Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

I believe I have stated that God could be like I describe or he could be like Nearly sane describes.

How would you find this out?

Are you prepared to accept my exposure of your biblical bowdlerisation?

Nope: I'm not bowdlerising anything. I'm merely commenting on what you've said.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

, and I can why you would treat it as such since it didn't happen in reality (it would have left evidence and there ain't any), but you are still clinging to another story about us being resurrected, which is equally lacking in evidence.
 

If you are going to proceed with the accusation taken from part of the bible that God kills then you are in no position to ignore a part of the bible which says he resurrects.

You are in the wrong whether we are talking about the bible, another holy book, The God Delusion or your granny's shopping list.

[Gordon]

If you are going to proceed with the accusation taken from part of the bible that God kills then you are in no position to ignore a part of the bible which says he resurrects.

Don'be silly, again: I'd have thought it obvious that I think both these aspects aren't remotely serious propositions: so no inconsistency there. 

You are in the wrong whether we are talking about the bible, another holy book, The God Delusion or your granny's shopping list.

How so?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

How would you find this out?

Nope: I'm not bowdlerising anything. I'm merely commenting on what you've said.

I believe I pointed out your bowdlerisation with regards to the flood story. i.e. the evil of those drowned.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Don'be silly, again: I'd have thought it obvious that I think both these aspects aren't remotely serious propositions: so no inconsistency there. 

How so?

Doesn't let you of the hook i'm afraid.......Cherrypicking I think is the fallacy.
.

[Gordon]

I believe I pointed out your bowdlerisation with regards to the flood story. i.e. the evil of those drowned.

Suggest you re-read your own earlier post in this thread (#24493 to be precise.] in which you say;

What I do find problematic is your slant which completely ignores that those so punished were particularly and possibly dangerously evil.

[Gordon]

Doesn't let you of the hook i'm afraid.......Cherrypicking I think is the fallacy.
.

I'm not, and it isn't.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Suggest you re-read your own earlier post in this thread (#24493 to be precise.] in which you say;

I don't know why you've posted this since it points to your cherrypicking parts of the Noah's ark story.

[Gordon]

I don't know why you've posted this since it points to your cherrypicking parts of the Noah's ark story.

Nope - I think the whole Noah story is indistinguishable from fiction: no need to cherrypick.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Nope - I think the whole Noah story is indistinguishable from fiction: no need to cherrypick.

But you did anyway.

[torridon]

Again it's likely to be a story and it's likely that you have missed some salient point in a typical atheist bowdlerisation.

Now in the story the whole world apart from a few were evil doers and were killed...presumably according to another part of the bible, to be resurrected by God.

I have no problem with the laws of nature ability to both harm and help or with God to intervene.

What I do find problematic is your slant which completely ignores that those so punished were particularly and possibly dangerously evil.

It is not a 'slant' to distance oneself from the gross indiscriminating assumption that all those so punished were evil.  Are we to imagine that every living thing, every child, every unborn foetus, every grasshopper, every person with learning difficulties, all these things were evil and deserved punishment ? Whatever happened to fairness and justice, whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'  ? To uphold these principles is not a 'slant'

[floo]

If you are going to proceed with the accusation taken from part of the bible that God kills then you are in no position to ignore a part of the bible which says he resurrects.

You are in the wrong whether we are talking about the bible, another holy book, The God Delusion or your granny's shopping list.

You don't half make some daft statements. A god who kills on the one hand, and resurrects on the other, is using humans as entertainment!

[Shaker]

You don't half make some daft statements. A god who kills on the one hand, and resurrects on the other, is using humans as entertainment!

You're not far wrong. It's conjuration, like that trick you can do where you can make a seemingly dead fly come back to life.

[Alan Burns]

This thread is full of evidence for the ability for rational thought and profound arguments about the concepts of what is right or wrong.  But what can possible drive these rational thought processes and well thought out arguments in a world where every event must be pre determined by previous physical events?  Are we all just riding along on the waves of uncontrollable pre determined activity, with no input of our own, without realising it?  Or do we have the conscious power to drive our own thoughts?  If so, how can this conscious power interact with the otherwise physically determined scenario?

[Shaker]

This thread is full of evidence for the ability for rational thought

Patchy ... very patchy.

and profound arguments about the concepts of what is right or wrong.  But what can possible drive these rational thought processes and well thought out arguments in a world where every event must be pre determined by previous physical events?  Are we all just riding along on the waves of uncontrollable pre determined activity, with no input of our own, without realising it?  Or do we have the conscious power to drive our own thoughts?  If so, how can this conscious power interact with the otherwise physically determined scenario?

I bet it's magic. Say it's magic; that way you can wave your hands thinking you've provided an explanation and then scuttle off to your bolthole whenever anybody presses you for further details. That'll be a winner.

[Stranger]

This thread is full of evidence for the ability for rational thought and profound arguments about the concepts of what is right or wrong.  But what can possible drive these rational thought processes and well thought out arguments in a world where every event must be pre determined by previous physical events?  Are we all just riding along on the waves of uncontrollable pre determined activity, with no input of our own, without realising it?  Or do we have the conscious power to drive our own thoughts?  If so, how can this conscious power interact with the otherwise physically determined scenario?

So, apart from the personal incredulity and the prejudicial language, any progress on the question you keep running away from?

How about just stopping for a moment and thinking about how we make decisions and exert control? We gather and evaluate all the information, we contemplate our options, we bring to bear our knowledge and experience, we consult our feelings, values, preferences, and beliefs. Finally, based on all that (or not, if we decide to act impulsively) we make a choice and act.

Nothing in the that is in any way incompatible with us being deterministic beings (the impulse my be (pseudo)-random). What exactly is the magic non-material part of us supposed to bring to the party?

[Stranger]

Are we all just riding along on the waves of uncontrollable pre determined activity, with no input of our own, without realising it?

[emphasis added]

This bit is actually quite bizarre. You seem to be suggesting that we (our subjective selves) might be being forced or tricked into some course of action against our will. I'm beginning to think that you don't understand the issue at all, that you haven't even grasped what you are trying to argue against - which is why I want you to think about the question in my last post.

If all the evidence is correct and we are indeed material, deterministic beings, that does not mean that we have "no input of our own", that's a daft idea. It's about what we actually are.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It is not a 'slant' to distance oneself from the gross indiscriminating assumption that all those so punished were evil.  Are we to imagine that every living thing, every child, every unborn foetus, every grasshopper, every person with learning difficulties, all these things were evil and deserved punishment ? Whatever happened to fairness and justice, whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'  ? To uphold these principles is not a 'slant'

It's a story Torridon, therefore we have to allow it not to cover the complete Gamut of human existence.
In it God is portrayed as the universal corrector of human evil.

To call a story making a particular point ''Gross indiscriminating assumption'' begins to look a bit stupid doesn't it. Even then they would have known that not all evil is punished in this life by what we know as phenomena but I suspect they might thought that a whole weight of ''global'' sin would result in some catastrophe. We now know in terms of Global warming this to be eerily close to the knuckle. I guess your point is that it's God's fault that he rigged ice to melt at 0 degrees. 

[floo]

This thread is full of evidence for the ability for rational thought and profound arguments about the concepts of what is right or wrong.  But what can possible drive these rational thought processes and well thought out arguments in a world where every event must be pre determined by previous physical events?  Are we all just riding along on the waves of uncontrollable pre determined activity, with no input of our own, without realising it?  Or do we have the conscious power to drive our own thoughts?  If so, how can this conscious power interact with the otherwise physically determined scenario?

The human brain is a remarkable organ, it can create all sorts of illusions which seem very convincing. How is it that your mind has convinced you that your version of god is responsible for creating humans, whilst people of other faiths are just as convinced that their god is the big cheese?

I have had many very weird experiences throughout my life, which seemed very convincing at the time, but with hindsight I wonder how much were illusions created by my brain, like the time I apparently saw the picture book version of Mary in our 'miracle field' at our previous property?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You don't half make some daft statements. A god who kills on the one hand, and resurrects on the other, is using humans as entertainment!

Death is a feature of the universe as a part of the general change in material and energy, in fact I doubt death can be considered a proper scientific term.
Within a universe of continual recreation then resurrection could be looked upon as a bonus.

How does entertainment come in?

[Stranger]

In it God is portrayed as the universal corrector of human evil.

Perhaps god shouldn't of created human evil in the first place. As I said previously, if god is an omnipotent and omniscient creator, then it is also omni-responsible. Human 'free will' has no logical meaning in such a situation.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Not if humans were created by omnigod.
Your sticking point seems to be not believing in free will/not having a sense of personal responsibility. Is God responsible for the evolution of beings capable of alienating themselves from him Yes. Is God responsible for the actual alienation.................
Yes, for the same reasons.

Human evil is alienation against God. You cannot have love without the option of walking away.
The omnigod business is a red herring.
First of all, you just made the concept up probably because atheist objections to omnipotence, omniscience and omniscience are being eroded in debate and the atheist interpretation of omnibenevolence has been questioned.

Presumably Omnigod means that he is all everything. That is a bit of an invention and saying that because you are say, omniscient, you are say all evil too.

Also alienation is part of the story. God has made it possible to come back or dealienate.
He will not force you to love him.

We know to that hate in this world can turn into love. This is why Christianity is a religion of relationship.

[Shaker]

Human evil is created by er, humans, Stranger.

Not if humans were created by omnigod.

Your sticking point seems to be not believing in free will/not having a sense of personal responsibility. Is God responsible for the evolution of beings capable of alienating themselves from him Yes. Is God responsible for the actual alienation.................

Yes, for the same reasons.

[Stranger]

Human evil is created by er, humans, Stranger.
Your sticking point seems to be not believing in free will/not having a sense of personal responsibility. Is God responsible for the evolution of beings capable of alienating themselves from him Yes. Is God responsible for the actual alienation..................

My sticking point is logic. If god is both omniscient and omnipotent and it created everything, then it either, at that instant, fixed the entire history of everything, including all human choices, or it introduced some genuinely random element. In either case, it is fully responsible for everything.

This was discussed at great length earlier in this thread - logically, every event is either produced deterministically or it has some element of true randomness. There is no logical 'get out' for 'free will'.

From a human point of view, such a perspective is pretty much useless and, for all practical purposes, we can assume we have 'free will' in the compatibilist sense - but an omniscient, omnipotent creator would unavoidably be responsible for everything.

Even if we were to ignore that glaring logical hole in (most versions of) Christianity - the notion that all humans are "sinners" implies a 100% failure rate - that couldn't be a genuine human choice, it would have to be a design flaw.

[Nearly Sane]

Oh put a sock in it. If God is as I say then I think we cannot begrudge him a bit of worship a word you guys have precious little understanding of anyway with your patronising visions of natives in grass skirts and bones in there noses bowing down to some easter island statue.

Even if he was like you said that would mean God existed and all your atheist talk would be shite...which it is in my opinion.

Whi has mentioned natives in grass skirts? Oh that would be you, in a patronising manner. Are you happy tgat you lie about what is said to justify worshipping your thug god?