing us out of every difficulty, like some ancient IMF!
Well, thanks very much for the character analysis. It's always good to feel that Christian love.
I thought it was the other way round, that the question 'why not?, in effect says that God could do anything, and why wouldn't he? That's why I termed it intellectual suicide, since nothing is excluded, except maybe square circles, but hang on ...
The usual inane come-back. Since when have Christians been excluded from vigorous debate? Any comment that irks you, and you play the" Christian love" card. As an atheist, agnostic, or whatever you are, that then leaves the ground open for you to say what you like, because you don't have to show Christian love! Well, try to understand: Christian love is irrelevant to debating, here or anywhere.
Is that why you ignored the substantive point of my post, that saying, 'why not?' about what God could do, is a kind of intellectual suicide?
I have no idea as to why God does or does not do things in any given situation; and it is arrogance on anybody's part, atheist or atheist, to purport to know.
But you interpreted my first post as if I was saying that, whereas I was criticizing it. The 'why not?' is from Alan (Alien), who seemed to be saying, yes, God could do X, why not? But you seem to be saying that I was saying that, God as a Father Christmas. How come?
I was referring to atheists generally, when they seem to think that God should behave like a Father Christmas, attending to our every need, whatever. It is a simplistic and untenable position to adopt; and rather immature.
Well, I'm not an atheist, and the 'why not?' is not mine, it belongs to Alan (Alien). So you interpreted my criticism of that as a reformulation of it.
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It's the 'why not' that kills these arguments. Sure, God could resurrect Jesus, or the old lady next door. Come to that, he could make it snow in July, etc. etc. 'Why not?' is Christianity's intellectual suicide.
Nonsense! Another lame-brained answer from one of these shallow thinking characters who seem to picture God as some kind of Father Christmas, who should be bowing to our every need, and bailing us out of every difficulty, like some ancient IMF!
Well, thanks very much for the character analysis. It's always good to feel that Christian love.
I thought it was the other way round, that the question 'why not?, in effect says that God could do anything, and why wouldn't he? That's why I termed it intellectual suicide, since nothing is excluded, except maybe square circles, but hang on ...
The usual inane come-back. Since when have Christians been excluded from vigorous debate? Any comment that irks you, and you play the" Christian love" card. As an atheist, agnostic, or whatever you are, that then leaves the ground open for you to say what you like, because you don't have to show Christian love! Well, try to understand: Christian love is irrelevant to debating, here or anywhere.
Is that why you ignored the substantive point of my post, that saying, 'why not?' about what God could do, is a kind of intellectual suicide?
I have no idea as to why God does or does not do things in any given situation; and it is arrogance on anybody's part, atheist or atheist, to purport to know.
But you interpreted my first post as if I was saying that, whereas I was criticizing it. The 'why not?' is from Alan (Alien), who seemed to be saying, yes, God could do X, why not? But you seem to be saying that I was saying that, God as a Father Christmas. How come?
I was referring to atheists generally, when they seem to think that God should behave like a Father Christmas, attending to our every need, whatever. It is a simplistic and untenable position to adopt; and rather immature.
Well, I'm not an atheist, and the 'why not?' is not mine, it belongs to Alan (Alien). So you interpreted my criticism of that as a reformulation of it.
So you don't agree with that comment? It is not really relevant whether you are an atheist or agnostic, or how you designate you position.
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I forgive you.
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I forgive you.
I always do, as well.
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The second ratio on the right hand side (RHS2) is high, i.e. the dozen or so alleged appearances written recorded by apparently honest people and the empty tomb after Jesus had been killed on the cross is much more likely if he had been raised than if he had not.
Apparently honest people whose are unknown, there are levels of probability who wrote the gospels, that they were honest, that they were copied accurately, that they haven't been changed.
High, my arse.
Would you try putting that a bit more clearly (the first sentence. I get the second one).
There isn't much point is there?
I'll ask you to give you about few historical facts and ask you to give your probability for each. A few weeks of evasion, claiming its not relevant, a dash of obfuscation, a lot of what aboutery, a holiday, being really busy in work, eventually you will concede confirmation bias.
Then you will pretend to not understand 'confirmation bias' and confuse it will plain old simple 'bias' and return a few weeks later to pretend none of this really happened.
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The second ratio on the right hand side (RHS2) is high, i.e. the dozen or so alleged appearances written recorded by apparently honest people and the empty tomb after Jesus had been killed on the cross is much more likely if he had been raised than if he had not.
Apparently honest people whose are unknown, there are levels of probability who wrote the gospels, that they were honest, that they were copied accurately, that they haven't been changed.
High, my arse.
Would you try putting that a bit more clearly (the first sentence. I get the second one).
There isn't much point is there?
I'll ask you to give you about few historical facts and ask you to give your probability for each. A few weeks of evasion, claiming its not relevant, a dash of obfuscation, a lot of what aboutery, a holiday, being really busy in work, eventually you will concede confirmation bias.
Then you will pretend to not understand 'confirmation bias' and confuse it will plain old simple 'bias' and return a few weeks later to pretend none of this really happened.
OK. If you don't want to discuss it, you don't have to.
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The very wording of the thread title is meaningless. If God is able to do something, human understanding of probability will have gone out of the window before the phrase is uttered.
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The very wording of the thread title is meaningless. If God is able to do something, human understanding of probability will have gone out of the window before the phrase is uttered.
If the deity is able to raise someone from the dead, why doesn't it get its finger out and do something useful like feeding the starving for instance?
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The very wording of the thread title is meaningless. If God is able to do something, human understanding of probability will have gone out of the window before the phrase is uttered.
If the deity is able to raise someone from the dead, why doesn't it get its finger out and do something useful like feeding the starving for instance?
Do you not think the human race can feed it's starving?
On the other hand we are unable to raise from the dead.
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For this to be a good argument (that God raised Jesus from the dead), the probability of it being true needs to be higher than the probability of it not being true, i.e. >50%. On occasions people here have said that there are infinite number of possible other explanations for what is recorded in the NT (the empty tomb, etc.). That may be the case, but it is irrelevant. If the probability of those individual other explanations total less than 50%, it means that the probability of God having raised Jesus from the dead is greater than 50%. The percentages I quoted as examples, i.e. 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125% and so on were part of a sequence where, though infinitely long, only total 25%, thus showing that it is possible to have an infinite number of other possible explanations, yet still have a total of less than 50%.
Be interested to see Al show his workings.
We all know we'll see confirmation bias but it would be nice to see it openly exposed.
Me too. I wonder where he is going to get a good sample size from? He hasn't really even got 1.
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The very wording of the thread title is meaningless. If God is able to do something, human understanding of probability will have gone out of the window before the phrase is uttered.
If the deity is able to raise someone from the dead, why doesn't it get its finger out and do something useful like feeding the st...
More apposite, why don't we do something about the starving? What do you do?
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More apposite, why don't we do something about the starving? What do you do?
Why is it more apposite simply to dodge the question and pass the buck (for obvious reasons) from a supposed supernatural entity of perfect knowledge, perfect benevolence and unlimited power - indeed, powerful enough to magic a universe into existence - to fallible human beings working with limited powers and partial information?
Which one of those two groups could not merely remedy all hunger of every and any kind instantaneously but could prevent it even from occurring in the first place?
Same tired, lame, painfully transparent excuses.
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The very wording of the thread title is meaningless. If God is able to do something, human understanding of probability will have gone out of the window before the phrase is uttered.
Wow. I agree with you about something. In fact I think you put the point really well.
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... unwittingly, however ;)
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More apposite, why don't we do something about the starving? What do you do?
Why is it more apposite simply to dodge the question and pass the buck (for obvious reasons) from a supposed supernatural entity of perfect knowledge, perfect benevolence and unlimited power - indeed, powerful enough to magic a universe into existence - to fallible human beings working with limited powers and partial information?
Which one of those two groups could not merely remedy all hunger of every and any kind instantaneously but could prevent it even from occurring in the first place?
Same tired, lame, painfully transparent excuses.
Funny, that: I was just going to say a similar thing about your hackneyed comment!
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Funny, that: I was just going to say a similar thing about your hackneyed comment!
Hackneyed means "well used" rather than "wrong," though, doesn't it? And it wouldn't be so well used if somebody would at least attempt to mount a coherent defence, which they never do.
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Funny, that: I was just going to say a similar thing about your hackneyed comment!
Hackneyed means "well used" rather than "wrong," though, doesn't it? And it wouldn't be so well used if somebody would at least attempt to mount a coherent defence, which they never do.
So, reading BA's post, his use of 'hackneyed' would seem to be very appropriate.
As for your complaint about no-one mounting a coherent defence, the 'hackneyed' response to the many such defences that have been presented is that none of them are coherent because they rely on non-scientific material - as if life revolves around scientific material and nothing else.
So, where is your coherent defence of your position, Shaker. You and others have been asked this question on more than plenty of times, yet none of you have ever come up with one.
Why?
Because the two sides of the debate are dealing in very different outlooks on 'life, the universe and everything' (to quote a famous author!)
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Because the two sides of the debate are dealing in very different outlooks on 'life, the universe and everything' (to quote a famous author!)
True! One side is taking the scientific, evidence based outlook, and the other is taking an outlook based on guesswork as to what might be.
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So, reading BA's post, his use of 'hackneyed' would seem to be very appropriate.
As I said, hackneyed means "well-used," and is not a synonym for "wrong."
As for your complaint about no-one mounting a coherent defence, the 'hackneyed' response to the many such defences that have been presented is that none of them are coherent because they rely on non-scientific material - as if life revolves around scientific material and nothing else.
So, where is your coherent defence of your position, Shaker. You and others have been asked this question on more than plenty of times, yet none of you have ever come up with one.
Why?
You can't have been looking very hard then. Which part of my position specifically do you want me to defend - are you referring back to #137 onwards and the lame cop-outs by theists and the excuses they make about their incredible shrinking god, who can poof a universe into existence out of nothing and suspend the laws of nature (adult human being walking on water; woman made pregnant without having one of her ova fertilised by a sperm, etc.) at will if it supposedly happened so long ago that nobody can now examine it, but when called upon to do something actually good and useful (i.e. prevent millions, babies, children, the elderly and frail, the mentally and physically ill amongst them, from dying in a genocide) suddenly isn't fit to keep a whelk stall? Or did you mean something more general?
If you want a rational and coherent defence of any part of my position, stance, worldview or whatever you care to all it then - leaving aside the prior point that you can't have looked very hard and have obviously missed all those times in the past when it has been defended, by me and many others - just ask and it'll be provided any time, any place, any where, and it will trump any of the inane fatuities that religionists ever concoct because it will be based on the good stuff that we need to get about successfully in the universe - reason, evidence, logic and what have you - and because as at least two major theists ([sic] - theists, not atheists) to my knowledge have said (Miguel de Unamuno is one; Martin Gardner is another), atheism has by far all the better arguments and the stronger case.
... and, furthermore, given your highly selective way of responding only to those points which you reckon you can take on with the same limp lettuce responses whilst leaving the difficult questions/points well alone - several of them mine, recently - you're in no position to lecture people on who responds to what.
Because the two sides of the debate are dealing in very different outlooks on 'life, the universe and everything' (to quote a famous author!)
I was going to say in response to this exactly what Lenny has just said.
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So, reading BA's post, his use of 'hackneyed' would seem to be very appropriate.
As I said, hackneyed means "well-used," and is not a synonym for "wrong."
As for your complaint about no-one mounting a coherent defence, the 'hackneyed' response to the many such defences that have been presented is that none of them are coherent because they rely on non-scientific material - as if life revolves around scientific material and nothing else.
So, where is your coherent defence of your position, Shaker. You and others have been asked this question on more than plenty of times, yet none of you have ever come up with one.
Why?
You can't have been looking very hard then. Which part of my position specifically do you want me to defend - are you referring back to #137 onwards and the lame cop-outs by theists and the excuses they make about their incredible shrinking god, who can poof a universe into existence out of nothing and suspend the laws of nature (adult human being walking on water; woman made pregnant without having one of her ova fertilised by a sperm, etc.) at will if it supposedly happened so long ago that nobody can now examine it, but when called upon to do something actually good and useful (i.e. prevent millions, babies, children, the elderly and frail, the mentally and physically ill amongst them, from dying in a genocide) suddenly isn't fit to keep a whelk stall? Or did you mean something more general?
If you want a rational and coherent defence of any part of my position, stance, worldview or whatever you care to all it then - leaving aside the prior point that you can't have looked very hard and have obviously missed all those times in the past when it has been defended, by me and many others - just ask and it'll be provided any time, any place, any where, and it will trump any of the inane fatuities that religionists ever concoct because it will be based on the good stuff that we need to get about successfully in the universe - reason, evidence, logic and what have you - and because as at least two major theists ([sic] - theists, not atheists) to my knowledge have said (Miguel de Unamuno is one; Martin Gardner is another), atheism has by far all the better arguments and the stronger case.
... and, furthermore, given your highly selective way of responding only to those points which you reckon you can take on with the same limp lettuce responses whilst leaving the difficult questions/points well alone - several of them mine, recently - you're in no position to lecture people on who responds to what.
Because the two sides of the debate are dealing in very different outlooks on 'life, the universe and everything' (to quote a famous author!)
I was going to say in response to this exactly what Lenny has just said.
How do you define a ''major theist''?
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Was it really worth quoting that entire block of text just to stick seven words on the end?
By major I mean both well known to the general reading public (because they have written widely and/or well works likely to be known to any reasonably intelligent and educated reader) and those who have tried to explain why they are theists.
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Was it really worth quoting that entire block of text just to stick seven words on the end?
By major I mean both well known to the general reading public (because they have written widely and/or well works likely to be known to any reasonably intelligent and educated reader) and those who have tried to explain why they are theists.
1: Since you seem upset that I quoted the entire block of text the answer to that is probably in the affirmative.
2: I find with Gardner, given that he states there is no actual connection between people and the divine, it is a far greater mystery logically as to why he should be theist.........You have said nothing on that leading me to believe he has your support because he has ''been nice to atheists''.
3: I'm not sure I would let quite obvious modern rules of fame and celebrity in maths and scientists to dictate MY definition of ''Major theist''.
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The very wording of the thread title is meaningless. If God is able to do something, human understanding of probability will have gone out of the window before the phrase is uttered.
If the deity is able to raise someone from the dead, why doesn't it get its finger out and do something useful like feeding the starving for instance?
Do you not think the human race can feed it's starving?
On the other hand we are unable to raise from the dead.
Having someone killed in a horrific way, just to have them resurrected three days later appears to be the work of the sickest psycho ever, >:( if it actually happened, which is highly unlikely!
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1: Since you seem upset that I quoted the entire block of text the answer to that is probably in the affirmative.
How childish. Not only is it lazy, pointless and distracting, it also, as Hope pointed out only a day or two ago, creates headaches for posters who have sight problems and rely on screenreaders, of which we have at least two here to my certain knowledge.
2: I find with Gardner, given that he states there is no actual connection between people and the divine, it is a far greater mystery logically as to why he should be theist.........You have said nothing on that leading me to believe he has your support because he has ''been nice to atheists''.
I never mentioned anything to do with "being nice to atheists"; Gardner's intellectual honesty led him to state that as he saw it, it was and is true that on any rational, logical, intellectual basis theism is unjustified and unjustifiable, and that atheism/-ists have the better case and the stronger arguments. He has my support partly for being a dazzlingly intelligent man who wrote well on fascinating things and partly for being an honest theist, someone who openly, explicitly and baldly stated that for him theism could only be 'justified' on emotional grounds. (See also the more recent Unapologetic by Francis Spufford for precisely the same thing). Gardner unashamedly stated that the guiding principle of his theism was Credo consolans, which is to say, "I believe because it consoles/because it comforts." Gardner, like his hero Unamuno, thought that you can't get to a belief in a god, whether deistic or theistic, through rational thought, because rational thought gives it no support whatsoever. Like his other hero Kierkegaard, he thought that faith has to be irrational or a-rational, a blind leap into the dark because you can't get there (a god; life after death) from here (intellect and rational thought). Gardner's intellectual autobiography The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener is a fantastic book and, to my mind at any rate, a modern classic; I wish I could find it online so that I could copy the relevant passages, which here I'm having to do the long way from my paperback copy. Nevertheless, I'll do as much as I can:
What does it mean to say that belief in God works? To fideists it can mean only this - that belief in God is so emotionally rewarding, and the contrary belief so desolate, that they cannot not believe. Beneath the credo quia absurdum, as Unamuno said, is the credo quia consolans. I believe because it consoles me ... Whenever I speak of religious faith it will mean a belief, unsupported by logic or science, in both God and an afterlife. Bertrand Russell once defined faith, in a broader way, as "a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence." If "evidence" means the kind of support provided by reason and science, there is no evidence for God and immortality, and Russell's definition seems to me concise and admirable ... The true fideist grants it all. He may - in my opinion, should - go even another step, the ultimate step, in conceding points to the atheist. Not only are there no compelling proofs of God or an afterlife, but our experience strongly tells us that Nature does not care a fig about the fate of the entire human race, that death plunges each of us back into the nothingness that preceded our birth. Is there need to elaborate the obvious? ... I agree with Pierre Bayle and with Unamuno that when cold reason contemplates the world it find not only an absence of God, but good reasons for supposing that there is no God at all. From this perspective, from what Unamuno called "the tragic sense of life," from this despair, faith comes to the rescue, not only as something nonrational but in a sense irrational. For Unamuno the great symbol of a person of faith was his Spanish hero Don Quixote. Faith is indeed quixotic. It is absurd. Let us admit it. Let us concede everything! To a rational mind the world looks like a world without God. It looks like a world with no hope for another life. To think otherwise, to believe in spite of appearances, is surely a kind of madness ... I am quite content to confess with Unamuno that I have no basis whatever for my belief in God other than a passionate longing that God exist and that I and others will not cease to exist.
Martin Gardner, The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, pp. 208-222.
Now, it seems to me that anybody prepared to say that they believe any given propositions, such as theism and posthumous survival, solely because they are emotionally comforting is engaging in an act of willing self-deception and for all practical intents and purposes is 99% an atheist. And there is a whopping appeal to consequences hiding in plain sight here (atheism is desolate; I would be unhappy if atheism were true and I were desolate; therefore I'll make myself happy by believing in God). Nevertheless, this degree of honesty is rare and deserves at least some credit.
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1: Since you seem upset that I quoted the entire block of text the answer to that is probably in the affirmative.
How childish. Not only is it lazy, pointless and distracting, it also, as Hope pointed out only a day or two ago, creates headaches for posters who have sight problems and rely on screenreaders, of which we have at least two here to my certain knowledge.
2: I find with Gardner, given that he states there is no actual connection between people and the divine, it is a far greater mystery logically as to why he should be theist.........You have said nothing on that leading me to believe he has your support because he has ''been nice to atheists''.
I never mentioned anything to do with "being nice to atheists"; Gardner's intellectual honesty led him to state that as he saw it, it was and is true that on any rational, logical, intellectual basis theism is unjustified and unjustifiable, and that atheism/-ists have the better case and the stronger arguments. He has my support partly for being a dazzlingly intelligent man who wrote well on fascinating things and partly for being an honest theist, someone who openly, explicitly and baldly stated that for him theism could only be 'justified' on emotional grounds. (See also the more recent Unapologetic by Francis Spufford for precisely the same thing). Gardner unashamedly stated that the guiding principle of his theism was Credo consolans, which is to say, "I believe because it consoles/because it comforts." Gardner, like his hero Unamuno, thought that you can't get to a belief in a god, whether deistic or theistic, through rational thought, because rational thought gives it no support whatsoever. Like his other hero Kierkegaard, he thought that faith has to be irrational or a-rational, a blind leap into the dark because you can't get there (a god; life after death) from here (intellect and rational thought). Gardner's intellectual autobiography The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener is a fantastic book and, to my mind at any rate, a modern classic; I wish I could find it online so that I could copy the relevant passages, which here I'm having to do the long way from my paperback copy. Nevertheless, I'll do as much as I can:
What does it mean to say that belief in God works? To fideists it can mean only this - that belief in God is so emotionally rewarding, and the contrary belief so desolate, that they cannot not believe. Beneath the credo quia absurdum, as Unamuno said, is the credo quia consolans. I believe because it consoles me ... Whenever I speak of religious faith it will mean a belief, unsupported by logic or science, in both God and an afterlife. Bertrand Russell once defined faith, in a broader way, as "a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence." If "evidence" means the kind of support provided by reason and science, there is no evidence for God and immortality, and Russell's definition seems to me concise and admirable ... The true fideist grants it all. He may - in my opinion, should - go even another step, the ultimate step, in conceding points to the atheist. Not only are there no compelling proofs of God or an afterlife, but our experience strongly tells us that Nature does not care a fig about the fate of the entire human race, that death plunges each of us back into the nothingness that preceded our birth. Is there need to elaborate the obvious? ... I agree with Pierre Bayle and with Unamuno that when cold reason contemplates the world it find not only an absence of God, but good reasons for supposing that there is no God at all. From this perspective, from what Unamuno called "the tragic sense of life," from this despair, faith comes to the rescue, not only as something nonrational but in a sense irrational. For Unamuno the great symbol of a person of faith was his Spanish hero Don Quixote. Faith is indeed quixotic. It is absurd. Let us admit it. Let us concede everything! To a rational mind the world looks like a world without God. It looks like a world with no hope for another life. To think otherwise, to believe in spite of appearances, is surely a kind of madness ... I am quite content to confess with Unamuno that I have no basis whatever for my belief in God other than a passionate longing that God exist and that I and others will not cease to exist.
Martin Gardner, The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, pp. 208-222.
Now, it seems to me that anybody prepared to say that they believe any given propositions, such as theism and posthumous survival, solely because they are emotionally comforting is engaging in an act of willing self-deception and for all practical intents and purposes is 99% an atheist. And there is a whopping appeal to consequences hiding in plain sight here (atheism is desolate; I would be unhappy if atheism were true and I were desolate; therefore I'll make myself happy by believing in God). Nevertheless, this degree of honesty is rare and deserves applause.
So nice to see my superiors (more erudite and more intelligent) saying something that seems obvious to me.
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erudite
I thought that was a brand of glue ;D
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erudite
I thought that was a brand of glue ;D
I wish it were ... the older you get the less able you are to make new knowledge stick. >:(
ps Half the ornaments in this house are only here because of the efficacy of araldite.
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Shaker
Your presupposition that I myself do not hold Keirkegaard in high esteem is misrepresentative of me.
I do not see the concept of God as unreasonable but I think you have in your post tried to cleverly massaged two theists into the atheist camp.
I do not own up to just believing in God because it is comforting to. The encounter with God is not always comforting even though the idea of God might superficially be so.
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Shaker
Your presupposition that I myself do not hold Keirkegaard in high esteem is misrepresentative of me.
I don't recall saying that.
I do not see the concept of God as unreasonable but I think you have in your post tried to cleverly massaged two theists into the atheist camp.
I don't recall doing that either.
Hang on - are you sure it's a post of mine that you're replying to?
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Now, it seems to me that anybody prepared to say that they believe any given propositions, such as theism and posthumous survival, solely because they are emotionally comforting is engaging in an act of willing self-deception and for all practical intents and purposes is 99% an atheist. And there is a whopping appeal to consequences hiding in plain sight here (atheism is desolate; I would be unhappy if atheism were true and I were desolate; therefore I'll make myself happy by believing in God). Nevertheless, this degree of honesty is rare and deserves at least some credit.
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I see the terrible trio, and I mean terrible, are here supporting each other in their usual, pointless diatribes.
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I see you're here not even bothering to discuss or debate anything as usual, Ant ;)
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I see you're here not even bothering to discuss or debate anything as usual, Ant ;)
Why "debate" with someone whose "mind" is made up already?
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Why eat dinner tonight when you've eaten before? :)
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Why eat dinner tonight when you've eaten before?
You have to eat to live (if you can call your benighted state of mind as living): you don't have to rail about theism all your life (you may describe it, wrongly, as "debating"), when you could actually do something constructive. You clearly can't see that?
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erudite
I thought that was a brand of glue ;D
I wish it were ... the older you get the less able you are to make new knowledge stick. >:(
ps Half the ornaments in this house are only here because of the efficacy of araldite.
Is that anywhere near Aarrold Iill?
ippy
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erudite
I thought that was a brand of glue ;D
I wish it were ... the older you get the less able you are to make new knowledge stick. >:(
ps Half the ornaments in this house are only here because of the efficacy of araldite.
Is that anywhere near Aarrold Iill?
ippy
I'd never 'eard of 'im until now. Sounds a right nut case! :)
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So, reading BA's post, his use of 'hackneyed' would seem to be very appropriate.
As I said, hackneyed means "well-used," and is not a synonym for "wrong."
Precisely, Shaker, he was referring to arguments that get repeated endlessly.
You can't have been looking very hard then.
Sorry, I clearly didn't make myself clear. The arguments you refer to here, the arguments that others speaking from the same angle as you have come up with over the years, the arguments that you like to dub rational and coherent are only so from a scientific perspective: as a result, I believe that they are therefore only partially rational and coherent as they miss out other aspects of human understanding and experience, and are therefore flawed.
... and, furthermore, given your highly selective way of responding only to those points which you reckon you can take on with the same limp lettuce responses whilst leaving the difficult questions/points well alone - several of them mine, recently - you're in no position to lecture people on who responds to what.
Oh sorry Mr Know-It-All; I don't respond to every single aspect of every single of your posts simply because pointng out the obvious, such as my response above several hundred times a day gets rather tiring.
I have a life outside this board which gets me debating the best way to rid somewhere of Japanese Knotweed; the most efficient way to dismantle irreparable tools so as to maximise the scrap value; how to best use limited funds to develop a heritage railway; where is the best place for a Christian to be positioned within society so as to provide the most benefit for that society; ...
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True! One side is taking the scientific, evidence based outlook, and the other is taking an outlook based on guesswork as to what might be.
Sorry, Len; one side is taking an outlook limited to scientifically provable and definable ideas; the other is taking an outlook that calls on other aspects of our lives that aren't governed by science.
All your post does (and Shaker's support of it) is to reinforce the limitations of your argument.
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Sorry, Len; one side is taking an outlook limited to scientifically provable and definable ideas; the other is taking an outlook that calls on other aspects of our lives that aren't governed by science.
I agree - you guys do seem to wallow about amongst the unproven and the undefined.
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If the deity is able to raise someone from the dead, why doesn't it get its finger out and do something useful like feeding the starving for instance?
I do find your blinkered thinking sad, Floo. As I've said before, humanity was made to be God's agents in this world. They have God-given brains, skills, limbs, etc. which they use to act on God's behalf. That is what my wife and I were doing whilst working in Nepal during the 1990s, what I do when I'm teaching, or debating over how best to get something done at TWAM, or the railway.
Having someone killed in a horrific way, just to have them resurrected three days later appears to be the work of the sickest psycho ever, >:( if it actually happened, which is highly unlikely!
I find your understanding of history to be sadly lacking. So, here is a quick reminder. Traditionally, when one did something wrong, death or exclusion (which often resulted in death) were the standard punishments especially in nomadic societies.
Societies then moved to a half-way position whereby if you did something wrong that wasn't beyond a certain level of evil, you were allowed to live but had to sacrifice an animal - a scapegoat. In some cases, you would ritualistically transfer your guilt onto that sheep or goat and it would be led out from the camp or settlement ( and its familial flock/herd) and left to fend for itself. In other cases, having transferred your guilt to it, the animal would be slaughtered and the blood used to indicate that you were forgiven. In some parts of the world this continues to this day. By allowing himself, in the form of Jesus, to be killed (sacrificed) in the way he was and then rising from the grave showed that God had made all that bloodshed irrelevent. I accept that you don't believe this, but it doesn't mean that it didn't happen, and that humans who have lived since that event have had the opportunity to benefit from it should they so wish (something you clearly don't)
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I agree - you guys do seem to wallow about amongst the unproven and the undefined.
So, no different from everyone else here. ;)
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I do find your blinkered thinking sad, Floo. As I've said before, humanity was made to be God's agents in this world. They have God-given brains, skills, limbs, etc. which they use to act on God's behalf.
... which - needless to say - is (a) bald assertion, means (b) that this is exactly what somebody who believes in something that doesn't exist would be expected to say (the Mandy Rice-Davis gambit) and (c) it renders belief in a god indefeasible, since there is no methodology which allows one to tell the difference between (1) humans doing this god's work and (2) no god and humans doing what they merely think is god's work. It's indefeasible in exactly the same way that petitionary prayer, for instance, is indefeasible; there's no method to be able to tell the difference between the scenario where it really does exist and works and the opposite scenario where it really doesn't exist and doesn't work. In case anyone is misguided enough to think that this means there's parity between each scenario and therefore you might just as well believe all 57 varieties of woo that theism requires, Occam's Razor helps us shave off the extraneous material that adds nothing and does nothing but weigh us down.
Until and unless you have a means of distinguishing (1) from (2), (1) is useless and adds nothing but superfluous baggage. And, as I've said before (specifically on this thread, from #137 onwards), it's a monumental cop-out on the part of theists, designed to deflect absolutely rational, pertinent criticism of theism away to be diverted onto human beings.
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I agree - you guys do seem to wallow about amongst the unproven and the undefined.
So, no different from everyone else here. ;)
Yes, very different indeed from many.
It's a simple matter, to pick just one very familiar example from very many potential candidates, to define that form of fallacious reasoning, sloppy thinking and general laziness of mind known as the negative proof fallacy (or argument from/appeal to ignorance); it has a sharply defined meaning and a clearly delineated sense and when it crops up, as it it does a great deal here I've noticed, it's appropriate to point it out. You just don't like when it whenever somebody does so.
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I agree - you guys do seem to wallow about amongst the unproven and the undefined.
So, no different from everyone else here. ;)
Yes, very different indeed from many.
It's a simple matter, to pick just one very familiar example from very many potential candidates, to define that form of fallacious reasoning, sloppy thinking and general laziness of mind known as the negative proof fallacy (or argument from/appeal to ignorance); it has a sharply defined meaning and a clearly delineated sense and when it crops up, as it it does a great deal here I've noticed, it's appropriate to point it out. You just don't like when it whenever somebody does so.
Not really. People here must be so used to your rantings over the years, ad nauseam, that it has no impact, if it ever did. You ought to realise that by now, unless you're a bit dense.
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If the deity is able to raise someone from the dead, why doesn't it get its finger out and do something useful like feeding the starving for instance?
I do find your blinkered thinking sad, Floo. As I've said before, humanity was made to be God's agents in this world. They have God-given brains, skills, limbs, etc. which they use to act on God's behalf. That is what my wife and I were doing whilst working in Nepal during the 1990s, what I do when I'm teaching, or debating over how best to get something done at TWAM, or the railway.
Having someone killed in a horrific way, just to have them resurrected three days later appears to be the work of the sickest psycho ever, >:( if it actually happened, which is highly unlikely!
I find your understanding of history to be sadly lacking. So, here is a quick reminder. Traditionally, when one did something wrong, death or exclusion (which often resulted in death) were the standard punishments especially in nomadic societies.
Societies then moved to a half-way position whereby if you did something wrong that wasn't beyond a certain level of evil, you were allowed to live but had to sacrifice an animal - a scapegoat. In some cases, you would ritualistically transfer your guilt onto that sheep or goat and it would be led out from the camp or settlement ( and its familial flock/herd) and left to fend for itself. In other cases, having transferred your guilt to it, the animal would be slaughtered and the blood used to indicate that you were forgiven. In some parts of the world this continues to this day. By allowing himself, in the form of Jesus, to be killed (sacrificed) in the way he was and then rising from the grave showed that God had made all that bloodshed irrelevent. I accept that you don't believe this, but it doesn't mean that it didn't happen, and that humans who have lived since that event have had the opportunity to benefit from it should they so wish (something you clearly don't)
Hope I think your thinking is equally blinkered. How anyone can see anything good in the idea of the deity sacrificing his supposed 'son' in such a terrible way, beggars belief. It is a very sick concept. If humanity really needed saving, an omnipotent deity could surely have come up with a much less bloodthirsty way of achieving it!
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If the deity is able to raise someone from the dead, why doesn't it get its finger out and do something useful like feeding the starving for instance?
I do find your blinkered thinking sad, Floo. As I've said before, humanity was made to be God's agents in this world. They have God-given brains, skills, limbs, etc. which they use to act on God's behalf. That is what my wife and I were doing whilst working in Nepal during the 1990s, what I do when I'm teaching, or debating over how best to get something done at TWAM, or the railway.
Having someone killed in a horrific way, just to have them resurrected three days later appears to be the work of the sickest psycho ever, >:( if it actually happened, which is highly unlikely!
I find your understanding of history to be sadly lacking. So, here is a quick reminder. Traditionally, when one did something wrong, death or exclusion (which often resulted in death) were the standard punishments especially in nomadic societies.
Societies then moved to a half-way position whereby if you did something wrong that wasn't beyond a certain level of evil, you were allowed to live but had to sacrifice an animal - a scapegoat. In some cases, you would ritualistically transfer your guilt onto that sheep or goat and it would be led out from the camp or settlement ( and its familial flock/herd) and left to fend for itself. In other cases, having transferred your guilt to it, the animal would be slaughtered and the blood used to indicate that you were forgiven. In some parts of the world this continues to this day. By allowing himself, in the form of Jesus, to be killed (sacrificed) in the way he was and then rising from the grave showed that God had made all that bloodshed irrelevent. I accept that you don't believe this, but it doesn't mean that it didn't happen, and that humans who have lived since that event have had the opportunity to benefit from it should they so wish (something you clearly don't)
Hope I think your thinking is equally blinkered. How anyone can see anything good in the idea of the deity sacrificing his supposed 'son' in such a terrible way, beggars belief. It is a very sick concept. If humanity really needed saving, an omnipotent deity could surely have come up with a much less bloodthirsty way of achieving it!
Murder is always ''bloodthirsty'' Floo unless you are suggesting that the authorities could have been more ''Agatha Christie'' about it. That would make you look completely shallow. In any case I believe it was the Romans and not God who came up with crucifixion.
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If the deity is able to raise someone from the dead, why doesn't it get its finger out and do something useful like feeding the starving for instance?
I do find your blinkered thinking sad, Floo. As I've said before, humanity was made to be God's agents in this world. They have God-given brains, skills, limbs, etc. which they use to act on God's behalf. That is what my wife and I were doing whilst working in Nepal during the 1990s, what I do when I'm teaching, or debating over how best to get something done at TWAM, or the railway.
Having someone killed in a horrific way, just to have them resurrected three days later appears to be the work of the sickest psycho ever, >:( if it actually happened, which is highly unlikely!
I find your understanding of history to be sadly lacking. So, here is a quick reminder. Traditionally, when one did something wrong, death or exclusion (which often resulted in death) were the standard punishments especially in nomadic societies.
Societies then moved to a half-way position whereby if you did something wrong that wasn't beyond a certain level of evil, you were allowed to live but had to sacrifice an animal - a scapegoat. In some cases, you would ritualistically transfer your guilt onto that sheep or goat and it would be led out from the camp or settlement ( and its familial flock/herd) and left to fend for itself. In other cases, having transferred your guilt to it, the animal would be slaughtered and the blood used to indicate that you were forgiven. In some parts of the world this continues to this day. By allowing himself, in the form of Jesus, to be killed (sacrificed) in the way he was and then rising from the grave showed that God had made all that bloodshed irrelevent. I accept that you don't believe this, but it doesn't mean that it didn't happen, and that humans who have lived since that event have had the opportunity to benefit from it should they so wish (something you clearly don't)
Hope I think your thinking is equally blinkered. How anyone can see anything good in the idea of the deity sacrificing his supposed 'son' in such a terrible way, beggars belief. It is a very sick concept. If humanity really needed saving, an omnipotent deity could surely have come up with a much less bloodthirsty way of achieving it!
Murder is always ''bloodthirsty'' Floo unless you are suggesting that the authorities could have been more ''Agatha Christie'' about it. That would make you look completely shallow. In any case I believe it was the Romans and not God who came up with crucifixion.
Precisely, nothing to do with any deity or 'saving' humanity!
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Hope I think your thinking is equally blinkered. How anyone can see anything good in the idea of the deity sacrificing his supposed 'son' in such a terrible way, beggars belief. It is a very sick concept. If humanity really needed saving, an omnipotent deity could surely have come up with a much less bloodthirsty way of achieving it!
Whilst crucifixion is a brutal form of death penalty, it is remarkably low on the 'bloodthirsty' scale. I'd put beheading or being hung, drawn and quartered far higher on any such scale of bloodthirstiness.
Your post also highlights the fact that, as someone who lives in a society that has been based on no longer needing animal sacrifice for sins as a result of the very event you are talking about for centuries, you have no idea just how vile the processes of animal sacrifice are. Fot the second three+ years of our time in Nepal, we lived within 150 yards of the main Hindu temple in Pokhara. At the peak animal sacrifice periods, the noise, stench and quantity of blood running down the open drains was phenomenol. It is only once you have experienced that that one realises how comparatively low on any scale of bloodthirstiness crucifixion comes. That's not to say that it wasn't a horrendous form of punishment; it was.
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Precisely, nothing to do with any deity or 'saving' humanity!
The form of execution may have been human, but - within a context whereby animal sacrifice was the norm - the idea of some form of sacrifice on a once for all basis makes sense. That it was God who chose to be that sacrifice makes even more sense when one remembers that he had made humanity to be in relationship with him, but that that relationship had been damaged, makes even more sense.
As a parent, I am sure that you understand the idea that - when the relationship between parent and child is damaged - 'sacrifice' has to be made on both sides in order for it to be re-established.
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If the deity is able to raise someone from the dead, why doesn't it get its finger out and do something useful like feeding the starving for instance?
I do find your blinkered thinking sad, Floo. As I've said before, humanity was made to be God's agents in this world. They have God-given brains, skills, limbs, etc. which they use to act on God's behalf. That is what my wife and I were doing whilst working in Nepal during the 1990s, what I do when I'm teaching, or debating over how best to get something done at TWAM, or the railway.
Having someone killed in a horrific way, just to have them resurrected three days later appears to be the work of the sickest psycho ever, >:( if it actually happened, which is highly unlikely!
I find your understanding of history to be sadly lacking. So, here is a quick reminder. Traditionally, when one did something wrong, death or exclusion (which often resulted in death) were the standard punishments especially in nomadic societies.
Societies then moved to a half-way position whereby if you did something wrong that wasn't beyond a certain level of evil, you were allowed to live but had to sacrifice an animal - a scapegoat. In some cases, you would ritualistically transfer your guilt onto that sheep or goat and it would be led out from the camp or settlement ( and its familial flock/herd) and left to fend for itself. In other cases, having transferred your guilt to it, the animal would be slaughtered and the blood used to indicate that you were forgiven. In some parts of the world this continues to this day. By allowing himself, in the form of Jesus, to be killed (sacrificed) in the way he was and then rising from the grave showed that God had made all that bloodshed irrelevent. I accept that you don't believe this, but it doesn't mean that it didn't happen, and that humans who have lived since that event have had the opportunity to benefit from it should they so wish (something you clearly don't)
Hope I think your thinking is equally blinkered. How anyone can see anything good in the idea of the deity sacrificing his supposed 'son' in such a terrible way, beggars belief. It is a very sick concept. If humanity really needed saving, an omnipotent deity could surely have come up with a much less bloodthirsty way of achieving it!
Murder is always ''bloodthirsty'' Floo unless you are suggesting that the authorities could have been more ''Agatha Christie'' about it. That would make you look completely shallow. In any case I believe it was the Romans and not God who came up with crucifixion.
Precisely, nothing to do with any deity or 'saving' humanity!
Except for the small matter of him being the one getting crucified.
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Precisely, nothing to do with any deity or 'saving' humanity!
The form of execution may have been human, but - within a context whereby animal sacrifice was the norm - the idea of some form of sacrifice on a once for all basis makes sense. That it was God who chose to be that sacrifice makes even more sense when one remembers that he had made humanity to be in relationship with him, but that that relationship had been damaged, makes even more sense.
As a parent, I am sure that you understand the idea that - when the relationship between parent and child is damaged - 'sacrifice' has to be made on both sides in order for it to be re-established.
What sane person/entity would sacrifice their own child? If a sacrifice was needed the parent would/should sacrifice themselves! The deity supposedly created human nature so if it went pear shaped it only had itself to blame! ::)
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Precisely, nothing to do with any deity or 'saving' humanity!
The form of execution may have been human, but - within a context whereby animal sacrifice was the norm - the idea of some form of sacrifice on a once for all basis makes sense. That it was God who chose to be that sacrifice makes even more sense when one remembers that he had made humanity to be in relationship with him, but that that relationship had been damaged, makes even more sense.
As a parent, I am sure that you understand the idea that - when the relationship between parent and child is damaged - 'sacrifice' has to be made on both sides in order for it to be re-established.
What sane person/entity would sacrifice their own child? If a sacrifice was needed the parent would/should sacrifice themselves! The deity supposedly created human nature so if it went pear shaped it only had itself to blame! ::)
Since the father is in the son and the son in the father I would guess that it is both self sacrifice and saying goodbye to one's child as he voluntarily goes to sacrifice himself for the greater good.
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Precisely, nothing to do with any deity or 'saving' humanity!
The form of execution may have been human, but - within a context whereby animal sacrifice was the norm - the idea of some form of sacrifice on a once for all basis makes sense. That it was God who chose to be that sacrifice makes even more sense when one remembers that he had made humanity to be in relationship with him, but that that relationship had been damaged, makes even more sense.
As a parent, I am sure that you understand the idea that - when the relationship between parent and child is damaged - 'sacrifice' has to be made on both sides in order for it to be re-established.
What sane person/entity would sacrifice their own child? If a sacrifice was needed the parent would/should sacrifice themselves! The deity supposedly created human nature so if it went pear shaped it only had itself to blame! ::)
Rubbish! If your child went "pear-shaped," it would not be your fault; at least not likely.
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Precisely, nothing to do with any deity or 'saving' humanity!
The form of execution may have been human, but - within a context whereby animal sacrifice was the norm - the idea of some form of sacrifice on a once for all basis makes sense. That it was God who chose to be that sacrifice makes even more sense when one remembers that he had made humanity to be in relationship with him, but that that relationship had been damaged, makes even more sense.
As a parent, I am sure that you understand the idea that - when the relationship between parent and child is damaged - 'sacrifice' has to be made on both sides in order for it to be re-established.
What sane person/entity would sacrifice their own child? If a sacrifice was needed the parent would/should sacrifice themselves! The deity supposedly created human nature so if it went pear shaped it only had itself to blame! ::)
Since the father is in the son and the son in the father I would guess that it is both self sacrifice and saying goodbye to one's child as he voluntarily goes to sacrifice himself for the greater good.
There is NO verifiable evidence to support Jesus being anything but mere human like the rest of us, certainly not a deity. ::)
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Your post also highlights the fact that, as someone who lives in a society that has been based on no longer needing animal sacrifice for sins as a result of the very event you are talking about for centuries, you have no idea just how vile the processes of animal sacrifice are.
Our society has never needed animal sacrifice for sins. The reason people don't do it anymore is because we understand it is a pointless exercise.
Furthermore, the Jewish custom of sacrificing a lamb for Pesach was really no more vile than their ordinary methods of slaughter.
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What sane person/entity would sacrifice their own child?
It wasn't really a sacrifice. Jesus didn't stay permanently dead. God would have known that before he started. It's a sacrifice in the same way as me giving you a cheque for £50 and then cancelling it before you cash it is a gift.
ETA: that last point is only true if the Christians are right, of course. In reality Jesus was executed and stayed dead.
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What sane person/entity would sacrifice their own child? If a sacrifice was needed the parent would/should sacrifice themselves! The deity supposedly created human nature so if it went pear shaped it only had itself to blame! ::)
Finally, Floo has caught on. As I - and others - have said many times before, Jesus and the Father are one, so by allowing Jesus to be killed, God the Father was allowing himself to be killed.
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There is NO (scientifically) verifiable evidence to support Jesus being anything but mere human like the rest of us, certainly not a deity. ::)
FIFY, Floo. Some of us don't regard science as the be-all and end-all of life.
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Finally, Floo has caught on. As I - and others - have said many times before, Jesus and the Father are one, so by allowing Jesus to be killed, God the Father was allowing himself to be killed.
Really? So if "God" was dead and Jesus was dead, how did they arrange to come back to life again?
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What sane person/entity would sacrifice their own child? If a sacrifice was needed the parent would/should sacrifice themselves! The deity supposedly created human nature so if it went pear shaped it only had itself to blame! ::)
Finally, Floo has caught on. As I - and others - have said many times before, Jesus and the Father are one, so by allowing Jesus to be killed, God the Father was allowing himself to be killed.
RUBBISH Jesus was a HUMAN with faults and failings, as well as some good points, not a deity. That much is clear if any of the stuff he is supposed to have spouted was correctly reported.
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RUBBISH Jesus was a HUMAN with faults and failings, as well as some good points, not a deity. That much is clear if any of the stuff he is supposed to have spouted was correctly reported.
Floo, you are fully entitled to hold such a belief; however, I and others here are equally entitled to disagree with you and to ask you for the evidence that supports your belief. In fact, you have been asked for that evidence on a number of occasions. Whereas, when you ask us for evidence for our belief we provide it and leave it for you to accept or reject, you have NEVER even attempted to provide any. I know which attitude I trust more.
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RUBBISH Jesus was a HUMAN with faults and failings, as well as some good points, not a deity. That much is clear if any of the stuff he is supposed to have spouted was correctly reported.
Floo, you are fully entitled to hold such a belief; however, I and others here are equally entitled to disagree with you and to ask you for the evidence that supports your belief. In fact, you have been asked for that evidence on a number of occasions. Whereas, when you ask us for evidence for our belief we provide it and leave it for you to accept or reject, you have NEVER even attempted to provide any. I know which attitude I trust more.
Hope you have been asked to supply verifiable evidence to back up your claims and have failed to do so!
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RUBBISH Jesus was a HUMAN with faults and failings, as well as some good points, not a deity. That much is clear if any of the stuff he is supposed to have spouted was correctly reported.
Floo, you are fully entitled to hold such a belief; however, I and others here are equally entitled to disagree with you and to ask you for the evidence that supports your belief.
You probably won't be amazed to learn that this is yet another example of your favourite fallacy, the appeal to or argument from ignorance. Men exist and conform to the laws of physics; advance a case that at least one man existed who didn't and you've just assumed the burden of proof.
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Hope you have been asked to supply verifiable evidence to back up your claims and have failed to do so!
Floo, I and the other Christians here have been asked to supply verifiable evidence and we have done so. OK, I accept that your definition of 'verifiable' doesn't match that of myself and others, but then - as I said to Shaker on a different thread - we are dealing with life from very different perspectives. I do not believe that scientific verification 9of great value though it is) is the be-all and end-all of life; you do.
On the other hand, you haven't even attempted to provide any evidence for your beliefs - whichever understanding of verifiable evidence' you happen to choose - despite being asked to provide it on numerous occasions. All you have done is make unsupported statements (some of which illustrate how limited your understanding of, for instance the Bible, is). As I hope you will accept, you have done this on this and other forums like this that we have shared membership of.
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I and the other Christians here have been asked to supply verifiable evidence and we have done so.
Did you know that repeating a lie often enough doesn't really make it come true?
OK, I accept that your definition of 'verifiable' doesn't match that of myself and others
You mean your definition of "verifiable" doesn't make any sense.
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Just had a quick read through the last couple of pages 7 and 8, really interesting
Love this forum it's so fascinating, intriguing and almost unbelievable, the amount of people that still go for these irrational beliefs; J P's post 195 sums it up in a nutshell, emphasis on the nut.
ippy
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Love this forum it's so fascinating, intriguing and almost unbelievable, the amount of people that still go for these irrational beliefs; J P's post 195 sums it up in a nutshell, emphasis on the nut.
I've often wondered about the irrational beliefs, ippy. Of course, I have a very different, probably broader understanding of the term than you will have.
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Did you know that repeating a lie often enough doesn't really make it come true?
That's what I and others have been trying to get the likes of you and Floo to appreciate. I'm glad that you, at least, have got that - though whether getting it will make any difference we will have to wait and see.
You mean your definition of "verifiable" doesn't make any sense.
Only from a purely scientific perspective like yours.
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Did you know that repeating a lie often enough doesn't really make it come true?
That's what I and others have been trying to get the likes of you and Floo to appreciate.
Wrong. You have repeatedly claimed you have verifiable evidence without actually having it. Your claim is a lie and it's not going to get true with repetition.
You mean your definition of "verifiable" doesn't make any sense.
Only from a purely scientific perspective like yours.
What other perspective for verifiable evidence is there? If other people can verify a piece of evidence, it is, by definition, scientific.
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I've often wondered about the irrational beliefs, ippy. Of course, I have a very different, probably broader understanding of the term than you will have.
How wonderful you are. I can't believe that your bathroom mirror doesn't have love-bites on it.
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Love this forum it's so fascinating, intriguing and almost unbelievable, the amount of people that still go for these irrational beliefs; J P's post 195 sums it up in a nutshell, emphasis on the nut.
I've often wondered about the irrational beliefs, ippy. Of course, I have a very different, probably broader understanding of the term than you will have.
Shure you will Hope.
ippy
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I've often wondered about the irrational beliefs, ippy. Of course, I have a very different, probably broader understanding of the term than you will have.
How wonderful you are. I can't believe that your bathroom mirror doesn't have love-bites on it.
Perhaps his given name is Noel, I suspect it is.
ippy
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Precisely, nothing to do with any deity or 'saving' humanity!
The form of execution may have been human, but - within a context whereby animal sacrifice was the norm - the idea of some form of sacrifice on a once for all basis makes sense. That it was God who chose to be that sacrifice makes even more sense when one remembers that he had made humanity to be in relationship with him, but that that relationship had been damaged, makes even more sense.
As a parent, I am sure that you understand the idea that - when the relationship between parent and child is damaged - 'sacrifice' has to be made on both sides in order for it to be re-established.
What sane person/entity would sacrifice their own child? If a sacrifice was needed the parent would/should sacrifice themselves! The deity supposedly created human nature so if it went pear shaped it only had itself to blame! ::)
Since the father is in the son and the son in the father I would guess that it is both self sacrifice and saying goodbye to one's child as he voluntarily goes to sacrifice himself for the greater good.
There is NO verifiable evidence to support Jesus being anything but mere human like the rest of us, certainly not a deity. ::)
Sorry I thought for a moment you had entered into a theological debate there but, obviously the going got a bit tough.
You are prepared to talk about points that you think you might score a point of then go to your default when you find you can't.
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Precisely, nothing to do with any deity or 'saving' humanity!
The form of execution may have been human, but - within a context whereby animal sacrifice was the norm - the idea of some form of sacrifice on a once for all basis makes sense. That it was God who chose to be that sacrifice makes even more sense when one remembers that he had made humanity to be in relationship with him, but that that relationship had been damaged, makes even more sense.
As a parent, I am sure that you understand the idea that - when the relationship between parent and child is damaged - 'sacrifice' has to be made on both sides in order for it to be re-established.
What sane person/entity would sacrifice their own child? If a sacrifice was needed the parent would/should sacrifice themselves! The deity supposedly created human nature so if it went pear shaped it only had itself to blame! ::)
Since the father is in the son and the son in the father I would guess that it is both self sacrifice and saying goodbye to one's child as he voluntarily goes to sacrifice himself for the greater good.
There is NO verifiable evidence to support Jesus being anything but mere human like the rest of us, certainly not a deity. ::)
God is unfalsifiable but I think most detect it even unbelievers like you. The evidence for that is your unreasonable and illogical hatred of Christ.
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God is unfalsifiable but I think most detect it even unbelievers like you.
Evidence?
The evidence for that is your unreasonable and illogical hatred of Christ.
No, that's evidence of the hatred and detestation of stupidity and irrationality and sloppy thinking.
Still, as I am wont to say: try again.
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God is unfalsifiable but I think most detect it even unbelievers like you.
Evidence?
The evidence for that is your unreasonable and illogical hatred of Christ.
No, that's evidence of the hatred and detestation of stupidity and irrationality and sloppy thinking.
Still, as I am wont to say: try again.
Shaker, you have no argument that doesn't boil down to philosophical naturalism.....so no evidence base there then. You cannot be taken seriously because of your support for apatheism, theological ignorance and indeed anything that ''stick's one on the christians''....and of course your support for Floo whom you are pitching to us now as someone informed......I guess that's a roundabout way of informing you just how wrong you are........
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Shaker, you have no argument that doesn't boil down to philosophical naturalism.....
You are Vlad and I claim my £20!
so no evidence base there then. You cannot be taken seriously because of your support for apatheism, theological ignorance and indeed anything that ''stick's one on the christians''....and of course your support for Floo whom you are pitching to us now as someone informed......I guess that's a roundabout way of informing you just how wrong you are........
You yourself have claimed that God is unfalsifiable which, if true, means Floo's assertion that there is no verifiable evidence for God must also be true.
So what you say is a roundabout way of telling us that you haven't got a clue.
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Shaker, you have no argument that doesn't boil down to philosophical naturalism.....
You are Vlad and I claim my £20!
so no evidence base there then. You cannot be taken seriously because of your support for apatheism, theological ignorance and indeed anything that ''stick's one on the christians''....and of course your support for Floo whom you are pitching to us now as someone informed......I guess that's a roundabout way of informing you just how wrong you are........
You yourself have claimed that God is unfalsifiable which, if true, means Floo's assertion that there is no verifiable evidence for God must also be true.
So what you say is a roundabout way of telling us that you haven't got a clue.
Yes but for goodness sake Jeremy look at what else is true about Floo's Modus Operandii.
She is up for discussing theology when it looks as though she has God bang to rights as Panto villain number one. Whenever anybody begins to get the better of her in theological discussion she reverts to the ''It's all crap anyway'' position.
Nobody denies there is no methodological naturalistically verifiable evidence for God. Floo wants to be in both the ''Hate God'' camp and the ''dismiss God'' camp.
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She is up for discussing theology when it looks as though she has God bang to rights as Panto villain number one. Whenever anybody begins to get the better of her in theological discussion
That's not possible.
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She is up for discussing theology when it looks as though she has God bang to rights as Panto villain number one. Whenever anybody begins to get the better of her in theological discussion
That's not possible.
Don't tell me............ ''It's all crap anyway''.
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She is up for discussing theology when it looks as though she has God bang to rights as Panto villain number one. Whenever anybody begins to get the better of her in theological discussion
That's not possible.
'ere Shaker what's the difference between you and God?
Some people try to portray God as a panto villain and you try to portray yourself as one.
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She is up for discussing theology when it looks as though she has God bang to rights as Panto villain number one. Whenever anybody begins to get the better of her in theological discussion
That's not possible.
Don't tell me............ ''It's all crap anyway''.
That's about the size of it, old fruit ;)
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That's not possible.
Sorry to disappoint you, Shaker but I've seen more people get the better of Floo in theological debate than I've seen her get the better of. That isn't only on this site, but on every other site I've interacted with her on. The most common way this happens is when she says that God ought to take the punshment which is, of course, what the crucifixion of Jesus is all about.
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She is up for discussing theology when it looks as though she has God bang to rights as Panto villain number one. Whenever anybody begins to get the better of her in theological discussion
That's not possible.
Don't tell me............ ''It's all crap anyway''.
That's about the size of it, old fruit ;)
No. That's the size of your argument....Namely a four word assertion.......So far it looks like an article of faith; See if you can ''polish it up a bit''.
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Sorry to disappoint you, Shaker but I've seen more people get the better of Floo in theological debate than I've seen her get the better of.
Who, where and when?
For the purposes of those rare gleams of clarity for the goddist mind, when I say "who, where and when", I actually mean "who, where and when."
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So far it looks like an article of faith
So what's your problem with it then? That's you and your lot's whole thing, isn't it?
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Shaker, you have no argument that doesn't boil down to philosophical naturalism.....
You are Vlad and I claim my £20!
so no evidence base there then. You cannot be taken seriously because of your support for apatheism, theological ignorance and indeed anything that ''stick's one on the christians''....and of course your support for Floo whom you are pitching to us now as someone informed......I guess that's a roundabout way of informing you just how wrong you are........
You yourself have claimed that God is unfalsifiable which, if true, means Floo's assertion that there is no verifiable evidence for God must also be true.
So what you say is a roundabout way of telling us that you haven't got a clue.
Yes but for goodness sake Jeremy look at what else is true about Floo's Modus Operandii.
She is up for discussing theology when it looks as though she has God bang to rights as Panto villain number one. Whenever anybody begins to get the better of her in theological discussion she reverts to the ''It's all crap anyway'' position.
Nobody denies there is no methodological naturalistically verifiable evidence for God. Floo wants to be in both the ''Hate God'' camp and the ''dismiss God'' camp.
She's using two different approaches to showing that you theists are wrong. Approach 1 is to point out that there is no evidence for your (or any) god. Approach 2 is to show that Christian beliefs are often at odds with their own scripture.
There's nothing wrong with using two different approaches to argue against an idea.
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So far it looks like an article of faith
So what's your problem with it then? That's you and your lot's whole thing, isn't it?
Well I'm glad you've finally admitted that Philosophical naturalism is a faith position. But under what definition can it be described as a faith. Not in a trust way since there is no actual experience of philosophical naturalism......Therefore it must be in the faith without evidence or experience category.......happy with that Shakes?
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She is up for discussing theology when it looks as though she has God bang to rights as Panto villain number one. Whenever anybody begins to get the better of her in theological discussion
That's not possible.
Somebody quote a post where Floo has actually debated anything theological. I believe she merely churns out the same one-liners, and variations of, over and over. Mind you, imo! :)
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Well I'm glad you've finally admitted that Philosophical naturalism is a faith position.
News to me. Where and when did I do that?
Or as usual are you just making shit up that I never said because your imaginary straw-man answer is easier to concoct crap about than the real answer you actually got?
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Shaker, you have no argument that doesn't boil down to philosophical naturalism.....
You are Vlad and I claim my £20!
so no evidence base there then. You cannot be taken seriously because of your support for apatheism, theological ignorance and indeed anything that ''stick's one on the christians''....and of course your support for Floo whom you are pitching to us now as someone informed......I guess that's a roundabout way of informing you just how wrong you are........
You yourself have claimed that God is unfalsifiable which, if true, means Floo's assertion that there is no verifiable evidence for God must also be true.
So what you say is a roundabout way of telling us that you haven't got a clue.
Yes but for goodness sake Jeremy look at what else is true about Floo's Modus Operandii.
She is up for discussing theology when it looks as though she has God bang to rights as Panto villain number one. Whenever anybody begins to get the better of her in theological discussion she reverts to the ''It's all crap anyway'' position.
Nobody denies there is no methodological naturalistically verifiable evidence for God. Floo wants to be in both the ''Hate God'' camp and the ''dismiss God'' camp.
She's using two different approaches to showing that you theists are wrong. Approach 1 is to point out that there is no evidence for your (or any) god. Approach 2 is to show that Christian beliefs are often at odds with their own scripture.
There's nothing wrong with using two different approaches to argue against an idea.
Yes it is approach 2 where there is failure largely because Floo sees ignorance of the opponents views as a virtue while still expecting the luxury of winning arguments on their ground.
Hope has outlined the basic misapprehension. What is it with you guys that you persist in it.......IMHO actual realisation of what we try to tell you is too ghastly for you to contemplate. Such is God dodging.
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I look forward to this latest post of Vlad's coming out in English.
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I look forward to this latest post of Vlad's coming out in English.
Perhaps you need to have some lessons in English then; I can help as a qualified and experienced English and English as a Foreign/Second Language teacher ;))
I accept that Vlad has expressed himself somewhat clumsily, but not so badly as to stop an averagely literate English speaker from understanding.
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Perhaps you need to have some lessons in English then
Unlikely. In fact, more than that; unnecessary.
I can help as a qualified and experienced English and English as a Foreign/Second Language teacher ;))
Poor bastards :(
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Yes it is approach 2 where there is failure largely because Floo sees ignorance of the opponents views as a virtue while still expecting the luxury of winning arguments on their ground.
The point is that Christians (excepting BA) reinterpret the OT to fit their perception of what God is like. For example, there is a story in the OT in which God kills just about everybody. Christians don't like what this says about God so they invent other "deep" meanings which are really just excuses to avoid thinking about what the real message is.
Hope has outlined the basic misapprehension.
Hope couldn't outline a dog turd if Rover shat it on his sketch pad.
What is it with you guys that you persist in it.......IMHO actual realisation of what we try to tell you is too ghastly for you to contemplate. Such is God dodging.
The Bible says what it says. You Christians just can't handle it.
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Christians don't like what this says about God so they invent other "deep" meanings which are really just excuses to avoid thinking about what the real message is.
Some Christians do that. Some Christians don't do that.
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Christians don't like what this says about God so they invent other "deep" meanings which are really just excuses to avoid thinking about what the real message is.
Some Christians do that. Some Christians don't do that.
True. Bashful Anthony denies that the OT has anything to do with his religion.
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Christians don't like what this says about God so they invent other "deep" meanings which are really just excuses to avoid thinking about what the real message is.
Some Christians do that. Some Christians don't do that.
True. Bashful Anthony denies that the OT has anything to do with his religion.
that reminds me, earlier you were pretending to believe that finding a verse in the OT means you have found a statement of Christian doctrine. In response to this I asked you whether you think Christian doctrine forbids us to eat pork. You never answered. I wonder why. Perhaps facing the reality that the OT does not enunciate Christian doctrine just spoils your fun.
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The Bible says what it says. You Christians just can't handle it.
Ironically, jeremy, a lot of the modern understanding of parts of the Bible, say Genesis 1-11, comes from literary criticism which so many believed would be the death of the document but which has actually reinvigorated it. As for "Hope couldn't outline a dog turd if Rover shat it on his sketch pad", I have yet to see you or anyone else come up with a rational alternative to what I have said. I realise that you think that by making pointless comments like this you can gain some of the brownie points that ippy is so keen on, but they don't actually move the discussion on - something that perhaps you are seeking to avoid.
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Since the only people who knew what they really meant when they conceived the Bible texts are dead, no amount of "modern understanding" can be taken as gospel. Likewise, arguments between contrasting "interpretations" of the book are nothing more than personal opinions.
In other words, you can put whatever meaning that appeals to you in them, and nobody can prove you wrong, which renders the book fairly useless, except for its historical and moral claims.
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Since the only people who knew what they really meant when they conceived the Bible texts are dead, no amount of "modern understanding" can be taken as gospel. Likewise, arguments between contrasting "interpretations" of the book are nothing more than personal opinions.
In other words, you can put whatever meaning that appeals to you in them, and nobody can prove you wrong, which renders the book fairly useless, except for its historical and moral claims.
You seem to forget that the Biblical documents haven't exited in a cultural vacuum, Len. In fact, no written material ever has. From the day any document is written, there is commentary and explanation surrounding it (think, for instance, of the reams of material that came out within days of the recent Budget). We still have a lot of that material for the Bible - in fact, some parts of the Bible are commentaries of earlier parts.
"Likewise, arguments between contrasting "interpretations" of the book are nothing more than personal opinions." No more so than much scientific documentation, by the way.
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Since the only people who knew what they really meant when they conceived the Bible texts are dead, no amount of "modern understanding" can be taken as gospel. Likewise, arguments between contrasting "interpretations" of the book are nothing more than personal opinions.
In other words, you can put whatever meaning that appeals to you in them, and nobody can prove you wrong, which renders the book fairly useless, except for its historical and moral claims.
You seem to forget that the Biblical documents haven't exited in a cultural vacuum, Len. In fact, no written material ever has. From the day any document is written, there is commentary and explanation surrounding it (think, for instance, of the reams of material that came out within days of the recent Budget). We still have a lot of that material for the Bible - in fact, some parts of the Bible are commentaries of earlier parts.
"Likewise, arguments between contrasting "interpretations" of the book are nothing more than personal opinions." No more so than much scientific documentation, by the way.
Indeed. but the Bible has always appealed strongly to the human desire not to accept that his life is all there is, and that there is a better life to come.
I would go so far as to say that we non-believers are unlucky not to have been taken in by it, for obvious reasons. But personally I prefer to face facts, however grim. :)
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Hope you have been asked to supply verifiable evidence to back up your claims and have failed to do so!
Floo, I and the other Christians here have been asked to supply verifiable evidence and we have done so. OK, I accept that your definition of 'verifiable' doesn't match that of myself and others, but then - as I said to Shaker on a different thread - we are dealing with life from very different perspectives. I do not believe that scientific verification 9of great value though it is) is the be-all and end-all of life; you do.
On the other hand, you haven't even attempted to provide any evidence for your beliefs - whichever understanding of verifiable evidence' you happen to choose - despite being asked to provide it on numerous occasions. All you have done is make unsupported statements (some of which illustrate how limited your understanding of, for instance the Bible, is). As I hope you will accept, you have done this on this and other forums like this that we have shared membership of.
You have NEVER supplied any VERIFIABLE evidence, that is a LIE! All you have done is supply assertions that convince you, but don't stand up to any sort of scrutiny! ::)
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You have NEVER supplied any VERIFIABLE evidence, that is a LIE! All you have done is supply assertions that convince you, but don't stand up to any sort of scrutiny! ::)
Have you provided any evidence for your belief system to even be put under scrutiny?
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You have NEVER supplied any VERIFIABLE evidence, that is a LIE! All you have done is supply assertions that convince you, but don't stand up to any sort of scrutiny! ::)
Have you provided any evidence for your belief system to even be put under scrutiny?
You conveniently forget that to NOT believe something is the default position.
If you claim that Jesus rose from the dead, then it is for YOU to provide the evidence. The alternative view that it did not happen the the default position.
Because you never provide sufficient evidence (anecdotal evidence for a miracle is never sufficient) then the default position remains intact, and it is ONLY sensible to conclude that he did not rise from the dead.
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... it is ONLY sensible to conclude that he did not rise from the dead.
Or that he was not actually as dead as they thought he was. :)
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You conveniently forget that to NOT believe something is the default position.
Do you have any evidence to support that statement? Your default position may be to NOT believe something, but was it always so? Is it the default position for everyone?
If you claim that Jesus rose from the dead, then it is for YOU to provide the evidence. The alternative view that it did not happen the the default position.
Because you never provide sufficient evidence (anecdotal evidence for a miracle is never sufficient) then the default position remains intact, and it is ONLY sensible to conclude that he did not rise from the dead.
Well, there is documentary evidence - but of course you and others here regard that as flawed because it supports an understanding of the universe that you don't agree with.
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"An understanding of the universe"? You jest.
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Well, there is documentary evidence are anecdotal claims - but of course you and others here regard that as flawed because it supports an understanding of the universe that you don't agree with.
FIFY
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You conveniently forget that to NOT believe something is the default position.
Do you have any evidence to support that statement? Your default position may be to NOT believe something, but was it always so? Is it the default position for everyone?
If you claim that Jesus rose from the dead, then it is for YOU to provide the evidence. The alternative view that it did not happen the the default position.
Because you never provide sufficient evidence (anecdotal evidence for a miracle is never sufficient) then the default position remains intact, and it is ONLY sensible to conclude that he did not rise from the dead.
Well, there is documentary evidence - but of course you and others here regard that as flawed because it supports an understanding of the universe that you don't agree with.
Your default position may be to NOT believe something, but was it always so? Is it the default position for everyone?
This is the default position for ALL people that use reason and logic. This is just the rule.
Well, there is documentary evidence
Anecdotal evidence is never enough for miracle claims.
I suspect you will dismiss all the anecdotal claims the miracles performed by sai baba, and I also suspect you do not take seriously all the documented cases of alien abduction.
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This is the default position for ALL people that use reason and logic. This is just the rule.
According to you.
Well, there is documentary evidence
Anecdotal evidence is never enough for miracle claims.
So, documentary evidence is necessarily anecdotal, is it?
I suspect you will dismiss all the anecdotal claims the miracles performed by sai baba, ..
Well, as I know of and have spoken with a person (Tal Brooke) who was there at the time of many of the claims, who has stated that they didn't actually happen - yes I do dismiss those claims.
... and I also suspect you do not take seriously all the documented cases of alien abduction.
I am undecided as regards these, as I have never been shown any of the so-called first-person evidence, combined with the fact that there is no evidence for or against the existence of such beings.
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Hope
According to you.
No, not me these are the rules.
Well, as I know of and have spoken with a person (Tal Brooke) who was there at the time of many of the claims, who has stated that they didn't actually happen - yes I do dismiss those claims.
I doubt he was there at the majority of the events claimed.
Why do you not dismiss his account, is he biased, is he a Christian?
I am undecided as regards these, as I have never been shown any of the so-called first-person evidence, combined with the fact that there is no evidence for or against the existence of such beings.
There are lots of account of these on the net.
When you say there is no evidence for or against these beings, well there is no evidence for a god either.
You simply employ confirmation bias to support your indoctrinated belief.
Your beliefs are not founded or supported by sufficient evidence to come to the conclusions you have.
http://ufos.about.com/od/aliensalienabduction/a/bestabductions.htm
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Hope keeps asking non believers to give evidence, whilst not giving any himself to support his position.
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Hope keeps asking non believers to give evidence, whilst not giving any himself to support his position.
Floo never gives evidence; Hope and others provide evidence that some here do not regard as evidence because of the limited view of the universe that they hold.
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Hope keeps asking non believers to give evidence, whilst not giving any himself to support his position.
Floo never gives evidence; Hope and others provide evidence that some here do not regard as evidence because of the limited view of the universe that they hold.
WHAT A COP OUT! ::)
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I doubt he was there at the majority of the events claimed.
Why do you not dismiss his account, is he biased, is he a Christian?
When he wrote an article about the non-occurrence of the claims he had only just left the Sai Baba cult and was neither a Sai Baba-ist or a Christian. He has become a Christian since then, so the suggestion of bias doesn't float.
There are lots of account of these on the net.
When I say first-hand, I mean face to face (sorry for that confusion). After all, the internet is even more easily falsified/amended than written documents.
When you say there is no evidence for or against these beings, well there is no evidence for a god either.
I'd disagree, BR. There is plenty of evidence for God. I appreciate that it doesn't match your rtather limited understanding of 'evidence'.
Imo, you simply employ confirmation bias to support your indoctrinated belief.
Your beliefs are not founded or supported by sufficient evidence to come to the conclusions you have.
FIFY
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Hope keeps asking non believers to give evidence, whilst not giving any himself to support his position.
Floo never gives evidence; Hope and others provide evidence that some here do not regard as evidence because of the limited view of the universe that they hold.
WHAT A COP OUT! ::)
It was never going to be otherwise, though.
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Hope keeps asking non believers to give evidence, whilst not giving any himself to support his position.
Floo never gives evidence; Hope and others provide evidence that some here do not regard as evidence because of the limited view of the universe that they hold.
It's not a limited view, it's a logical rational view.
The sort of evidence you have for your belief, you instantly dismiss for others, for very good reasons. It's not sufficient evidence.
What's really happening here is that you believe proposition X. You then look for anything to confirm proposition X regardless of whether that evidence is compelling, or whether competing evidence of equal quality supports proposition Y.
Hence, you do not accept the miracles of sai baba, nor alien abbuctions, nor any other religions, but you do accept the claims of Christianity.
I and others on here, treat all evidence equally and with no favour, and dismiss you claims just as you do the claims of other religions etc.
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I doubt he was there at the majority of the events claimed.
Why do you not dismiss his account, is he biased, is he a Christian?
When he wrote an article about the non-occurrence of the claims he had only just left the Sai Baba cult and was neither a Sai Baba-ist or a Christian. He has become a Christian since then, so the suggestion of bias doesn't float.
There are lots of account of these on the net.
When I say first-hand, I mean face to face (sorry for that confusion). After all, the internet is even more easily falsified/amended than written documents.
When you say there is no evidence for or against these beings, well there is no evidence for a god either.
I'd disagree, BR. There is plenty of evidence for God. I appreciate that it doesn't match your rtather limited understanding of 'evidence'.
Imo, you simply employ confirmation bias to support your indoctrinated belief.
Your beliefs are not founded or supported by sufficient evidence to come to the conclusions you have.
FIFY
No you did not fix it, you made it wrong.
It was correct in the first place, unless of course you can provide compelling evidence.
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Another drubbing Hope, no need to worry about the brownie points there's no one there to award them or take em away; well there's no evidence to indicate there is.
ippy
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that reminds me, earlier you were pretending to believe that finding a verse in the OT means you have found a statement of Christian doctrine.
Nope. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the OT contradicts Christian doctrine.
In response to this I asked you whether you think Christian doctrine forbids us to eat pork.
Didn't see that. Why do you ignore the laws about clean and unclean animals?
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As for "Hope couldn't outline a dog turd if Rover shat it on his sketch pad",
I was pretty pleased about that. I will be recycling it in other contexts (not involving this board).
I have yet to see you or anyone else come up with a rational alternative to what I have said.
The rational alternative is that the OT, the NT and Christian doctrine are all the works of men and your god is fiction.
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that reminds me, earlier you were pretending to believe that finding a verse in the OT means you have found a statement of Christian doctrine.
Nope. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the OT contradicts Christian doctrine.
In response to this I asked you whether you think Christian doctrine forbids us to eat pork.
Didn't see that. Why do you ignore the laws about clean and unclean animals?
Mostly because I am not Jewish
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Well, there is documentary evidence
Just as there is documentary evidence that Harry Potter defeated Lord Voldemort. Would Sirius Black (for example) have given his life for a lie?
but of course you and others here regard that as flawed because it supports an understanding of the universe that you don't agree with.
An understanding of the Universe in which a dead body can break the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That isn't really an understanding of the Universe, it's a fairy story.
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Hope and others provide evidence that some here do not regard as evidence because of the limited view of the universe that they hold.
No, because it cannot be verified.
By the way, it is you with your superstitious bollocks* that has a limited view of the Universe.
*Not a reference to your actual bollocks.
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Mostly because I am not Jewish
Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law. It's amusing that Christians don't think the law applies to them.
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Mostly because I am not Jewish
Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law. It's amusing that Christians don't think the law applies to them.
Jesus was Jewish. I'm not. The Law doesn't apply to me - why should it?
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Mostly because I am not Jewish
Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law. It's amusing that Christians don't think the law applies to them.
Jesus was Jewish. I'm not. The Law doesn't apply to me - why should it?
So all that stuff about abominating gays doesn't apply to you? I wish you'd tell all the other Christians that.
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So all that stuff about abominating gays doesn't apply to you?
Of course not
So all that stuff about abominating gays doesn't apply to you? I wish you'd tell all the other Christians that.
What makes you think I don't? (Well, not all of them, obviously!)
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What makes you think I don't? (Well, not all of them, obviously!)
A lot of them don't seem to have got the message.
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What makes you think I don't? (Well, not all of them, obviously!)
A lot of them don't seem to have got the message.
No! Sadly me banging on about it doesn't seem to have done the trick.
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That's religion for you.
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Another drubbing Hope, no need to worry about the brownie points there's no one there to award them or take em away; well there's no evidence to indicate there is.
ippy
Sorry if you feel you've had a drubbing, ippy.
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Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law. It's amusing that Christians don't think the law applies to them.
That's right, jeremy, he didn't come to abolish it; he came to fulfil (complete) it. As such, it no longer applies to Christians as the law was the foundation of the relationship between God and the Jews. Christians have a different relationship with God - hence the New Testament (Covenant). As I'm sure you'll agree new covenants supersede old ones.
So all that stuff about abominating gays doesn't apply to you? I wish you'd tell all the other Christians that.
Where, within the New Covenant, is there anything about 'abominating gays', jeremy? I accept that there are a small number of so-called Christians who seem to have added this practice to their Bibles - eg Westboro Baptist - but I think you'll find that, even in the past, very few abominated the individual, abominating the behaviour instead.
This approach is, in part, why so many of the efforts to rehabilitate prisoners run by Christian groups have a higher than average success rate - the person remains of value; the behaviour is what is questioned.
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Where, within the New Covenant, is there anything about 'abominating gays', jeremy? I accept that there are a small number of so-called Christians who seem to have added this practice to their Bibles - eg Westboro Baptist - but I think you'll find that, even in the past, very few abominated the individual, abominating the behaviour instead.
So where in the NT does it say that we should abominate the behaviour?
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Another drubbing Hope, no need to worry about the brownie points there's no one there to award them or take em away; well there's no evidence to indicate there is.
ippy
Sorry if you feel you've had a drubbing, ippy.
I can understand your reluctance to accept that you've had another drubbing Hope, they're becoming a rather frequent occurrence for you just lately, I can appreciate this difficulty of yours.
ippy
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You conveniently forget that to NOT believe something is the default position.
Do you have any evidence to support that statement? Your default position may be to NOT believe something, but was it always so? Is it the default position for everyone?
As far as classical/standard logic is concerned, it's either use non-belief as the default position or don't use logic. To believe things off the bat by default is to run into inevitable contradictions, which violates the law of non-contradiction.
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Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law. It's amusing that Christians don't think the law applies to them.
That's right, jeremy, he didn't come to abolish it; he came to fulfil (complete) it. As such, it no longer applies to Christians
Another word for a law that no longer applies is "abolished".
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Another word for a law that no longer applies is "abolished".
Only if it no longer applies to anyone. Unfortunately, imo, most Jews have not understood that the law has been fulfilled.
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Where, within the New Covenant, is there anything about 'abominating gays', jeremy? I accept that there are a small number of so-called Christians who seem to have added this practice to their Bibles - eg Westboro Baptist - but I think you'll find that, even in the past, very few abominated the individual, abominating the behaviour instead.
So where in the NT does it say that we should abominate the behaviour?
I think the general idea is expressed in Romans 1, Len (verse 27 in particular in the quoted passage below:
25] because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
[26]
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural,
[27] and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
[28]
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.
[29] They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips,
[30] slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
[31] foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
[32] Though they know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.
For me, this whole chapter is one of the most obnoxious of the writings generally agreed as being definitely by Paul (there are other equally obnoxious passages in letters not generally credited to him). This was apparently the last epistle he wrote, though unfortunately it appears first in order in the NT - so that people inclined to be homophobic bigots get in the mood before they read anything more - or perhaps don't bother to read any further, since they've got enough ammunition to keep them going for quite a long while. "God hates fags - Hallelujah"
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Where, within the New Covenant, is there anything about 'abominating gays', jeremy? I accept that there are a small number of so-called Christians who seem to have added this practice to their Bibles - eg Westboro Baptist - but I think you'll find that, even in the past, very few abominated the individual, abominating the behaviour instead.
So where in the NT does it say that we should abominate the behaviour?
I think the general idea is expressed in Romans 1, Len (verse 27 in particular in the quoted passage below:
25] because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
[26]
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural,
[27] and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
[28]
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.
[29] They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips,
[30] slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
[31] foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
[32] Though they know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.
For me, this whole chapter is one of the most obnoxious of the writings generally agreed as being definitely by Paul (there are other equally obnoxious passages in letters not generally credited to him). This was apparently the last epistle he wrote, though unfortunately it appears first in order in the NT - so that people inclined to be homophobic bigots get in the mood before they read anything more - or perhaps don't bother to read any further, since they've got enough ammunition to keep them going for quite a long while. "God hates fags - Hallelujah"
I see, thank you. So it was nothing Jesus said, just Paul.
He certainly sounds more like a closet case! :)
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Where, within the New Covenant, is there anything about 'abominating gays', jeremy? I accept that there are a small number of so-called Christians who seem to have added this practice to their Bibles - eg Westboro Baptist - but I think you'll find that, even in the past, very few abominated the individual, abominating the behaviour instead.
So where in the NT does it say that we should abominate the behaviour?
I think the general idea is expressed in Romans 1, Len (verse 27 in particular in the quoted passage below:
25] because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
[26]
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural,
[27] and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
[28]
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.
[29] They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips,
[30] slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
[31] foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
[32] Though they know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.
For me, this whole chapter is one of the most obnoxious of the writings generally agreed as being definitely by Paul (there are other equally obnoxious passages in letters not generally credited to him). This was apparently the last epistle he wrote, though unfortunately it appears first in order in the NT - so that people inclined to be homophobic bigots get in the mood before they read anything more - or perhaps don't bother to read any further, since they've got enough ammunition to keep them going for quite a long while. "God hates fags - Hallelujah"
Christianity has it's Fred Phelps'. Antitheism has it's disreputable equivalents who want the religious silenced.
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Another word for a law that no longer applies is "abolished".
Only if it no longer applies to anyone. Unfortunately, imo, most Jews have not understood that the law has been fulfilled.
What does it mean to say a law has been fulfilled? A law is an instruction to perform or not perform certain types of behaviour. What does it mean to fulfil that? Why do you think that, for Christians, it means they can ignore God's laws?
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I see, thank you. So it was nothing Jesus said, just Paul.
He certainly sounds more like a closet case! :)
I agree with that very much, Len. It has often been suggested, but the most persuasive arguments I've seen come from Bishop Shelby Spong (whom Alan Alien, naturally, thinks "a plonker"). Paul makes a lot of his "thorn in the flesh", and how he failed to keep the Jewish law, no matter how hard he tried. Being so steeped in the idea that homosexuality was an abomination, it would only be natural for him to be tortured with guilt, if he were a closet gay - with the virulent consequences we can see in his writings. He's not entirely to be blamed - admitting it to himself, let alone being openly gay in that society in those times might have led to his being stoned to death!
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I see, thank you. So it was nothing Jesus said, just Paul.
He certainly sounds more like a closet case! :)
I agree with that very much, Len. It has often been suggested, but the most persuasive arguments I've seen come from Bishop Shelby Spong (whom Alan Alien, naturally, thinks "a plonker"). Paul makes a lot of his "thorn in the flesh", and how he failed to keep the Jewish law, no matter how hard he tried. Being so steeped in the idea that homosexuality was an abomination, it would only be natural for him to be tortured with guilt, if he were a closet gay - with the virulent consequences we can see in his writings. He's not entirely to be blamed - admitting it to himself, let alone being openly gay in that society in those times might have led to his being stoned to death!
Sadly, Dicky, there are many of the faithful still in the same boat, although nowadays they are outed more easily, as the news shows very often.
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Paul makes a lot of his "thorn in the flesh", and how he failed to keep the Jewish law, no matter how hard he tried. Being so steeped in the idea that homosexuality was an abomination, it would only be natural for him to be tortured with guilt, if he were a closet gay
A lot?
In any case, it's a bit of a leap. Is there any actual evidence that he was gay?
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Paul makes a lot of his "thorn in the flesh", and how he failed to keep the Jewish law, no matter how hard he tried. Being so steeped in the idea that homosexuality was an abomination, it would only be natural for him to be tortured with guilt, if he were a closet gay
A lot?
In any case, it's a bit of a leap. Is there any actual evidence that he was gay?
No definitive evidence, but it's a fair extrapolation, given his virulent denunciation of homosexual acts, in a manner that is quite hysterical. Closet gays have often been known to act in this "over-protesting" manner (read the plays of Arthur Miller). There are a number of clues in Paul's writings, and given how zealous he was for the Jewish law and his confessed inability to live up to it, it is quite probable that some homosexual component in his nature was giving him particular grief. Read Bishop John Shelby Spong's views - they seem fairly persuasive to me (a very interesting tome is "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism".
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given how zealous he was for the Jewish law and his confessed inability to live up to it, it is quite probable that some homosexual component in his nature was giving him particular grief.
You must mean possible, not probable.
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The thread might just as well state 'Low Probability that god adheres to probability theory'. They are both as daft a statement as each other.
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No definitive evidence, but it's a fair extrapolation, given his virulent denunciation of homosexual acts, in a manner that is quite hysterical.
If you want to take this approach, can you explain why he was even more 'hysterical' when it comes to husbands mistreated their wives (or vice versa); or slaveowners mistreating their slaves; Jews telling non-jews that they had to follow Jewish law if they wanted to be Christians?
There are a number of clues in Paul's writings ...
Such as ...?
and given how zealous he was for the Jewish law and his confessed inability to live up to it, it is quite probable that some homosexual component in his nature was giving him particular grief.
What makes you think that he had picked on this particular law which, in terms of its Scriptural coverage for the Jews, is pretty limited. As I have already pointed out, he gets far more exercised over several other aspects of the law.
Read Bishop John Shelby Spong's views - they seem fairly persuasive to me (a very interesting tome is "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism".
I've read a number of Spong's books and articles over the years and find them rather tame. Can't say that they get anywhere near 'persuasive' unless one is pretty gullible; if anything, they are pretty second-rate.
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No definitive evidence, but it's a fair extrapolation, given his virulent denunciation of homosexual acts, in a manner that is quite hysterical.
If you want to take this approach, can you explain why he was even more 'hysterical' when it comes to husbands mistreated their wives (or vice versa); or slaveowners mistreating their slaves; Jews telling non-jews that they had to follow Jewish law if they wanted to be Christians?
As far as I'm concerned, Romans 1 is about the most 'hysterical' chapter in all Paul's writings (those that most intelligent scholars think he actually wrote). If you can't distinguish between the tone of the latter and - for instance - 1Corinthians 13, then I pity you.
Read Bishop John Shelby Spong's views - they seem fairly persuasive to me (a very interesting tome is "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism".
I've read a number of Spong's books and articles over the years and find them rather tame. Can't say that they get anywhere near 'persuasive' unless one is pretty gullible; if anything, they are pretty second-rate.
As Bernard Shaw said "The lower mind cannot understand the higher mind". Spong certainly beats most of your effusions on here into a cocked hat. If you think he's so second rate, perhaps you might offer your views in a scholarly Christian publication, rather than adopting such a high-and-mighty tone here. I don't take an uncritical view of his writings, by the way - after all, I don't claim to be a Christian. But for someone like you to start throwing the word "gullible" about to describe those who don't agree with you, just about takes the biscuit. After all, you believe in a literal Resurrection, don't you? Something Spong is certainly not so asinine as to accept.
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and given how zealous he was for the Jewish law and his confessed inability to live up to it, it is quite probable that some homosexual component in his nature was giving him particular grief.
What makes you think that he had picked on this particular law which, in terms of its Scriptural coverage for the Jews, is pretty limited. As I have already pointed out, he gets far more exercised over several other aspects of the law.
The very fact that he chose to mention it at all, and in such a hysterical manner, should really give you pause for thought.
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Paul makes a lot of his "thorn in the flesh", and how he failed to keep the Jewish law, no matter how hard he tried. Being so steeped in the idea that homosexuality was an abomination, it would only be natural for him to be tortured with guilt, if he were a closet gay
A lot?
In any case, it's a bit of a leap. Is there any actual evidence that he was gay?
No definitive evidence, but it's a fair extrapolation, given his virulent denunciation of homosexual acts, in a manner that is quite hysterical. Closet gays have often been known to act in this "over-protesting" manner (read the plays of Arthur Miller). There are a number of clues in Paul's writings, and given how zealous he was for the Jewish law and his confessed inability to live up to it, it is quite probable that some homosexual component in his nature was giving him particular grief. Read Bishop John Shelby Spong's views - they seem fairly persuasive to me (a very interesting tome is "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism".
That's all you needed to say. The rest of your post is pure, unevidenced, conjecture: and pretty worthless.
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Paul makes a lot of his "thorn in the flesh", and how he failed to keep the Jewish law, no matter how hard he tried. Being so steeped in the idea that homosexuality was an abomination, it would only be natural for him to be tortured with guilt, if he were a closet gay
A lot?
In any case, it's a bit of a leap. Is there any actual evidence that he was gay?
No definitive evidence, but it's a fair extrapolation, given his virulent denunciation of homosexual acts, in a manner that is quite hysterical. Closet gays have often been known to act in this "over-protesting" manner (read the plays of Arthur Miller). There are a number of clues in Paul's writings, and given how zealous he was for the Jewish law and his confessed inability to live up to it, it is quite probable that some homosexual component in his nature was giving him particular grief. Read Bishop John Shelby Spong's views - they seem fairly persuasive to me (a very interesting tome is "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism".
That's all you needed to say. The rest of your post is pure, unevidenced, conjecture: and pretty worthless.
Interesting that he has such a deeply held belief based upon his interpretation of something he read in the Bible. I imagine he would encourage others to base their beliefs upon similar evidence (after all, he's not a hypocrite or anything!)
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You conveniently forget that to NOT believe something is the default position.
Do you have any evidence to support that statement? Your default position may be to NOT believe something, but was it always so? Is it the default position for everyone?
If you claim that Jesus rose from the dead, then it is for YOU to provide the evidence. The alternative view that it did not happen the the default position.
Because you never provide sufficient evidence (anecdotal evidence for a miracle is never sufficient) then the default position remains intact, and it is ONLY sensible to conclude that he did not rise from the dead.
Well, there is documentary evidence - but of course you and others here regard that as flawed because it supports an understanding of the universe that you don't agree with.
Your default position may be to NOT believe something, but was it always so? Is it the default position for everyone?
This is the default position for ALL people that use reason and logic. This is just the rule.
Well, there is documentary evidence
Anecdotal evidence is never enough for miracle claims.
This is demonstrably wrong. See #77.
I suspect you will dismiss all the anecdotal claims the miracles performed by sai baba, and I also suspect you do not take seriously all the documented cases of alien abduction.
Don't you read what people post. Do a quick Google on Sai Baba and you will find videos demonstrating him to be a fraudster, including showing how he did his stuff. That is one good reason for dismissing his claims.
Perhaps you could retain that information ready for the next time you are tempted to waffle on about him.
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Mostly because I am not Jewish
Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law...
How about completing the quote?
Hint: the next word is "but...".
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Mostly because I am not Jewish
Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law...
How about completing the quote?
Hint: the next word is "but...".
If there is a law and something Jesus did (we are never told exactly what fulfilling the law means) means that you no longer have to obey the law, then that law has been abolished. It is no longer in force. That is what abolition means.
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Mostly because I am not Jewish
Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law...
How about completing the quote?
Hint: the next word is "but...".
If there is a law and something Jesus did (we are never told exactly what fulfilling the law means) means that you no longer have to obey the law, then that law has been abolished. It is no longer in force. That is what abolition means.
How about completing the quote?
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Mostly because I am not Jewish
Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law...
How about completing the quote?
Hint: the next word is "but...".
If there is a law and something Jesus did (we are never told exactly what fulfilling the law means) means that you no longer have to obey the law, then that law has been abolished. It is no longer in force. That is what abolition means.
How about completing the quote?
How about not deflecting from the point.
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For this to be a good argument (that God raised Jesus from the dead), the probability of it being true needs to be higher than the probability of it not being true, i.e. >50%. On occasions people here have said that there are infinite number of possible other explanations for what is recorded in the NT (the empty tomb, etc.). That may be the case, but it is irrelevant. If the probability of those individual other explanations total less than 50%, it means that the probability of God having raised Jesus from the dead is greater than 50%. The percentages I quoted as examples, i.e. 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125% and so on were part of a sequence where, though infinitely long, only total 25%, thus showing that it is possible to have an infinite number of other possible explanations, yet still have a total of less than 50%.
Be interested to see Al show his workings.
We all know we'll see confirmation bias but it would be nice to see it openly exposed.
Did we actually get to see these workings?
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What do you think, jak?
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Interesting that he has such a deeply held belief based upon his interpretation of something he read in the Bible. I imagine he would encourage others to base their beliefs upon similar evidence (after all, he's not a hypocrite or anything!)
Not a deeply held belief - I think the scenario is plausible. As for your "something he read in the Bible" jibe: that's pretty pathetic. Many serious scholars think that some of the writings of St Paul are actually genuine: the guy actually did write them. I consider that many of his writings are the genuine article, too. From which genuine literary effusions one is entitled to make speculations. I said my argument largely stemmed from Spong's views. Interesting that BA should take such exception, particularly since the book I mentioned is a blast against fundamentalism. Now I always thought BA was against fundamentalism. I thought he had issues with St Paul, too. But then, who knows what he believes? What he does appear to believe he certainly doesn't seem to practise. Not that he (or you) are hypocrites or anything......
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Not that he (or you) are hypocrites or anything......
A cowardly innuendo. If you have any reason to suspect me of hypocrisy, let me know. If not, take your innuendo and shove it up your arse.
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Mostly because I am not Jewish
Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law...
How about completing the quote?
Hint: the next word is "but...".
If there is a law and something Jesus did (we are never told exactly what fulfilling the law means) means that you no longer have to obey the law, then that law has been abolished. It is no longer in force. That is what abolition means.
How about completing the quote?
How about not deflecting from the point.
Since you seem to be refusing to quote the whole sentence, here it is:
Matthew 5:17 "“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
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Not that he (or you) are hypocrites or anything......
A cowardly innuendo. If you have any reason to suspect me of hypocrisy, let me know. If not, take your innuendo and shove it up your arse.
What in his end...o?
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Mostly because I am not Jewish
Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law...
How about completing the quote?
Hint: the next word is "but...".
If there is a law and something Jesus did (we are never told exactly what fulfilling the law means) means that you no longer have to obey the law, then that law has been abolished. It is no longer in force. That is what abolition means.
How about completing the quote?
How about not deflecting from the point.
Since you seem to be refusing to quote the whole sentence, here it is:
Matthew 5:17 "“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
Right, so how does that affect my point? Are you going to invent a new meaning of "fulfil"?
Fulfil (verb): make it so a law no longer applies whilst pretending this is not abolition
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Isn't it funny that people rate the possibility of God raising someone from the dead.
Yet what is the probability that we actually exist and came out of nothing in an otherwise dead universe.
The truth is that if you know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob you would know why there is a no problem with regarding his ability to raise the dead.
The reality is whether as individuals we accept that which is taught and that which we believe individually about these things.
You cannot make the atheist belief compatible with the faith taught belief.
So the 'Low probability' is nothing more than an opinion.
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Isn't it funny that people rate the possibility of God raising someone from the dead.
Yet what is the probability that we actually exist and came out of nothing in an otherwise dead universe.
The truth is that if you know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob you would know why there is a no problem with regarding his ability to raise the dead.
The reality is whether as individuals we accept that which is taught and that which we believe individually about these things.
You cannot make the atheist belief compatible with the faith taught belief.
So the 'Low probability' is nothing more than an opinion.
;D ;D ;D Another giggle provided by Sass! ;D ;D ;D
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Isn't it funny that people rate the possibility of God raising someone from the dead.
Yet what is the probability that we actually exist and came out of nothing in an otherwise dead universe.
The truth is that if you know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob you would know why there is a no problem with regarding his ability to raise the dead.
The reality is whether as individuals we accept that which is taught and that which we believe individually about these things.
You cannot make the atheist belief compatible with the faith taught belief.
So the 'Low probability' is nothing more than an opinion.
;D ;D ;D Another giggle provided by Sass! ;D ;D ;D
You accuse me of "dissing" people, but you never miss an opportunity to make fun of Sassy. You are a hypocrite.
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It is good fun to watch these country yokels trying to convince each other their is no God,and the no God scenario comes from nothing going bang and here we are. Great fun. ::)
~TW~
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Not quite sure where the country yokels bit comes from - random or what.
Of course, disbelief that there [sic] are any gods is the default position and until and unless (a) the concept is properly and clearly defined in a coherent way that doesn't depend upon the personal whim/fancy/interpretation of the individual believer and (b) evidence is offered for their existence.
This has never been done. By anyone. Anywhere. Ever.
In the meantime, what's really fun is to watch those who avow belief in things they can't define doing things they can't explain by means they don't understand bickering over whose entirely undefined and unevidenced concept is the right one :)
Until the shooting starts, of course, which with these types is never far away :(
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Not quite sure where the country yokels bit comes from - random or what.
Of course, disbelief that there [sic] are any gods is the default position and until and unless (a) the concept is properly and clearly defined in a coherent way that doesn't depend upon the personal whim/fancy/interpretation of the individual believer and (b) evidence is offered for their existence.
This has never been done. By anyone. Anywhere. Ever.
In the meantime, what's really fun is to watch those who avow belief in things they can't define doing things they can't explain by means they don't understand bickering over whose entirely undefined and unevidenced concept is the right one :)
Until the shooting starts, of course, which with these types is never far away :(
Your obsession is biting hard today. You need a good night's sleep. Read a chapter or two of some Hitchens diatribe or other; that should see you nod off.
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Touched a nerve, obviously ;)
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Touched a nerve, obviously ;)
No. There's nothing knew for you to say. I am au fait with any of the nonsense you come out with. None of it phases me. Though I reserve the right to comment on the preposterous content of much of it.
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"Knew"?
"Phases"?
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"Knew"?
"Phases"?
Mea culpa. See: I can admit a mistake, and it is nearly 3.00am after all. You should be prepared to do the same some time, though I'm not holding my breath.
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Please say you'll try!
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Please say you'll try!
Oh, I do. And I know you are trying. :)
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Mea culpa. See: I can admit a mistake, and it is nearly 3.00am after all. You should be prepared to do the same some time, though I'm not holding my breath.
You complain about the atheist obsession with this board and yet there you were at 3am posting your usual nonsense.
I suppose, at least you have learned to admit your mistakes.
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Mea culpa. See: I can admit a mistake, and it is nearly 3.00am after all. You should be prepared to do the same some time, though I'm not holding my breath.
You complain about the atheist obsession with this board and yet there you were at 3am posting your usual nonsense.
I suppose, at least you have learned to admit your mistakes.
In case you didn't notice, dear old fella, Shaker was posting too, so that makes him obsessive, if I am. I haven't noticed either you or Shaker admitting error,and goodness knows, you both make plenty..
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In case you didn't notice, dear old fella, Shaker was posting too, so that makes him obsessive, if I am. I haven't noticed either you or Shaker admitting error,and goodness knows, you both make plenty..
But we don't complain about other people obsessively posting, you do. When you complain about something that you do yourself, it's called hypocrisy. Physician heal thyself.
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Isn't it funny that people rate the possibility of God raising someone from the dead.
Yet what is the probability that we actually exist and came out of nothing in an otherwise dead universe.
The truth is that if you know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob you would know why there is a no problem with regarding his ability to raise the dead.
The reality is whether as individuals we accept that which is taught and that which we believe individually about these things.
You cannot make the atheist belief compatible with the faith taught belief.
So the 'Low probability' is nothing more than an opinion.
;D ;D ;D Another giggle provided by Sass! ;D ;D ;D
Well the only other option for you is to cry...
Comes from not having a clue about Christianity and the bible on your part... Making your ignorance really loud for everyone to hear...
See in your case...LOL. :D :D
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Isn't it funny that people rate the possibility of God raising someone from the dead.
Yet what is the probability that we actually exist and came out of nothing in an otherwise dead universe.
The truth is that if you know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob you would know why there is a no problem with regarding his ability to raise the dead.
The reality is whether as individuals we accept that which is taught and that which we believe individually about these things.
You cannot make the atheist belief compatible with the faith taught belief.
So the 'Low probability' is nothing more than an opinion.
;D ;D ;D Another giggle provided by Sass! ;D ;D ;D
You accuse me of "dissing" people, but you never miss an opportunity to make fun of Sassy. You are a hypocrite.
So she understands what you are saying...
hypocrite
ˈhɪpəkrɪt/
noun
a hypocritical person.
"the story tells of respectable Ben who turns out to be a cheat and a hypocrite"
synonyms: sanctimonious person, pietist, whited sepulchre, plaster saint, humbug, pretender, deceiver, dissembler, impostor; More
Read the above Floo, it will help you understand... 8) ::) ;D
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Please say you'll try!
Oh, I do. And I know you are trying. :)
Shaker is very trying indeed.
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Posting at 3am an obsession...
You not got an obsession with each other rather than the forum. :-[ ::) :-*
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Posting at 3am an obsession...
You not got an obsession with each other rather than the forum.
Only one person is whining about it though.
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Isn't it funny that people rate the possibility of God raising someone from the dead.
Yet what is the probability that we actually exist and came out of nothing in an otherwise dead universe.
The truth is that if you know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob you would know why there is a no problem with regarding his ability to raise the dead.
The reality is whether as individuals we accept that which is taught and that which we believe individually about these things.
You cannot make the atheist belief compatible with the faith taught belief.
So the 'Low probability' is nothing more than an opinion.
;D ;D ;D Another giggle provided by Sass! ;D ;D ;D
Well the only other option for you is to cry...
Comes from not having a clue about Christianity and the bible on your part... Making your ignorance really loud for everyone to hear...
See in your case...LOL. :D :D
Sass, pot and kettle. You lack any logic where your posts are concerned, which is why you make me laugh! ;D ;D
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Posting at 3am an obsession...
You not got an obsession with each other rather than the forum.
Only one person is whining about it though.
If you mean me, you fool, then I remind you that you posted with your unwanted tuppeny worth, and I answered. I'm not whining, you are sticking your nose into what was an interchange between me and Shaker. Mind your own business.
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If you mean me, you fool, then I remind you that you posted with your unwanted tuppeny worth, and I answered. I'm not whining, you are sticking your nose into what was an interchange between me and Shaker. Mind your own business.
Still whining away there I see.
This is a public forum. I told you, if you don't want other people contributing, use PM.
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In case you didn't notice, dear old fella, Shaker was posting too, so that makes him obsessive, if I am. I haven't noticed either you or Shaker admitting error,and goodness knows, you both make plenty..
But we don't complain about other people obsessively posting, you do. When you complain about something that you do yourself, it's called hypocrisy. Physician heal thyself.
I post to answer the absurdities of people like you. If you cleared off, and all the other dead-brained atheists here - and did everyone a favour - I would not need to be here either.
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If you mean me, you fool, then I remind you that you posted with your unwanted tuppeny worth, and I answered. I'm not whining, you are sticking your nose into what was an interchange between me and Shaker. Mind your own business.
Still whining away there I see.
This is a public forum. I told you, if you don't want other people contributing, use PM.
You are the one interfering in a conversation between two people, and one to which you were not privy; and to say it is a public forum does not disguise the fact that you are interfering merely to have a go at me - you are a childish, transparent, and pathetically self-important troll.
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I post to answer the absurdities of people like you. If you cleared off, and all the other dead-brained atheists here - and did everyone a favour - I would not need to be here either.
More insults, more complaining. I think you're only happy when you have got something to whinge about.
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You are the one interfering in a conversation between two people
On a public forum.
and one to which you were not privy;
Yes I was. I read the whole thing on this public forum. Did you not know that anybody on the internet can read your posts here.
and to say it is a public forum does not disguise the fact that you are interfering merely to have a go at me - you are a childish, transparent, and pathetically self-important troll.
More insults, more whining.
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You are the one interfering in a conversation between two people
On a public forum.
and one to which you were not privy;
Yes I was. I read the whole thing on this public forum. Did you not know that anybody on the internet can read your posts here.
and to say it is a public forum does not disguise the fact that you are interfering merely to have a go at me - you are a childish, transparent, and pathetically self-important troll.
More insults, more whining.
Clear off, and give your brain a chance to engage sensibly - a difficult task.
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Clear off,
Nope. I have as much right to be here as you. If you don't like me calling you out for your insulting whining posts, stop making them.
and give your brain a chance to engage sensibly - a difficult task.
No, it's actually quite easy for most of the rest of us. It's just that you are out of practice.
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Clear off,
Nope. I have as much right to be here as you. If you don't like me calling you out for your insulting whining posts, stop making them.
and give your brain a chance to engage sensibly - a difficult task.
No, it's actually quite easy for most of the rest of us. It's just that you are out of practice.
Fine just as long as you don't keep accusing me of insults: you've proved you are pretty insulting and derisive, not that you are a hypocrite or anything.
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Fine just as long as you don't keep accusing me of insults: you've proved you are pretty insulting and derisive, not that you are a hypocrite or anything.
I have aimed one very mild insult at you (and that was only an irresistable open goal that you left me in one of your insults) whereas your posts are a stream of insults and derisiveness.
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Fine just as long as you don't keep accusing me of insults: you've proved you are pretty insulting and derisive, not that you are a hypocrite or anything.
I have aimed one very mild insult at you (and that was only an irresistable open goal that you left me in one of your insults) whereas your posts are a stream of insults and derisiveness.
Stop whining!
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Fine just as long as you don't keep accusing me of insults: you've proved you are pretty insulting and derisive, not that you are a hypocrite or anything.
I have aimed one very mild insult at you (and that was only an irresistable open goal that you left me in one of your insults) whereas your posts are a stream of insults and derisiveness.
Stop whining!
See my reply#93 on the other thread
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Fine just as long as you don't keep accusing me of insults: you've proved you are pretty insulting and derisive, not that you are a hypocrite or anything.
I have aimed one very mild insult at you (and that was only an irresistable open goal that you left me in one of your insults) whereas your posts are a stream of insults and derisiveness.
Stop whining!
See my reply#93 on the other thread
Still whining!
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Fine just as long as you don't keep accusing me of insults: you've proved you are pretty insulting and derisive, not that you are a hypocrite or anything.
I have aimed one very mild insult at you (and that was only an irresistable open goal that you left me in one of your insults) whereas your posts are a stream of insults and derisiveness.
Stop whining!
See my reply#93 on the other thread
Still whining!
But you can always choose another belief, can't you!
Why don't you choose a belief that keeps you happy?
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It is interesting that the 'someone' in the thread title proposition is assumed to be purely human. It is that rather narrow view that some of us here believe relegates the proposition to irrelevance.
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It is interesting that the 'someone' in the thread title proposition is assumed to be purely human. It is that rather narrow view that some of us here believe relegates the proposition to irrelevance.
Then you'll need to demonstrate (as opposed to claim) on what basis a person isn't ever other than just 'purely human'.