The hiddenness of God

[SteveH]

And you have the nerve to make that spectacular assertion entirely bereft of any evidence, let alone objective evidence.

According to Christian theology, I mean - I was answering LR's assertion, which was stupid even by her standards.

[ippy]

You probaby didn't at that.

You'd know about such things.

Assuming the individuals hearing is O K, people in general must be able to hear themselves asserting all sorts of things, why do it if there's no way of backing up these assertions?

Regards ippy

[ippy]

You really can be spectacularly dim at times. Jesus was God incarnate, not an innocent third party.

Standard question Steve: How can you possibly know this?

It'd be interesting to read the evidence you have that backs up this assertion of yours, I'll not be holding my breath.

Regards ippy

[floo]

You really can be spectacularly dim at times. Jesus was God incarnate, not an innocent third party.

They spend a great deal of time and energy being sarky at believers' expense, and spouting dribs and drabs of philosophy almost as though they know what they're talking about, so we all know what they don't believe in, but what are their positive beliefs, and why do we never hear of them?



Nice one SteveH, who is being sarky now?

Where is your evidence to substantiate your claim Jesus was incarnate?

[Stranger]

That verse is an unpleasant LIE. There is nothing loving about the god character. Surely if it felt the world needed saving it would have topped itself, not produced a child to die a terrible death even if he did pop up alive three days later.

You really can be spectacularly dim at times. Jesus was God incarnate, not an innocent third party.

Yes, that does add a masochistic aspect to the already sadistic tendencies of the Christian god. All in all it's a rather bizarre and twisted tale that doesn't portray god as at all just or loving.

[SteveH]

Standard question Steve: How can you possibly know this?

It'd be interesting to read the evidence you have that backs up this assertion of yours, I'll not be holding my breath.

Regards ippy

See my post before yours. I was pointing out that LR was making an even more egregious misunderstanding of Christian theology than usual, and putting the correct view - the "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to hiomself", not condemning an innocent third party to death. I wasn't trying to prove it. Anyway, what possible evidence could I provide? it has to be a matter of faith. (Well, there is Lewis's trilemma, I suppose - mad, bad or God - but that's hardly conclusive.)

[floo]

See my post before yours. I was pointing out that LR was making an even more egregious misunderstanding of Christian theology than usual, and putting the correct view - the "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to hiomself", not condemning an innocent third party to death. I wasn't trying to prove it. Anyway, what possible evidence could I provide? it has to be a matter of faith. (Well, there is Lewis's trilemma, I suppose - mad, bad or God - but that's hardly conclusive.)

And I was rightly stating that there is no evidence to substantiate that belief.

[SusanDoris]

See my post before yours. I was pointing out that LR was making an even more egregious misunderstanding of Christian theology than usual, and putting the correct view - the "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to hiomself", not condemning an innocent third party to death. I wasn't trying to prove it. Anyway, what possible evidence could I provide? it has to be a matter of faith. (Well, there is Lewis's trilemma, I suppose - mad, bad or God - but that's hardly conclusive.)

Why, oh why, oh why do you want to believe something on faith alone? What possible benefit can this be to you or anyone? It is a delusion. Fine, have delusions, but know that is what they are - delusions, with zero basis in reality.

[ippy]

See my post before yours. I was pointing out that LR was making an even more egregious misunderstanding of Christian theology than usual, and putting the correct view - the "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to hiomself", not condemning an innocent third party to death. I wasn't trying to prove it. Anyway, what possible evidence could I provide? it has to be a matter of faith. (Well, there is Lewis's trilemma, I suppose - mad, bad or God - but that's hardly conclusive.)

With the likelihood that any of this god stuff of your's is unlikely to have ever happened, whether you believe it or have some sort of thing you call faith about it, considering there's not even a scintilla of viable evidence to support 99% of it, why do you bother.

Lewis was a gone believer so you can dismiss almost anything he has to say about the subject, like any other believer in bronze age man made stories, certainly there's nothing that would or could support the magical, mystical or the superstition based parts of that belief.

Regards ippy

[Walt Zingmatilder]

With the likelihood that any of this god stuff of your's is unlikely to have ever happened, whether you believe it or have some sort of thing you call faith about it, considering there's not even a scintilla of viable evidence to support 99% of it, why do you bother.

Lewis was a gone believer so you can dismiss almost anything he has to say about the subject, like any other believer in bronze age man made stories, certainly there's nothing that would or could support the magical, mystical or the superstition based parts of that belief.

Regards ippy

What is a gone believer?
Why can you dismiss something before it's been said.
Bronze Age man talk is modernity fallacy and genetic fallacy.

[jeremyp]

According to Christian theology, I mean - I was answering LR's assertion, which was stupid even by her standards.

Answering an assertion with another assertion without any evidence and also insulting the poster of the first assertion is stupid by any standard.

[jeremyp]

the correct view - the "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to hiomself", not condemning an innocent third party to death.

Why did anybody have to die? If God makes the rules, why would he make a rule that says he can only forgive people by killing himself - and then break the rule by unkilling himself. Nothing about the crucifixion makes any sense.

 

(Well, there is Lewis's trilemma, I suppose - mad, bad or God - but that's hardly conclusive.)

The problem with the trilemma is that it only works by appeal to people's sense of shock at anybody saying Jesus was deluded or a liar.

[ippy]

What is a gone believer?
Why can you dismiss something before it's been said.
Bronze Age man talk is modernity fallacy and genetic fallacy.

What is a gone believer?

Can't see the wood for the trees.
====
Why can you dismiss something before it's been said.
Bronze Age man talk is modernity fallacy and genetic fallacy.

What?

Regards ippy

[SteveH]

And I was rightly stating that there is no evidence to substantiate that belief.

You were stating nothing of the sort. You were assuming that Christ was an innocent third person.

Why, oh why, oh why do you want to believe something on faith alone? What possible benefit can this be to you or anyone? It is a delusion. Fine, have delusions, but know that is what they are - delusions, with zero basis in reality.

Oh ffs! You obsessive rationalists really piss me off! Have you ever been in love? Do you enjoy certain activities? Do you love some foods and hate others? Prove it! Evidence, Evidence, Evidence! 
[Edited, because the original was even ruder, but I don't want to get banned.]

[BeRational]

You were stating nothing of the sort. You were assuming that Christ was an innocent third person.Oh ffs! You obsessive rationalists really piss me off! Have you ever been in love? Do you enjoy certain activities? Do you love some foods and hate others? Prove it! Evidence, Evidence, Evidence! 
[Edited, because the original was even ruder, but I don't want to get banned.]

I accept NOTHING on faith, and think anyone that does is foolish.
Faith to me is accepting something as true without suffient evidence, or in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Faith is not a good way to find out things that are true.

[SteveH]

I accept NOTHING on faith, and think anyone that does is foolish.
Faith to me is accepting something as true without suffient evidence, or in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Faith is not a good way to find out things that are true.

You presumably accept the reliability of your reasoning powers on faith, there being no other basis for accepting them.

[torridon]

You presumably accept the reliability of your reasoning powers on faith, there being no other basis for accepting them.

Eerm, no.

Take a problem from a school maths book; try to solve the equations using your reasoning powers.  Then look up the answer at the back; if you got the answer right, then that is evidence that your reasoning powers are sound.  We are constantly testing out our reasoning powers.

[torridon]

Oh ffs! You obsessive rationalists really piss me off! Have you ever been in love? Do you enjoy certain activities? Do you love some foods and hate others? Prove it! Evidence, Evidence, Evidence! 
[Edited, because the original was even ruder, but I don't want to get banned.]

You talk as if evidence were a bad thing.  Grand claims should be supported by similarly grand justification; this is a good principle, not a bad one.

[BeRational]

You presumably accept the reliability of your reasoning powers on faith, there being no other basis for accepting them.

I accept NOTHING on faith.

The basis for accepting them is that they work in the real world that I seem to find myself in.

No faith required, ever.

If you use faith you are silly, as faith can give ANY answer.

[SteveH]

Eerm, no.

Take a problem from a school maths book; try to solve the equations using your reasoning powers.  Then look up the answer at the back; if you got the answer right, then that is evidence that your reasoning powers are sound.  We are constantly testing out our reasoning powers.

You got the answer right because maths is an internally consistent system. That doesn't prove that your reasoning powers successfully refer to the real world.

[torridon]

You got the answer right because maths is an internally consistent system. That doesn't prove that your reasoning powers successfully refer to the real world.

Maybe not prove, but it does provide evidence that they are sound, and that is all we can hope for in the 'real world'.  We constantly test things in controlled conditions before releasing them more widely.  This allows us to build confidence in our ideas.

[Stranger]

You got the answer right because maths is an internally consistent system. That doesn't prove that your reasoning powers successfully refer to the real world.

Science is the application of reasoning (and often mathematics) to the real world - the success of science and the existence of technology is very strong evidence that logical reasoning (and mathematics) are applicable to the real world. Hence your statement that we "...accept the reliability of your reasoning powers on faith, there being no other basis for accepting them." was bollocks.

[jeremyp]

You presumably accept the reliability of your reasoning powers on faith, there being no other basis for accepting them.

I accept the reliability of my reasoning power on the basis that it is usually right.

[Maeght]

The default position is that he did not exist, let  alone be a god of any sort.

Unless of course you can demonstrate that he was with something more than fantasy

Isn't the default that don't know if existed or not?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Steve H,

Oh ffs! You obsessive rationalists really piss me off!

Really? If (heaven forfend) you suffered a cardiac arrest in the street one day would you rather an “obsessive rationalist” who’d studied medicine for several years pushed his way to the front of the crowd to help you, or an irrationalist armed with his phial of homeopathic “remedy”, or with a bunch of sage leaves and a box of matches?

See that’s the things when people dismiss rationalism. It’s fine when it’s a free bet if you like that thing, but it really isn’t when it actually matters. Fancy a holiday in Ibiza? Fine. Would you rather fly on a ‘plane designed and built by qualified aeronautical engineers, or constructed by the new school of faith aeronautics where the designers hop backwards in small circles with pencils up their noses off their tits on Benylyn to produce their blueprints?   

Have you ever been in love? Do you enjoy certain activities? Do you love some foods and hate others? Prove it!

That’s called a category error. Being “in love” is just a label we attach to an emotional response to a stimulus, generally one that triggers various hormonal activities. What we’re in love with on the other hand – whether it’s a objectively tangible object in the world or a fantasy – is an entirely different matter. 

Evidence, Evidence, Evidence!

Simple enough – just take a blood sample and measure the hormones (adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin etc) when the subject thinks of the object of his love:

http://www.youramazingbrain.org/lovesex/sciencelove.htm
     

[Edited, because the original was even ruder, but I don't want to get banned.]

No need to be rude – just try not to be logically hopeless.

You got the answer right because maths is an internally consistent system. That doesn't prove that your reasoning powers successfully refer to the real world.

Nothing does. What would “the real world” even mean, and how would we know whether we’d identified it? What we actually have is a world we appear to observe, and various ways provisionally to model and make sense of it. Some of those methods produce solutions – ie, answers that appear to be coherent, cogent and consistent such that they enable us to navigate the world we appear to occupy, for example by creating medicines and rockets. Others though (“God” etc) are no more than guessing because they offer no method of testing and investigation.

The former group we call probabilistically “true”, the latter probabilistically not true. If you think of reality as an onion, the guessing is the outer layer – any guess is as epistemically (in)valid as any other: “God”, leprechauns, whatever. Doesn’t matter. The next layer in though is the probable truths layer because it provide functional solutions (aspirin, algebra etc). Now whether there even is a centre of the onion of absolute reality, and how we’d ever know whether we’d found it in any case even if there is is unknowable (the problem of unknown unknowns), but that’s all we have to go on nonetheless.