Is God a liar, a murderer, an adulterer, a thief? GOOD QUESTION!
bi...@juno.com
article, you will get an anwer to the question of the title. Happy
reading, my friends!
> That's not what God says. Then again, God doesn't say anything, since
> He doesn't show up, in person, to say anything. So we have to look at
> what fallible people like you say about God.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me. Especially since
your posting is not in the usual derisive tone that is so common to
this newsgroup.
> Are you married? Would you be content to relate to your spouse
> silently, invisibly, distantly, doing occasional nice things for them
> without ever spending any time in face-to-face interaction with them,
> the way Jesus currently treats His "bride" (according to men)?
I'm not married. But obviously, a wife should act quite differently
from how God acts. But God and wife are a very poor analogy. We are
symbolically the "Bride of Christ" but we won't get "married" until
heaven. You might say we are in the "engagement" stage right now.
Interestingly, during the engagement stage, the fiances are supposed to
stay physically apart. At least according to Christian practice.
> Claiming that God does miracles only emphasizes the fact that there is
> no good reason for God not to show up, visibly, tangibly, and audibly
> to participate in the kind of direct, personal relationship men claim
> that He is supposed to want badly enough to suffer and die for.
Again, you are trying to treat God like a math equation. Plug in the
right variable, and out comes the predictable result. But God is not
like that.
SCIENCE is like that. Not God. And when I say science, I mean the
FALSIFIABLE sciences, the ones that make mathematically precise
predictions. Evolution, as an aside, does not make such precise
mathematical predications. Thus, you might say that evolution, with its
"random mutation," is about as unpredictable as God is.
You seem to have no problem accepting that evolution proceeds randomly.
So why can't you accept that God operates randomly?
However, God doesn't operate as randomly as evolution supposedly does.
He helps the humble, the poor, and hurting, and the sad. God loves a
broken and contrite heart. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to
the humble.
So I guess you might say, God's actions are more falsifiable than
"random" evolution.
> cup is his blood. Christians are free to claim many things as "true"
> without being obligated to maintain strict, literal, material accuracy
> in what they describe.
No. That is a major straw-man. Akin to what they tried to do to Paul
Newman about a hundred years ago. Christians are supposed to tell the
plain, unvarnished truth. That is why I told you about God sometimes
using deception to bring down the proud and arrogant. I could have lied
and just said God never, ever tells lies. But because I am Christian,
that means I had to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth.
It is only God who is allowed to do whatever he wants, including
sending strong delusions in order that the proud will be decieved.
Kierkegaard wrote a book called "Fear and Trembling" in which he
explores the idea that human morality does not apply to God. For
example, God commanded Abraham to kill his own son in a human
sacrifice. Thus, Kierkegaard argues, God does not have to follow the
same commands he gives us.
Now, a skeptic might say that God is hypocritical. Why does not he have
to obey the same ethical precepts that he commands us to do? But this
would be a category error. God does not have to obey any laws
whatsoever, and humans have to obey his commands. The category "God" is
ethically free in the Nietzschean sense. But if we stick to Nietzschean
categories, it is the category "People" who must obey the very ethical
laws that the "Overman" is allowed to discard. God then, would be the
"overman" who can do what he wants.
> But again, if God were actually working genuine miracles in faraway
> places, that only goes to show that there cannot be any good reason for
> Him not to show up--
I hate to keep repeating myself, but God does not need a "good reason."
He does whatever the heck He wants..... period.
In the following paragraph, it may appear that I am blaspheming. But I
am not, as will be made clear. With that disclaimer made, go ahead and
read:
God does not have to obey any ethical precepts whatsoever. He kills
people all the time (He commanded the genocide of Canaan. And just wait
until the battle of Armageddon) he lies and uses deception, (sending
strong delusions so that people may believe a lie) he "gives and takes
away" as Job says, (like a thief would do) he begets a son (Jesus) with
a woman (Mary) to whom He was not married, (adulterer) et cetera, et
cetera.
Now I am NOT saying God is actually a murderer, liar, thief, and
adulterer. Not at all. My point is, that each and every one of these
so-called ethical violations simply don't apply to God.
If you say God is a murderer of those in Canaan, let alone during the
Armageddon final battle, in which the rivers of blood will be up to
horse's bridles....
Guess what? Since God GAVE US OUR VERY LIFE, he has the right to take
it at any time. Especially since he will be sending us to infinite
happiness called heaven.
If you say God is a liar, since he sends strong delusions that people
may believe a lie.....(2 Thess 2:11)
Guess what? God used lies to trip up the proud and arrogant. And they
well deserve it. And since they will eventually be saved anyway, it
doesn't matter.
If you say God is a thief, since he took away all of Job's possession
and children, just to test him.....
Guess what? Again, God is the giver, and he has the right to take away.
And he will eventually give us all the ultimate gift: infinite
happiness in heaven, hidden in his love.
If you say God is an adulterer, since he begat Jesus with Mary, to whom
he was not married.....
Guess what? Every time a sperm enters an egg, God is making it happen.
He holds together all the atoms that compose both the sperm and egg. So
God is responsible for each and every begetting. Although obviously,
the incarnation of God the Son is a completely different event. It is
the single earth-shattering event that foretold the ultimate triumph of
eternal love.
I could flesh out these arguments more, but I think my point is taken.
The main point is simply: HUMAN ETHICS DO NOT APPLY TO GOD. NOT AT ALL.
NOT EVER.
The basic flaw in your argument is that you are trying to apply human
ethics to God. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Just because you were raised in a
church where they "glossed over" the parts of the Bible that are
"unpleasant" does not mean that their straw man of Christianity is the
correct one.
What the heck am I talking about? When I am speaking about the
"unethical" behavior of God, I am speaking about what Martin Luther
called "the left hand of God."
The "left hand of God" is the frightening, unethical, terrifying,
horrifying, eternally damning, crap in your pants way that God
sometimes seems to act.
But thanks be to God! Luther also spoke of "the right hand of God."
What is the right hand of God? It is none other than Jesus Christ
Himself. Jesus Christ is the fullest expression of the deepest heart of
God. He is the full incarnation of Eternal Love. And Christians are
expected to act according to "the right hand of God."
It is here, in the "Right hand of God" that human ethics begin to
apply. We are to love every person. We are to never, ever lie. We are
to be pacifist. We are to be kind. We are to live our entire life by
the principle of universal love. And so on.
> highlight the inconsistencies between what Christians claim God wants,
> and how we observe "God" actually behaving in the real world.
Or, in the words of Luther, it highlights the inconsistencies between
the left and right hands of God.
I am going to go back the the Shakespeare analogy. Let us say that
Shakespeare was writing "Hamlet." And lets say whenever Hamlet gets
upset, Shakespeare has himself appearing on stage and comforting
Hamlet.
Hamlet: (in full agony of terror, horror, and fear)
"To be or not to be, that is the question...."
>>enter stage right Shakespeare
Shakespeare:
It's okay, Hamlet. It is just a play. Calm down. No need to commit
suicide. No need to get all upset. Just relax.
>>exeunt stage left Shakespeare
Hamlet:
"I was just getting up some good terrifying emotion. Thanks a lot,
Shakespeare, for writing such a crappy play."
(Audience boos, can't believe how lame Shakespeare was for removing all
the horror and tension from the play, and Hamlet never becomes a famous
play, because every time something frightening happens to Hamlet,
Shakespeare appears and comforts him, like clockwork, like a
mathematical equation)
MY POINT: Just as it would be incredibly lame for Shakespeare to always
show up and remove the horror from Hamlet......... just as it would be
incredibly lame for Shakespeare to turn all his plays into "Barney the
Dinosaur" love-fests with no villians, no evil, nothing terrifying, no
natural disasters, everybody happy all the time........... it would
also be incredibly lame for God to remove all his "left handed"
behavior, and turn our entire world into a fuzzy purple Dinosaur love
fest.
> that would be one thing. But we don't have that. All we have are
> fallible men promising us that they can be trusted to speak on God's
> behalf. Why should we put our faith in fallible men?
Your question is perfectly valid. It boils down to, since God sometimes
acts in a "left-handed" manner, why should we ever trust that He will
operate in a "right-handed" manner? And the only answer I can give you
is: Look at Jesus Christ.
Jesus is God's right hand. And Christians are supposed to be extensions
of Christ. We are supposed to ALSO be God's right hand. And we know
that God himself will sometimes "test us" by acting in a left-handed
manner towards us. But that is okay, just like it was okay for
Shakespeare to put obstacles in the way of Hamlet.
> But of course I'm not doing that. I'm asking why He doesn't play by
> what men claim are His own rules, and why He does not do what men say
> He wants.
In other words, you are asking why God does not act in a right handed
manner at all times, in all places. If he did, our entire world would
be turned into an instant "Barney the dinosaur" world. Lets all join
hands and sing, "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family....."
Don't you see how dull that would be? Don't you see how lame that would
be? I hate to tell you this, but your hoped for world looks like an
extension of Freudian wish-fulfillment.
Freud was partly right, by the way. He described Christianity as
wish-fulfillment. And any Christianity that does not take proper notice
of God's left-handed behavior, is nothing but childish
wish-fulfillment.
But you are demanding that God always act in a right-handed manner.
Whereas, you would never demand that Shakespeare always act that way.
Shakespeare would have sucked royally if he had always written his
plays that way. Yet you demand that God be nothing but a cosmic Barney.
> business and I suddenly started pestering Him with irrelevant demands.
> The problem is that God is not behaving as though He believed that what
> men say about Him in the Gospel is really true. Supposedly He loves us
> enough to die for us, yet we can plainly see that He does not even care
> enough about us to show up and spend any time in personal interactions
> with us. That's a gaping hole in the Christian story.
Only if you make the (false) assumption that God always operates in a
right-handed manner.
> You miss the point again. What I am saying here applies to all
> religions, not just Christianity. This is just a simple fact: when men
> tell you things about God, and you believe them, you are putting your
> faith in the men. God is not the one giving you these promises, men
> are. If these promises fail to prove true, it is men--not God--who have
> misled you.
You have way too many assumptions. You are simply stating what you
believe on a subjective level. Your concerns have been addressed at
least 500 years ago by Martin Luther, if not before. Now, you may not
want to hear it. But it is still there.
> I'm surprised you would even dispute this point. If you're going to say
> that no, we have to believe what men tell us about God, that what men
> say about God is automatically what God says about Himself, then
> historically we all ought to be Pharisees.
Pharisees? Please flesh that argument out more, please.
> And by the way, a love relationship is a personal relationship, and
> like all personal relationships, the first requirement for
> participation is that you have to show up. By calling Christianity "a
> love-relationship between God and a person," you are not only repeating
> what men have told you, you are re-emphasizing the fact that God ought
> to be showing up to participate in the relationship.
God "ought." That is the fatal flaw in your argument. You believe that
God "ought" to do things. But the category "ought" simply does not
apply to God. It only applies to humans.
> Why? What on earth would be wrong with everybody being saved
> immediately? Why would God want His children to continue in sin? You
> are putting God in the position of encouraging the increase of sinful
> behavior here.
What would be wrong with it, is that the entire world would instantly
turn into a Barney the dinosaur love-fest. WAAAAY too boring. By the
way, Dostoyevsky said something related to this. He said that if
everbody were to truly apply Christianity, the world would turn into an
instant paradise.
That is true. At least on a human level. And as Chrsitians, our goal is
to increase the right-handedness of God, and fight with all our might
against His left-handedness.
Once more into the breach, my friends!
> Your objections are completely irrelevant, first because they presume
> God only shows up to the saved (which is contrary to what the Bible
> says) and second because He does not show up even for the saved.
Wrong. He does show up for the saved. But even if He never did, this
would not change things one iota. We would still need to contend
against the obstacles of evil that God places in our way. Why? Because
we are Christians, that's why. And it is fun to fight against evil! It
is glorious, rollicking good fun! I love kicking some evil ass, and
taking names! My life would be very, very dull otherwise.
> outside of men's minds and stories and hearsay. We have no opportunity
> to hear what God says, since He does not show up to tell us anything.
> The only thing we have the opportunity to put our faith in is the word
> of fallible men.
Ain't it great? But it is not quite like that, nevertheless.
> Good, so you admit Christians are putting their faith in a known
> deceiver and liar. Now take the next step and realize that 100% of
> everything you know about this deceiver is rooted in the testimony of
> fallible men who think it is "spiritual truth" to believe in that which
> does not reflect what is literally true in the observable world.
That would be going WAY beyond the evidence. Just because God sometimes
operates in a left-handed manner, does not mean He ALWAYS does. Because
that would be just as boring as if He always did the opposite.
If God were always left-handed, life would get just as boring as if He
were always right-handed. The whole world would turn into one giant
Auschwitz, or something similar.
> that *they* are following the true leading of the spirit, until they
> become such an embarrassment that people turn to
> nondenominationalism--which is the ultimate splintering of the church,
> each congregation separated from the others.
The "unity" of Christianity is WAAAAY over played. Just because you
have a fabricated "denomination" that is supposedly "unified" does not
mean they are actually "unified."
The reality is, no matter what denomination there may be, all true
Christians are unified precisely by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy
Spirit is falsifiable, in a way.
The Bible tells us a way to test whether the Holy Spirit is somewhere.
It says:
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness,
goodness, self control, and other things. If you see a person who acts
like this, you have very likely found a person full of the Holy Spirit.
And I believe that Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, and others who are not
"Christian" in name, but who evidence the fruit of the Spirit, are very
likely full of the Holy Spirit. If you think the Holy Spirit can only
operate in people who are Christians, you are sorely mistaken.
> Or maybe you think that God is going out of His way to hide His
> presence in Christian hearts. But wait, you said God was working
> genuine miracles in order to manifest Himself. Your story contradicts
> itself: is God trying to delude people into believing that He does not
> exist, or is He working miracles in order to convince people that He
> does exist?
The left-hand of God contradicts the right-hand of God. So what? I am
very glad that is does. Otherwise what a crushing bore it would be to
live.
> This is the kind of dilemma you get into when you take a story that is
> fundamentally inconsistent with the real world,
You mean the straw-man version that you apparently were taught in
church? Yeah, that one is fundamentally inconsistent with the real
world.
The church I assume you went to, is all too common these days. It was
probably totally cut off from its theological heritage, not reading
Luther and Calvin even, let alone Aquinas or Augustine or Origen.
By the way, Origen is the best of all theologians. Why? Because he was
the first, the closest major theologian after Christ. And to cap it all
off, he was UNIVERSALIST, which means he taught that all men will be
saved at the final consummation.
How long will it take before all men are saved? I have no idea. Maybe
50,000 years. Maybe 30 trillion centuries. But love, the right-hand of
God, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, WILL be absolutely and finally
triumphant.
So taught Origen, and so I believe. You and I will laugh in heaven
together, my friend, when love is finally and completely triumphant! I
will look for you!
Windy
bi...@juno.com wrote:
> MY POINT: Just as it would be incredibly lame for Shakespeare to always
> show up and remove the horror from Hamlet......... just as it would be
> incredibly lame for Shakespeare to turn all his plays into "Barney the
> Dinosaur" love-fests with no villians, no evil, nothing terrifying, no
> natural disasters, everybody happy all the time........... it would
> also be incredibly lame for God to remove all his "left handed"
> behavior, and turn our entire world into a fuzzy purple Dinosaur love
> fest.
It is comforting to know that God kills thousands of kids each day by
dehydration and diarrhea to keep that from happening.
PS. Does heaven fit the description of "no villians, no evil, nothing
terrifying, no natural disasters, everybody happy all the time"? If so,
isn't heaven incredibly lame?
-- w.
Scooter the Mighty
<snip>
> > Claiming that God does miracles only emphasizes the fact that there is
> > no good reason for God not to show up, visibly, tangibly, and audibly
> > to participate in the kind of direct, personal relationship men claim
> > that He is supposed to want badly enough to suffer and die for.
>
>
> Again, you are trying to treat God like a math equation. Plug in the
> right variable, and out comes the predictable result. But God is not
> like that.
>
No, he or she is trying to treat God like every other creature/entity
in the universe. If you want people to believe in you, step one is
generally be detectible in some way. If you want to make up weird
reasons why God might be hiding then knock yourself out, but they don't
make much sense to logical people.
> SCIENCE is like that. Not God. And when I say science, I mean the
> FALSIFIABLE sciences, the ones that make mathematically precise
> predictions. Evolution, as an aside, does not make such precise
> mathematical predications. Thus, you might say that evolution, with its
> "random mutation," is about as unpredictable as God is.
Word salad with a bad dressing.
> You seem to have no problem accepting that evolution proceeds randomly.
> So why can't you accept that God operates randomly?
It isn't a question of random or not random, it's rational or not
rational.
> However, God doesn't operate as randomly as evolution supposedly does.
> He helps the humble, the poor, and hurting, and the sad.
Really? Do you have any evidence to back that up?
>God loves a
> broken and contrite heart.
Sadistic bastard, isn't he?
> God opposes the proud, but gives grace to
> the humble.
Is this a visible effect that we can see for ourselves?
> So I guess you might say, God's actions are more falsifiable than
> "random" evolution.
So apparently you believe that God's actions are detectible and
measurable in some way. Can you explain this well enough so we
skeptics can repeat your experiment?
> > cup is his blood. Christians are free to claim many things as "true"
> > without being obligated to maintain strict, literal, material accuracy
> > in what they describe.
>
> No. That is a major straw-man. Akin to what they tried to do to Paul
> Newman about a hundred years ago. Christians are supposed to tell the
> plain, unvarnished truth. That is why I told you about God sometimes
> using deception to bring down the proud and arrogant. I could have lied
> and just said God never, ever tells lies. But because I am Christian,
> that means I had to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
> but the truth.
>
> It is only God who is allowed to do whatever he wants, including
> sending strong delusions in order that the proud will be decieved.
> Kierkegaard wrote a book called "Fear and Trembling" in which he
> explores the idea that human morality does not apply to God. For
> example, God commanded Abraham to kill his own son in a human
> sacrifice. Thus, Kierkegaard argues, God does not have to follow the
> same commands he gives us.
>
You speak for God with great assurance, but there's no particular
reason to think you are justified in doing so.
><snip>
> Now I am NOT saying God is actually a murderer, liar, thief, and
> adulterer. Not at all. My point is, that each and every one of these
> so-called ethical violations simply don't apply to God.
Sure they do. There's no way to enforce any judgement on Him, but that
doesn't mean that the labels can't apply.
> If you say God is a murderer of those in Canaan, let alone during the
> Armageddon final battle, in which the rivers of blood will be up to
> horse's bridles....
> Guess what? Since God GAVE US OUR VERY LIFE, he has the right to take
> it at any time.
Yeah, if he wants to be a murderer.
Bobby Bryant
bi...@juno.com writes:
> It is only God who is allowed to do whatever he wants, including
> sending strong delusions in order that the proud will be decieved.
How come the people who push this theology never pause to consider that
it may be themselves who God has afflicted with delusions?
If God isn't a straight-shooter, how can you hope to know *anything*
about what he's like or what he wants?
--
Bobby Bryant
Reno, Nevada
Remove your hat to reply by e-mail.
Mark Nutter
bi...@juno.com wrote:
> However, you are generalizing from your own experience. Just because
> God has not shown up to YOU, does not mean he never does. You are
> trying to say that your own subjective experience can be genrealized to
> objective reality. You entire argument, sad to say, is subjective in
> precisely the same way.
Not at all. I am citing a universal fact that anyone can verify,
immediately, directly, and personally. God does not show up. Not
anywhere, not for anyone. I'm not talking about subjective, Emperor's
New Clothes kind of showing up that only "happens" inside someone's
head. I'm talking about plain old-fashioned "if you want to collect a
paycheck you have to show up for work" kind of literal showing up.
> Actually, the discussion both you and I are having, is not resolvable.
> Because both of us are stating our own subjective experiences, and
> neither can be verified.
I, however, am not speaking of subjective realities. God does not
objectively show up in the objectively real world. This fact is trivial
for anyone to verify. You yourself give evidence of God's failure to
show up, in that you've adopted the "trickster God" doctrine as an
attempt to explain *why* He does not show up. If He did show up, you
would not need to seek some way of rationalizing why He does not.
> > Are you married? Would you be content to relate to your spouse
> > silently, invisibly, distantly, doing occasional nice things for them
> > without ever spending any time in face-to-face interaction with them,
> > the way Jesus currently treats His "bride" (according to men)?
>
> I'm not married. But obviously, a wife should act quite differently
> from how God acts. But God and wife are a very poor analogy. We are
> symbolically the "Bride of Christ" but we won't get "married" until
> heaven. You might say we are in the "engagement" stage right now.
>
> Interestingly, during the engagement stage, the fiances are supposed to
> stay physically apart. At least according to Christian practice.
What, not even see or hear each other? How do you do marriage
counseling under those circumstances? Showing up to participate in the
relationship doesn't mean automatically having sex, you know! But to
even get *to* the engagement stage, both the man and the woman must do
what? Show up! Failure to show up to participate in the relationship
means that the relationship itself cannot happen, let alone progress to
the point of engagement and marriage.
> > Claiming that God does miracles only emphasizes the fact that there is
> > no good reason for God not to show up, visibly, tangibly, and audibly
> > to participate in the kind of direct, personal relationship men claim
> > that He is supposed to want badly enough to suffer and die for.
>
> Again, you are trying to treat God like a math equation. Plug in the
> right variable, and out comes the predictable result. But God is not
> like that.
No, I am examining what men SAY ABOUT God, to see whether or not it is
consistent with itself and with reality. Remember, God's not here for
me to treat one way or the other. All I have the chance to evaluate is
WHAT MEN SAY about God. If what men say about God is self-contradictory
and inconsistent with what we find in the real world, then they're not
telling the truth, because truth is consistent both with itself and
with reality.
> SCIENCE is like that. Not God.
So men say. Men have long been aware that their claims are
self-contradictory and inconsistent with reality, so they try and claim
that the inconsistencies are somehow due to God's nature. But we do not
see any inconsistencies in God's nature. We can't see anything in God
at all, since He never shows up. The inconsistencies are not in God,
they're in the things men say about God.
> You seem to have no problem accepting that evolution proceeds randomly.
> So why can't you accept that God operates randomly?
Simple: God does not operate at all outside of men's imaginations and
stories. Not randomly, not predictably (except that you can predict
that He will never show up, and be right 100% of the time). He does not
show up at all, a fact which men seek to rationalize by claiming that
God is unpredictable. The fact that this excuse is so widespread is a
further demonstration of the fact that God does not show up, since if
He did show up, believers would not need to appeal to
"unpredictability" to explain why He fails to show up. And remember,
it's not God who says that God is unpredictable, it is men who make
this claim. So I'm not criticizing God, I'm examining the traditions of
men.
> However, God doesn't operate as randomly as evolution supposedly does.
> He helps the humble, the poor, and hurting, and the sad. God loves a
> broken and contrite heart. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to
> the humble.
That is what the traditions of men teach. God does not show up to
actually do any of the things that men ascribe to Him. Remember, I'm
not talking about men talking themselves into having "subjective
experiences" of God (or Allah or Krishna or whoever). I'm talking about
literally showing up, in objective reality, outside of the thoughts and
imaginations of men's "wicked and deceitful" hearts (Jer. 17:9).
> So I guess you might say, God's actions are more falsifiable than
> "random" evolution.
You might say that, being a man. God says no such things about Himself.
He does not show up to say anything, good or bad. Everything that is
said about God comes from what men say about Him. It is all the
traditions of men. The traditions of men are all we have, because God
does not show up to give us the chance to observe Him directly. Well,
we could also turn to superstition and autosuggestion if we wanted, but
those are not particularly reliable sources of information, which is
why the Christian church is so divided.
> > cup is his blood. Christians are free to claim many things as "true"
> > without being obligated to maintain strict, literal, material accuracy
> > in what they describe.
>
> No. That is a major straw-man. Akin to what they tried to do to Paul
> Newman about a hundred years ago. Christians are supposed to tell the
> plain, unvarnished truth. That is why I told you about God sometimes
> using deception to bring down the proud and arrogant. I could have lied
> and just said God never, ever tells lies. But because I am Christian,
> that means I had to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
> but the truth.
That's irrelevant if you feel that "spiritual truth" is still truth
even when it differs from what we observe in the material world. What
Jesus did was to create flexible boundaries for the concept of "truth"
itself. That's why Christians can claim God "shows up" when He does not
in fact actually appear, and still believe in all sincerity that they
are telling the "truth." If you want to tell the plain, unvarnished
"truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth," you can start by
admitting that God does not show up for you either.
> It is only God who is allowed to do whatever he wants, including
> sending strong delusions in order that the proud will be decieved.
So men say. God does not tell us that He is a deceiver, nor does He
claim that there's anything "proud" about knowing the difference
between men saying things "on God's behalf" in His absence, and God
actually showing up to tell us what He wants us to believe. God does
not show up, either to deceive us or to enlighten us. All we have is
what men say about God. It is not pride to test the traditions of men,
to see if they are self-contradictory and inconsistent with reality. If
God showed up, and men opposed Him then, perhaps that would be pride,
but in His absence, given the proliferation of mutually
self-contradictory Christian claims, it is not pride but merely common
sense not to blindly trust in the inconsistent and unrealistic
traditions of men.
> Kierkegaard wrote a book called "Fear and Trembling" in which he
> explores the idea that human morality does not apply to God. For
> example, God commanded Abraham to kill his own son in a human
> sacrifice. Thus, Kierkegaard argues, God does not have to follow the
> same commands he gives us.
Notice how you have to appeal to the traditions of men in order to try
and rationalize what you believe. If God would only show up, you would
not need to appeal to a fallible mortal in order to try and explain why
God does not behave in a way that would be consistent with having a
great love for mankind. Again and again you verify the truth of what I
am saying: God does not show up.
> Now, a skeptic might say that God is hypocritical. Why does not he have
> to obey the same ethical precepts that he commands us to do? But this
> would be a category error. God does not have to obey any laws
> whatsoever, and humans have to obey his commands. The category "God" is
> ethically free in the Nietzschean sense. But if we stick to Nietzschean
> categories, it is the category "People" who must obey the very ethical
> laws that the "Overman" is allowed to discard. God then, would be the
> "overman" who can do what he wants.
And how do you know Kierkegaard and Nietzsche aren't simply babbling
under the influence of a "strong delusion" from God? ;-) All these
philosophical speculations and sophistries do not alter the fact that
God does not show up to participate in this loving relationship men say
He wants to have. You keep turning to men and to the philosophies of
men to try and find support. It's all you can do because God is not
here for you to turn to. Men and their traditions are all you have.
> > But again, if God were actually working genuine miracles in faraway
> > places, that only goes to show that there cannot be any good reason for
> > Him not to show up--
>
> I hate to keep repeating myself, but God does not need a "good reason."
> He does whatever the heck He wants..... period. He does not even have
> to obey any ethical precepts whatsoever. He kills people all the time,
> he lies and uses deception, he "gives and takes away" as Job says, he
> begets a son with a woman (Mary) to whom He was not married, et cetera,
> et cetera.
So you agree that God's failure to show up is an indication that He
does not, after all, *want* to spend any time with us? That's a very
serious hole in the Gospel story. God is supposed to have become human
and died because He loved us so much, but we see in the real world is
that He does not even want to spend any time with us, let alone
eternity. I'm not judging God, of course (I can't, since He never shows
up for me to judge). I'm only examining the words and traditions of
men, since that's all I *can* do in God's absence.
> The basic flaw in your argument is that you are trying to apply human
> ethics to God. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Just because you were raised in a
> church where they "glossed over" the parts of the Bible that are
> "unpleasant" does not mean that their straw man of Christianity is the
> correct one.
God does not show up for me to apply ethics or anything else to. All I
have to work with are the words of men. That's all anyone has to work
with, because God does not show up. You are feeding me the traditions
of men (including a very hefty dose of your own personal tradition),
but I cannot compare that to God because God's does not show up to
either confirm or deny what you are saying about Him.
> What the heck am I talking about? When I am speaking about the
> "unethical" behavior of God, I am speaking about what Martin Luther
> called "the left hand of God."
You see? More traditions of men. God's not showing up, so you can't
turn to Him, and thus you must turn to what you have really put your
faith in: the traditions of men. It's all you *can* put your faith in,
because God does not show up, even for you, and therefore you have no
opportunity to believe Him.
> The "left hand of God" is the frightening, unethical, terrifying,
> horrifying, eternally damning, crap in your pants way that God
> sometimes seems to act.
That's because men have built their traditions about God on top of an
amalgam of primitive, brutal, and pagan traditions about primitive
nature gods, mingled with their early experience of tribal chiefs and
kings who ruled by demonstrating that they were "the baddest sumbitches
around." But times have changed, and men have sought more enlightened
concepts of God, producing the internal inconsistencies of a deceiver
who is supposedly "the Way the Truth and the Life." Luther tried to
patch over this hole by compartmentalizing it, but it's still a hole,
which is why it needs a patch.
> But thanks be to God! Luther also spoke of "the right hand of God."
> What is the right hand of God? It is none other than Jesus Christ
> Himself. Jesus Christ is the fullest expression of the deepest heart of
> God. He is the full incarnation of Eternal Love. And Christians are
> expected to act according to "the right hand of God."
So men say. According to men, God sets both a good example and a bad
example, and we're not allowed to either follow or criticize the bad
one. But we can't criticize God's bad behavior because (say it with me)
God does not show up, either to behave well or to behave badly. All we
have to criticize are the traditions men teach about what they *claim*
God's behavior is. We can put our faith in the traditions of men, or we
can criticize the traditions of men, but either way all we've got to
deal with, in God's absence, are the traditions of men.
> It is here, in the "Right hand of God" that human ethics begin to
> apply. We are to love every person. We are to never, ever lie. We are
> to be pacifist. We are to be kind. We are to live our entire life by
> the principle of universal love. And so on.
So men say, and yet even the "right hand of God" consistently and
universally fails to show up. If men were to love their wives as Christ
loves the Church, they would abandon the poor women and never let them
see their faces again, for the rest of their lives. According to the
traditions of men, God sets the example for how we are to love one
another, and yet He Himself never even shows up. You say it's because
He doesn't want to, but what's "loving" about not wanting to spend any
time with somebody? Really, that is a cavernous hole in the Christian
story.
m
Mark Nutter
bi...@juno.com wrote:
> However, you are generalizing from your own experience. Just because
> God has not shown up to YOU, does not mean he never does. You are
> trying to say that your own subjective experience can be genrealized to
> objective reality. You entire argument, sad to say, is subjective in
> precisely the same way.
Not at all. I am citing a universal fact that anyone can verify,
immediately, directly, and personally. God does not show up. Not
anywhere, not for anyone. I'm not talking about subjective, Emperor's
New Clothes kind of showing up that only "happens" inside someone's
head. I'm talking about plain old-fashioned "if you want to collect a
paycheck you have to show up for work" kind of literal showing up.
> Actually, the discussion both you and I are having, is not resolvable.
> Because both of us are stating our own subjective experiences, and
> neither can be verified.
I, however, am not speaking of subjective realities. God does not
objectively show up in the objectively real world. This fact is trivial
for anyone to verify. You yourself give evidence of God's failure to
show up, in that you've adopted the "trickster God" doctrine as an
attempt to explain *why* He does not show up. If He did show up, you
would not need to seek some way of rationalizing why He does not.
> > Are you married? Would you be content to relate to your spouse
> > silently, invisibly, distantly, doing occasional nice things for them
> > without ever spending any time in face-to-face interaction with them,
> > the way Jesus currently treats His "bride" (according to men)?
>
> I'm not married. But obviously, a wife should act quite differently
> from how God acts. But God and wife are a very poor analogy. We are
> symbolically the "Bride of Christ" but we won't get "married" until
> heaven. You might say we are in the "engagement" stage right now.
>
> Interestingly, during the engagement stage, the fiances are supposed to
> stay physically apart. At least according to Christian practice.
What, not even see or hear each other? How do you do marriage
counseling under those circumstances? Showing up to participate in the
relationship doesn't mean automatically having sex, you know! But to
even get *to* the engagement stage, both the man and the woman must do
what? Show up! Failure to show up to participate in the relationship
means that the relationship itself cannot happen, let alone progress to
the point of engagement and marriage.
> > Claiming that God does miracles only emphasizes the fact that there is
> > no good reason for God not to show up, visibly, tangibly, and audibly
> > to participate in the kind of direct, personal relationship men claim
> > that He is supposed to want badly enough to suffer and die for.
>
> Again, you are trying to treat God like a math equation. Plug in the
> right variable, and out comes the predictable result. But God is not
> like that.
No, I am examining what men SAY ABOUT God, to see whether or not it is
consistent with itself and with reality. Remember, God's not here for
me to treat one way or the other. All I have the chance to evaluate is
WHAT MEN SAY about God. If what men say about God is self-contradictory
and inconsistent with what we find in the real world, then they're not
telling the truth, because truth is consistent both with itself and
with reality.
> SCIENCE is like that. Not God.
So men say. Men have long been aware that their claims are
self-contradictory and inconsistent with reality, so they try and claim
that the inconsistencies are somehow due to God's nature. But we do not
see any inconsistencies in God's nature. We can't see anything in God
at all, since He never shows up. The inconsistencies are not in God,
they're in the things men say about God.
> You seem to have no problem accepting that evolution proceeds randomly.
> So why can't you accept that God operates randomly?
Simple: God does not operate at all outside of men's imaginations and
stories. Not randomly, not predictably (except that you can predict
that He will never show up, and be right 100% of the time). He does not
show up at all, a fact which men seek to rationalize by claiming that
God is unpredictable. The fact that this excuse is so widespread is a
further demonstration of the fact that God does not show up, since if
He did show up, believers would not need to appeal to
"unpredictability" to explain why He fails to show up. And remember,
it's not God who says that God is unpredictable, it is men who make
this claim. So I'm not criticizing God, I'm examining the traditions of
men.
> However, God doesn't operate as randomly as evolution supposedly does.
> He helps the humble, the poor, and hurting, and the sad. God loves a
> broken and contrite heart. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to
> the humble.
That is what the traditions of men teach. God does not show up to
actually do any of the things that men ascribe to Him. Remember, I'm
not talking about men talking themselves into having "subjective
experiences" of God (or Allah or Krishna or whoever). I'm talking about
literally showing up, in objective reality, outside of the thoughts and
imaginations of men's "wicked and deceitful" hearts (Jer. 17:9).
> So I guess you might say, God's actions are more falsifiable than
> "random" evolution.
You might say that, being a man. God says no such things about Himself.
He does not show up to say anything, good or bad. Everything that is
said about God comes from what men say about Him. It is all the
traditions of men. The traditions of men are all we have, because God
does not show up to give us the chance to observe Him directly. Well,
we could also turn to superstition and autosuggestion if we wanted, but
those are not particularly reliable sources of information, which is
why the Christian church is so divided.
> > cup is his blood. Christians are free to claim many things as "true"
> > without being obligated to maintain strict, literal, material accuracy
> > in what they describe.
>
> No. That is a major straw-man. Akin to what they tried to do to Paul
> Newman about a hundred years ago. Christians are supposed to tell the
> plain, unvarnished truth. That is why I told you about God sometimes
> using deception to bring down the proud and arrogant. I could have lied
> and just said God never, ever tells lies. But because I am Christian,
> that means I had to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
> but the truth.
That's irrelevant if you feel that "spiritual truth" is still truth
even when it differs from what we observe in the material world. What
Jesus did was to create flexible boundaries for the concept of "truth"
itself. That's why Christians can claim God "shows up" when He does not
in fact actually appear, and still believe in all sincerity that they
are telling the "truth." If you want to tell the plain, unvarnished
"truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth," you can start by
admitting that God does not show up for you either.
> It is only God who is allowed to do whatever he wants, including
> sending strong delusions in order that the proud will be decieved.
So men say. God does not tell us that He is a deceiver, nor does He
claim that there's anything "proud" about knowing the difference
between men saying things "on God's behalf" in His absence, and God
actually showing up to tell us what He wants us to believe. God does
not show up, either to deceive us or to enlighten us. All we have is
what men say about God. It is not pride to test the traditions of men,
to see if they are self-contradictory and inconsistent with reality. If
God showed up, and men opposed Him then, perhaps that would be pride,
but in His absence, given the proliferation of mutually
self-contradictory Christian claims, it is not pride but merely common
sense not to blindly trust in the inconsistent and unrealistic
traditions of men.
> Kierkegaard wrote a book called "Fear and Trembling" in which he
> explores the idea that human morality does not apply to God. For
> example, God commanded Abraham to kill his own son in a human
> sacrifice. Thus, Kierkegaard argues, God does not have to follow the
> same commands he gives us.
Notice how you have to appeal to the traditions of men in order to try
and rationalize what you believe. If God would only show up, you would
not need to appeal to a fallible mortal in order to try and explain why
God does not behave in a way that would be consistent with having a
great love for mankind. Again and again you verify the truth of what I
am saying: God does not show up.
> Now, a skeptic might say that God is hypocritical. Why does not he have
> to obey the same ethical precepts that he commands us to do? But this
> would be a category error. God does not have to obey any laws
> whatsoever, and humans have to obey his commands. The category "God" is
> ethically free in the Nietzschean sense. But if we stick to Nietzschean
> categories, it is the category "People" who must obey the very ethical
> laws that the "Overman" is allowed to discard. God then, would be the
> "overman" who can do what he wants.
And how do you know Kierkegaard and Nietzsche aren't simply babbling
under the influence of a "strong delusion" from God? ;-) All these
philosophical speculations and sophistries do not alter the fact that
God does not show up to participate in this loving relationship men say
He wants to have. You keep turning to men and to the philosophies of
men to try and find support. It's all you can do because God is not
here for you to turn to. Men and their traditions are all you have.
> > But again, if God were actually working genuine miracles in faraway
> > places, that only goes to show that there cannot be any good reason for
> > Him not to show up--
>
> I hate to keep repeating myself, but God does not need a "good reason."
> He does whatever the heck He wants..... period. He does not even have
> to obey any ethical precepts whatsoever. He kills people all the time,
> he lies and uses deception, he "gives and takes away" as Job says, he
> begets a son with a woman (Mary) to whom He was not married, et cetera,
> et cetera.
So you agree that God's failure to show up is an indication that He
does not, after all, *want* to spend any time with us? That's a very
serious hole in the Gospel story. God is supposed to have become human
and died because He loved us so much, but we see in the real world is
that He does not even want to spend any time with us, let alone
eternity. I'm not judging God, of course (I can't, since He never shows
up for me to judge). I'm only examining the words and traditions of
men, since that's all I *can* do in God's absence.
> The basic flaw in your argument is that you are trying to apply human
> ethics to God. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Just because you were raised in a
> church where they "glossed over" the parts of the Bible that are
> "unpleasant" does not mean that their straw man of Christianity is the
> correct one.
God does not show up for me to apply ethics or anything else to. All I
have to work with are the words of men. That's all anyone has to work
with, because God does not show up. You are feeding me the traditions
of men (including a very hefty dose of your own personal tradition),
but I cannot compare that to God because God's does not show up to
either confirm or deny what you are saying about Him.
> What the heck am I talking about? When I am speaking about the
> "unethical" behavior of God, I am speaking about what Martin Luther
> called "the left hand of God."
You see? More traditions of men. God's not showing up, so you can't
turn to Him, and thus you must turn to what you have really put your
faith in: the traditions of men. It's all you *can* put your faith in,
because God does not show up, even for you, and therefore you have no
opportunity to believe Him.
> The "left hand of God" is the frightening, unethical, terrifying,
> horrifying, eternally damning, crap in your pants way that God
> sometimes seems to act.
That's because men have built their traditions about God on top of an
amalgam of primitive, brutal, and pagan traditions about primitive
nature gods, mingled with their early experience of tribal chiefs and
kings who ruled by demonstrating that they were "the baddest sumbitches
around." But times have changed, and men have sought more enlightened
concepts of God, producing the internal inconsistencies of a deceiver
who is supposedly "the Way the Truth and the Life." Luther tried to
patch over this hole by compartmentalizing it, but it's still a hole,
which is why it needs a patch.
> But thanks be to God! Luther also spoke of "the right hand of God."
> What is the right hand of God? It is none other than Jesus Christ
> Himself. Jesus Christ is the fullest expression of the deepest heart of
> God. He is the full incarnation of Eternal Love. And Christians are
> expected to act according to "the right hand of God."
So men say. According to men, God sets both a good example and a bad
example, and we're not allowed to either follow or criticize the bad
one. But we can't criticize God's bad behavior because (say it with me)
God does not show up, either to behave well or to behave badly. All we
have to criticize are the traditions men teach about what they *claim*
God's behavior is. We can put our faith in the traditions of men, or we
can criticize the traditions of men, but either way all we've got to
deal with, in God's absence, are the traditions of men.
> It is here, in the "Right hand of God" that human ethics begin to
> apply. We are to love every person. We are to never, ever lie. We are
> to be pacifist. We are to be kind. We are to live our entire life by
> the principle of universal love. And so on.
So men say, and yet even the "right hand of God" consistently and
universally fails to show up. If men were to love their wives as Christ
loves the Church, they would abandon the poor women and never let them
see their faces again, for the rest of their lives. According to the
traditions of men, God sets the example for how we are to love one
another, and yet He Himself never even shows up. You say it's because
He doesn't want to, but what's "loving" about not wanting to spend any
time with somebody? Really, that is a cavernous hole in the Christian
story.
m
Mark Nutter
Mark Nutter wrote:
> [reposted from other thread]
Doh, Google hiccup, sorry. I got a 502 error when I posted, and I hit
the reload button.
m
Mark Nutter
Oh, by the way:
> > Are you married? Would you be content to relate to your spouse
> > silently, invisibly, distantly, doing occasional nice things for them
> > without ever spending any time in face-to-face interaction with them,
> > the way Jesus currently treats His "bride" (according to men)?
>
> I'm not married. But obviously, a wife should act quite differently
> from how God acts. But God and wife are a very poor analogy. We are
> symbolically the "Bride of Christ" but we won't get "married" until
> heaven. You might say we are in the "engagement" stage right now.
The contractual status isn't the issue. I'm asking about how love
behaves, and not just with regards to an impersonal institution. How do
you reconcile the allegation of loving someone enough to want to marry
them with the actual behavior of not wanting to spend any time with
them at all?
> > highlight the inconsistencies between what Christians claim God wants,
> > and how we observe "God" actually behaving in the real world.
>
> Or, in the words of Luther, it highlights the inconsistencies between
> the left and right hands of God.
Neither of God's hands are showing up, however. The only
inconsistencies we have available for consideration are those internal
to the Christian message, and between the Christian message and the
real world.
> I am going to go back the the Shakespeare analogy.
Turning to the rationalizations of men again, eh? You wouldn't need to
do that if God would just show up.
> Let us say that
> Shakespeare was writing "Hamlet." And lets say whenever Hamlet gets
> upset, Shakespeare has himself appearing on stage and comforting
> Hamlet.
>
> Hamlet: (in full agony of terror, horror, and fear)
> "To be or not to be, that is the question...."
>
> >>enter stage right Shakespeare
>
> Shakespeare:
> It's okay, Hamlet. It is just a play. Calm down. No need to commit
> suicide. No need to get all upset. Just relax.
>
> >>exeunt stage left Shakespeare
>
> Hamlet:
> "I was just getting up some good terrifying emotion. Thanks a lot,
> Shakespeare, for writing such a crappy play."
>
> (Audience boos, can't believe how lame Shakespeare was for removing all
> the horror and tension from the play, and Hamlet never becomes a famous
> play, because every time something frightening happens to Hamlet,
> Shakespeare appears and comforts him, like clockwork, like a
> mathematical equation)
I am reminded of the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting
times." May I conclude from your example that you see God's "love" in
terms of God subjecting the Church to horror and tension, for the
amusement of some unknown audience, possibly for all eternity? How
would you feel if someone handed you a modified "Four Spiritual Laws"
tract that read, "God loves you and plans to mess with your life for
some audience's amusement"!
Hamlet was a tragedy, let's not forget. The reason people like
tragedies and horror and dramatic tension is because they reflect, in
many ways, what we find in the real world. People would boo if the
play's creator showed up because that's not realistic: in real life,
the Creator never shows up.
> MY POINT: Just as it would be incredibly lame for Shakespeare to always
> show up and remove the horror from Hamlet......... just as it would be
> incredibly lame for Shakespeare to turn all his plays into "Barney the
> Dinosaur" love-fests with no villians, no evil, nothing terrifying, no
> natural disasters, everybody happy all the time........... it would
> also be incredibly lame for God to remove all his "left handed"
> behavior, and turn our entire world into a fuzzy purple Dinosaur love
> fest.
Well, if that's how you rationalize it, then fine. I bet you don't
really believe in all that, though, or else you've got serious issues
with the whole Second Coming/Final Judgment/Saints in Heaven scenario.
Are you prepared to insist that eternity in heaven is bound to be
"incredibly lame"?
Either way, you see what you are doing: you are practicing theology the
same way a novelist writes fiction: you look at the story so far, and
try and invent a scenario that would lend plausibility to the story.
And the result is yet another tradition of men, for men to put their
faith in. It's all Christians have, because God does not show up.
> > that would be one thing. But we don't have that. All we have are
> > fallible men promising us that they can be trusted to speak on God's
> > behalf. Why should we put our faith in fallible men?
>
> Your question is perfectly valid. It boils down to, since God sometimes
> acts in a "left-handed" manner, why should we ever trust that He will
> operate in a "right-handed" manner? And the only answer I can give you
> is: Look at Jesus Christ.
I would if he would show up, but unfortunately all we have are the
traditions men have passed down *about* Jesus. These traditions are
also self-contradictory and inconsistent with reality. The Son doesn't
show up any more than the Father or the Spirit does.
> Jesus is God's right hand. And Christians are supposed to be extensions
> of Christ. We are supposed to ALSO be God's right hand. And we know
> that God himself will sometimes "test us" by acting in a left-handed
> manner towards us. But that is okay, just like it was okay for
> Shakespeare to put obstacles in the way of Hamlet.
So men say, but then no matter what happens you are bound to
rationalize it as being some kind of divine involvement, otherwise it
looks like you don't have any faith. Not having faith would be a
tremendous loss of social status among your Christian peers, a terribly
shameful thing. Faith is paramount, because you can't walk by sight,
since God does not show up. But if God does not show up, the only
available object(s) for your faith are the traditions of men *about*
God.
> > But of course I'm not doing that. I'm asking why He doesn't play by
> > what men claim are His own rules, and why He does not do what men say
> > He wants.
>
> In other words, you are asking why God does not act in a right handed
> manner. If he did, our entire world would be turned into an instant
> "Barney the dinosaur" world.
You can dance with that silly little strawman if you like, but you
should know it's not true. Was Egypt under Pharoah an instant "Barney"
world? Or did God not show up to deliver the Israelites under Moses?
Was the wilderness of Sinai a Barney world, or did God not show up to
lead them to the promised land? Was first-century Palestine a Barney
world, or did God not become incarnate and walk among men, teaching
them the way of salvation and dying to save them from their sins?
It's quite silly to argue that if God were to show up, He would be
unable to prevent a lame, boring, nauseating world from breaking out.
Even Inspector Clouseau, famous klutz that he is, could manage to show
up without creating a scene that the audience would automatically boo.
> Don't you see how dull that would be? Don't you see how lame that would
> be?
What, for the world to be like heaven, where people can actually have a
relationship with God? No, please, tell me how dull and lame that would
be.
> I hate to tell you this, but your hoped for world looks like an
> extension of Freudian wish-fulfillment.
Ah, appealing to men again. So it's Freudian now to check whether or
not God actually behaves as though He loved us enough to die for us? Do
you still deny His failure to show up, when you have to appeal to
*Freud* to try and create some kind of insinuation that there's
something wrong with expecting God to show up?
If God loved us enough to die for us, the most fundamental and obvious
consequence of this love would be that He would show up to participate
in the relationship. You clearly know that He does not do that, or you
would not be trying to find some way to make it sound like a bad thing
to check whether or not He actually shows. Why don't you just tell "the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" and admit that you
know He doesn't show up?
> Freud was partly right, by the way. He described Christianity as
> wish-fulfillment. And any Christianity that does not take proper notice
> of God's left-handed behavior, is nothing but childish
> wish-fulfillment.
Ah, well. And what about the Christianity that rationalizes the
inconsistencies away by calling them "God's left hand," even though
they're not inconsistencies in God, but inconsistencies in the
traditions men teach *about* God?
> But you are demanding that God always act in a right-handed manner.
> Whereas, you would never demand that Shakespeare always act that way.
> Shakespeare would have sucked royally if he had always written his
> plays that way. Yet you demand that God be nothing but a cosmic Barney.
See, now you're trying to blame God's behavior on me. If I check to see
whether God's behavior is consistent with what Christians claim, then
I'm "demanding" and I'm "hypocritical" and I'm trying to ruin
everything and turn God into Barney. It's all *my* fault.
Ok, that's fine. Let's suppose I'm an unreasonable jerk, and a liar,
and a communist sympathizer and I have a peculiar fetish for
left-handed female lemmings. Does that make God show up? Will God start
acting like He really does want to spend time with us if it turns out
that I'm an unsavory character? Has God's 2,000-year absence been
forced upon the world by my personal repugnance? (Assuming He ever did
appear 2,000 years ago--we only have men's word for that.)
Actually, I'm a pretty unimportant character. You can leave me out of
the picture entirely. But guess what? God still does not show up.
Whether I'm good or I'm evil, whether I'm smart or I'm stupid, whether
I'm nice or I'm obnoxious, makes no difference. The Christian story,
the traditions men teach about God, are still self-contradictory and
inconsistent with reality. You may think I'm being arrogant for
believing that true stories would have the characteristics of truth
(i.e. consistency with itself and with reality), and you may think I'm
wrong to check the stories of men to see if they really are consistent
with the truth. None of that changes the inconsistencies and
self-contradictions of the Christian story.
>
> The problem isn't that God was sitting around minding His own
> > business and I suddenly started pestering Him with irrelevant demands.
> > The problem is that God is not behaving as though He believed that what
> > men say about Him in the Gospel is really true. Supposedly He loves us
> > enough to die for us, yet we can plainly see that He does not even care
> > enough about us to show up and spend any time in personal interactions
> > with us. That's a gaping hole in the Christian story.
>
> Only if you make the (false) assumption that God always operates in a
> right-handed manner.
No, that's a hole that appears whenever you recognize the
characteristics of truth: that truth is consistent with itself and with
the real world. The Christian story does not have the characteristics
of truth, post-hoc excuses about "left hands" notwithstanding. God does
not show up at all, either to behave in a "right hand manner" or a
"left hand manner." I make no demands about how God must behave or
whether He is ever allowed to behave in a left hand manner. He can do
that all He wants, for all I care. I merely make the verifiable,
objective observation that He does not show up, right or left handed.
> > You miss the point again. What I am saying here applies to all
> > religions, not just Christianity. This is just a simple fact: when men
> > tell you things about God, and you believe them, you are putting your
> > faith in the men. God is not the one giving you these promises, men
> > are. If these promises fail to prove true, it is men--not God--who have
> > misled you.
>
> You have way too many assumptions. You are simply stating what you
> believe on a subjective level. Your concerns have been addressed at
> least 500 years ago by Martin Luther, if not before.
But not by God. Martin Luther showed up; God doesn't. Your faith is
based on the teachings and traditions of men. And I am not giving any
subjective experiences at all. My observations of the real world can be
repeated and verified by any objective observer (especially if they are
equipped with cameras, recorders, and other devices which are not
subject to superstition and autosuggestion).
> Now, you may not want to hear it. But it is still there.
What is still where? Luther's philosophical rationalization? How do you
know that Luther was not merely speaking out of a strong delusion
imposed upon him by a deceitful Catholic God? How do you know all
Protestants aren't laboring under a punitive delusion for the prideful
sin of defying the authority of Christ's Vicar, the Pope?
In any case, Luther's attempts to rationalize God's failure to appear
only provide confirmation of the objective fact I am citing: God does
not show up. If God did show up, you would not need to turn to the
traditions of men to try and rationalize why He does not show up.
> > I'm surprised you would even dispute this point. If you're going to say
> > that no, we have to believe what men tell us about God, that what men
> > say about God is automatically what God says about Himself, then
> > historically we all ought to be Pharisees.
>
> Pharisees? Please flesh that argument out more, please.
The Pharisees were telling men what to believe about God long before
Jesus started preaching. If we're not allowed to question what men tell
us about God, and to check it for consistency with itself and with the
real world, then we must accept the Pharisaic teaching about God as
being Gospel truth. But what I'm saying is that there is an important
difference between God telling us something, and men telling us
something "on God's behalf." I do not question God, but then God does
not show up for me to question. All I have, and all you have, and all
anyone has, are the words of men *about* God, and it is neither
prideful, nor sinful, nor faithless to test the words of men for
consistency with the truth.
m
Mark Nutter
bi...@juno.com wrote:
> I decided to post this in a separate article. If you read the whole
> article, you will get an anwer to the question of the title. Happy
> reading, my friends!
> > And by the way, a love relationship is a personal relationship, and
> > like all personal relationships, the first requirement for
> > participation is that you have to show up. By calling Christianity "a
> > love-relationship between God and a person," you are not only repeating
> > what men have told you, you are re-emphasizing the fact that God ought
> > to be showing up to participate in the relationship.
>
> God "ought." That is the fatal flaw in your argument. You believe that
> God "ought" to do things. But the category "ought" simply does not
> apply to God. It only applies to humans.
You miss the point. It's not "ought" in the sense of "duty" or of
"imposing" some kind of obligation on God. I'm speaking of the "ought"
that is inherent in truthful self-consistency. When you believe that a
loving God would not send His children to hell, you do not tell me that
your argument is flawed because it puts God's behavior in an
inappropriate "ought to" category. Sure, if God loves His children,
then He ought to not torture them for all eternity. It's not an ought
of obligation, but an ought of consistency.
I can easily phrase my statement without the ought: A willful refusal
to show up for a relationship is inconsistent with a strong desire to
participate in that relationship. Consistency is the key thing, because
self-consistency is the characteristic that separates truth from
falsehood. Genuine truth is consistent with itself and with reality;
falsehood is inconsistent with itself and/or with reality. The wise man
seeks the truth, therefore it is wise to check the stories of men, to
see if they are consistent with themselves and with reality. The
Christian stories are not.
> > Why? What on earth would be wrong with everybody being saved
> > immediately? Why would God want His children to continue in sin? You
> > are putting God in the position of encouraging the increase of sinful
> > behavior here.
>
> What would be wrong with it, is that the entire world would instantly
> turn into a Barney the dinosaur love-fest. WAAAAY too boring.
So you're anticipating Heaven with considerable loathing, I assume.
> By the way, Dostoyevsky said something related to this. He said that if
> everbody were to truly apply Christianity, the world would turn into an
> instant paradise. That is true. At least on a human level. And as
> Chrsitians, our goal is to increase the right-handedness of God, and
> fight with all our might against His left-handedness.
Ah, another appeal to the teachings of men. I don't blame you, though
(and I think you know why ;-)
> > Your objections are completely irrelevant, first because they presume
> > God only shows up to the saved (which is contrary to what the Bible
> > says) and second because He does not show up even for the saved.
>
> Wrong. He does show up for the saved.
Ah, there we go. Do you remember when you said Christians were
obligated to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth? I pointed out that Jesus muddied the boundaries of "truth" to
the point that Christians no longer feel the need to limit "truth" to
accounts that correspond to verifiable reality. Here's a case in point.
You are using the term "show up" in a way that does not involve God
actually, literally, showing up. Yet you feel you are still telling the
truth. "Truth" is no longer bound to objective reality, for the
Christian.
You realize, of course, that this means Jesus could have "risen" from
the dead in the same non-literal sense as God "shows up" today, and the
first century Christians would have sincerely believed that they were
telling the truth when they claimed Jesus rose? Even if his literal
body were still literally cold and dead? The spiritual "resurrection"
would have been more true to them than the literal reality of his
physical corpse. The whole resurrection story could originate, and
spread, among Christians who sincerely saw themselves as truthful,
without Jesus ever literally coming back to life. And the "witnesses"
would even martyr themselves for the sake of this "truth," because they
would believe it as surely as you believe God "shows up" (even though
He doesn't actually literally show up).
> But even if He never did, this
> would not change things one iota. We would still need to contend
> against the obstacles of evil that God places in our way. Why? Because
> we are Christians, that's why. And it is fun to fight against evil! It
> is glorious, rollicking good fun!
Is it as much fun as claiming that God showing up would turn the whole
world into a lame, boring Barney-land, and then turning around and
claiming that He *does* show up? ;-)
> I love kicking some evil ass, and taking names! My life would be very,
> very dull otherwise.
Proud of your righteous prowess, eh?
> > outside of men's minds and stories and hearsay. We have no opportunity
> > to hear what God says, since He does not show up to tell us anything.
> > The only thing we have the opportunity to put our faith in is the word
> > of fallible men.
>
> Ain't it great? But it is not quite like that, nevertheless.
You think it's great to be forced to put your faith in fallible men?
> > Good, so you admit Christians are putting their faith in a known
> > deceiver and liar. Now take the next step and realize that 100% of
> > everything you know about this deceiver is rooted in the testimony of
> > fallible men who think it is "spiritual truth" to believe in that which
> > does not reflect what is literally true in the observable world.
>
> That would be going WAY beyond the evidence. Just because God sometimes
> operates in a left-handed manner, does not mean He ALWAYS does.
That's not going beyond the evidence at all. Everything you know about
God comes from men. The Bible was written by men, edited by men,
canonized by men, interpreted by men, and so on. Men pronounced it
inspired, and selected which books to include in it. Men have
subjective feelings that they ascribe to God (but these subjective
experiences are limited: the "God" who speaks inside human hearts never
does any more than what a imaginary friend could do). Men interpret the
quirks and happenstances of everyday life in superstitious ways, and
use rigged scorekeeping to make sure that no matter how things turn
out, God gets credit for some kind of divine involvement.
God does not show up. Your *only* source of information about the
Christian God comes from the stories, superstitions, speculations and
subjective perceptions of men.
> Because that would be just as boring as if He always did the opposite.
> If God were always left-handed, life would get just as boring as if He
> were always right-handed. The whole world would turn into one giant
> Auschwitz, or something similar.
You're really hung up on this right-hand left-hand strawman aren't you.
I never said God couldn't behave in a left-handed way. I'm merely
pointing out the universal and verifiable fact that God does not show
up, a fact that is inconsistent with what men say God wants and intends
towards us.
> nt
> > that *they* are following the true leading of the spirit, until they
> > become such an embarrassment that people turn to
> > nondenominationalism--which is the ultimate splintering of the church,
> > each congregation separated from the others.
>
> The "unity" of Christianity is WAAAAY over played. Just because you
> have a fabricated "denomination" that is supposedly "unified" does not
> mean they are actually "unified."
Precisely, because there is no actual Spirit to unify them. That's the
problem with putting your faith in the subjective experiences of men:
the "God in the heart" character is an imaginary friend who has no
power to produce genuine unity among even "the saved."
> The reality is, no matter what denomination there may be, all true
> Christians are unified precisely by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy
> Spirit is falsifiable, in a way.
See what I mean about how Christianity blurs the boundaries of "truth"?
You just admitted that Christians are *not* unified (in the actual,
literal sense of "unified"), and yet you still believe that it is
"true" that Christians are unified. The Christian meaning of "unity" is
allowed to dissociate from the real-world conditions that would
correspond to true unity, and yet the term is still used as though it
were true--"spiritually" true--despite the inconsistency with the
conditions that actually exist in the real world. You do not need for
genuine Christian unity to exist in order to call it "true" according
to Christian standards, and neither would first century Christians have
needed a genuine Resurrection. Christianity allows things to be
"spiritually" true whether they reflect real-world conditions or not.
> The Bible tells us a way to test whether the Holy Spirit is somewhere.
> It says:
> The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness,
> goodness, self control, and other things. If you see a person who acts
> like this, you have very likely found a person full of the Holy Spirit.
Or you've just found a good person, because the Holy Spirit does not
show up either. The Holy Spirit only shows up in the words of men, like
the words you just quoted above from the letter to the Galatians.
> And I believe that Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, and others who are not
> "Christian" in name, but who evidence the fruit of the Spirit, are very
> likely full of the Holy Spirit. If you think the Holy Spirit can only
> operate in people who are Christians, you are sorely mistaken.
Don't worry, I don't think that. The Holy Spirit does not show up to
operate on anybody. Each person, even if you want to attribute their
good behavior to a Holy Spirit, only acts according to his or her
abilities and inclinations. The "Holy Spirit" has the same limitations
as any other "God in the heart"--it cannot do anything an imaginary
friend could not do.
> > Or maybe you think that God is going out of His way to hide His
> > presence in Christian hearts. But wait, you said God was working
> > genuine miracles in order to manifest Himself. Your story contradicts
> > itself: is God trying to delude people into believing that He does not
> > exist, or is He working miracles in order to convince people that He
> > does exist?
>
> The left-hand of God contradicts the right-hand of God. So what? I am
> very glad that is does. Otherwise what a crushing bore it would be to
> live.
You see? You even rationalize self-contradiction. The truth does not
contradict itself the way your stories about God do. That's how we can
tell truth from falsehood.
> > This is the kind of dilemma you get into when you take a story that is
> > fundamentally inconsistent with the real world,
>
> You mean the straw-man version that you apparently were taught in
> church? Yeah, that one is fundamentally inconsistent with the real
> world.
>
> The church I assume you went to, is all too common these days. It was
> probably totally cut off from its theological heritage, not reading
> Luther and Calvin even, let alone Aquinas or Augustine or Origen.
A theological heritage composed of the traditions of men. I'm glad you
acknowledge the object of your faith so openly.
> By the way, Origen is the best of all theologians. Why? Because he was
> the first, the closest major theologian after Christ. And to cap it all
> off, he was UNIVERSALIST, which means he taught that all men will be
> saved at the final consummation.
Just because he's your personal favorite does not necessarily mean he
was the best. How do you know he wasn't proud, and therefore subjected
to a strong delusion from God? In any case, he like all the rest was a
man.
> How long will it take before all men are saved? I have no idea. Maybe
> 50,000 years. Maybe 30 trillion centuries. But love, the right-hand of
> God, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, WILL be absolutely and finally
> triumphant.
And of course we'll all experience the consequences that you insist
will inevitably follow the victory of God's right hand: heaven will be
so hopelessly lame and boring that everyone will boo it and Barney will
reign supreme.
> So taught Origen, and so I believe. You and I will laugh in heaven
> together, my friend! I will look for you!
Yeah, so men say, and you put your faith in the words and traditions of
men. I do not mean to mock you. You have no choice. God does not show
up, and therefore you have no opportunity to put your faith in anything
other than the traditions of fallible men.
m
Greg G.
bi...@juno.com wrote:
...
>
> It is only God who is allowed to do whatever he wants, including
> sending strong delusions in order that the proud will be decieved.
> Kierkegaard wrote a book called "Fear and Trembling" in which he
> explores the idea that human morality does not apply to God. For
> example, God commanded Abraham to kill his own son in a human
> sacrifice. Thus, Kierkegaard argues, God does not have to follow the
> same commands he gives us.
>
> Now, a skeptic might say that God is hypocritical. Why does not he have
> to obey the same ethical precepts that he commands us to do? But this
> would be a category error. God does not have to obey any laws
> whatsoever, and humans have to obey his commands. The category "God" is
> ethically free in the Nietzschean sense. But if we stick to Nietzschean
> categories, it is the category "People" who must obey the very ethical
> laws that the "Overman" is allowed to discard. God then, would be the
> "overman" who can do what he wants.
Are we to conclude that there is no right and wrong? Righteousness and
sin are just different sides of God's whims? It's not that God can't
sin, it's just that if He does it, He decides it's not a sin. If so,
Jesus living a sinless life is no big deal. God knew in advance every
detail of Jesus' life and designated everything he did (or was to do)
as righteous and everything he didn't do as sin. Anybody could have
been sinless with favors like that. If sin is arbitrary, how can one
worship a being who would condemn sinners to hell?
The Bible says that God is no respecter of men. Some have stronger
faith than others but nobody has faith enough to actually move a
mountain, so faith is relative. If some are condemned for lack of faith
while others are saved for their faith, there must be a lower limit on
the strength of faith required. The variation of strength of faith is
in very small increments among all the humans who have ever lived. God
would have to respect Person A whose faith is barely enough for heaven
more that Person B whose faith is an increment below Person A. If sin
is a whim, then salvation is a whim.
If God can deceive anyone, how can one be sure they are not deceived?
One should not take a known deceiver at their word without some
evidence, but what evidence could be believed?
Your theology should start with some absolute right and wrong that even
God is subject to, lest sin be merely whims.
--
Greg G.
I am tired of Brandenburg Concertos and fugues. It's time to think
outside the Bachs.
dysfunction
bi...@juno.com wrote:
> Now, a skeptic might say that God is hypocritical. Why does not he have
> to obey the same ethical precepts that he commands us to do? But this
> would be a category error. God does not have to obey any laws
> whatsoever, and humans have to obey his commands. The category "God" is
> ethically free in the Nietzschean sense. But if we stick to Nietzschean
> categories, it is the category "People" who must obey the very ethical
> laws that the "Overman" is allowed to discard. God then, would be the
> "overman" who can do what he wants.
And creationists claim that *evolution* does away with an absolute,
objective moral standard. By your logic, morals are actually totally
arbitrary, much more so, in fact, than in the atheist worldview.
Thurisaz the Einherjer
And idiocy, I'd like to add.
--
Romans 2:24 revised:
"For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you
cretinists, as it is written on aig."
My personal judgment of monotheism: http://www.carcosa.de/nojebus
Vend
bi...@juno.com wrote:
> Again, you are trying to treat God like a math equation. Plug in the
> right variable, and out comes the predictable result. But God is not
> like that.
>
> SCIENCE is like that. Not God. And when I say science, I mean the
> FALSIFIABLE sciences, the ones that make mathematically precise
> predictions. Evolution, as an aside, does not make such precise
> mathematical predications. Thus, you might say that evolution, with its
> "random mutation," is about as unpredictable as God is.
>
> You seem to have no problem accepting that evolution proceeds randomly.
> So why can't you accept that God operates randomly?
Wow! All creationist arguments I hard so far were in the form "the
universe is too complex to having been created by some random
processes. Therefore God did it". Now we learn that god IS a random
process.
Strange, isn't it?
> However, God doesn't operate as randomly as evolution supposedly does.
> He helps the humble, the poor, and hurting, and the sad. God loves a
> broken and contrite heart. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to
> the humble.
Any evidence of this? History tells us that usually the humble, the
poor, the hurting and the sad become more humble, poor, hurting and
sad.
> So I guess you might say, God's actions are more falsifiable than
> "random" evolution.
What is "random" evolution? The Theory of Evolution, the one hold by
biologists, is surely falsifiable.
Your claim that God is a sort of Robin Hood is, in principle,
falsifiable, but not parsimonious: If god helps the poor, we should
observe a certain uniformity in the social status of all mankind, with
any disbalance quickly disappearing as soon as it appears. Since we
definely don't observe this, your claim is falsified. Even if we
observed the predicted outcome, your claim would still unacceptable for
its lack of parsimony: if all humans earned the same, the simplest
thing to assume would be a self-balancing process in the world economy,
not the action of some god.
> No. That is a major straw-man. Akin to what they tried to do to Paul
> Newman about a hundred years ago. Christians are supposed to tell the
> plain, unvarnished truth. That is why I told you about God sometimes
> using deception to bring down the proud and arrogant. I could have lied
> and just said God never, ever tells lies. But because I am Christian,
> that means I had to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
> but the truth.
>
> It is only God who is allowed to do whatever he wants, including
> sending strong delusions in order that the proud will be decieved.
> Kierkegaard wrote a book called "Fear and Trembling" in which he
> explores the idea that human morality does not apply to God. For
> example, God commanded Abraham to kill his own son in a human
> sacrifice. Thus, Kierkegaard argues, God does not have to follow the
> same commands he gives us.
>
> Now, a skeptic might say that God is hypocritical. Why does not he have
> to obey the same ethical precepts that he commands us to do? But this
> would be a category error. God does not have to obey any laws
> whatsoever, and humans have to obey his commands. The category "God" is
> ethically free in the Nietzschean sense. But if we stick to Nietzschean
> categories, it is the category "People" who must obey the very ethical
> laws that the "Overman" is allowed to discard. God then, would be the
> "overman" who can do what he wants.
So much for the "all-loving" God.
When you claim that your god is "all-loving", "all-good", "benevolent",
you are making moral claims, using human morality. If you think that
human morality shouldn't apply to your god, then all those claims
become meaningless. In fact, claiming that god is "benevolent", means
that he(/she/it?)'s constrained in his/her/its behavior. Claiming later
that he/she/it is totally unconstrained, is a contraddiction.
<snip>
Mark Nutter
bi...@juno.com wrote:
> I decided to post this in a separate article. If you read the whole
> article, you will get an anwer to the question of the title. Happy
> reading, my friends!
Hmm, looks like you also added a new section...
The problem is that God never actually shows up, so it ends up being
men who do the killing, lying, stealing, deception, "begetting" and so
on in His absence. Creating separate ethical standards for God versus
men is an interesting but pointless mental exercise, because the
killing, deception, theft and so on are being performed by men who use
God's name to claim justification for their acts.
It all comes back to the same gaping hole in the Christian message: God
supposedly "loves" us, but even Christians acknowledge the need for
some kind of mental gymnastics to gloss over the fact that God's
real-world behavior is not consistent with caring about us enough to
even show up and spend some time with us.
m
Desertphile
> I decided to post this in a separate article. If you read the whole
> article, you will get an anwer to the question of the title. Happy
> reading, my friends!
Stop telling god what to do.
Ken Shackleton
On Nov 21, 1:36 pm, b...@juno.com wrote:
<snip>
>
> If you say God is a murderer of those in Canaan, let alone during the
> Armageddon final battle, in which the rivers of blood will be up to
> horse's bridles....
> Guess what? Since God GAVE US OUR VERY LIFE, he has the right to take
> it at any time.
My parents gave me my life....did they have the right to take it away?
>
> Especially since he will be sending us to infinite
> happiness called heaven.
>
<snip>
bi...@juno.com
> You miss the point. It's not "ought" in the sense of "duty" or of
> "imposing" some kind of obligation on God. I'm speaking of the "ought"
> that is inherent in truthful self-consistency. When you believe that a
> loving God would not send His children to hell, you do not tell me that
> your argument is flawed because it puts God's behavior in an
> inappropriate "ought to" category. Sure, if God loves His children,
> then He ought to not torture them for all eternity. It's not an ought
> of obligation, but an ought of consistency.
But since I claim that God PREFERS to hide from us, for the time being
at least, this means God is acting in perfect consistencey with his
preferences.
You simply cannot force God into Arminian categories, try though you
might. The Bible just doesn't support it. Blaise Pascal knew it. He
said that the world makes sense only when you realize that God is
hiding from us. All Calvinists have always known this.
And even though I am an ex-Calvinist, this does not mean everything
they said is wrong. The got some stuff right. God likes to remain
hidden. He does not like to show up. Except in Cameo appearances, known
as "miracles."
Your demand that God show up in precisely the way you want, is not
justifiable. It would only be justifiable if Arminian Theology were
true. So your argument probably would work against the majority of
modern Christians, since most of them are Arminian.
But it would not work against Christians who remain rooted in their
theological heritage. Did you realize that Arminianism was actually
declared heretical when it was first proposed? But due to the bogus
preaching of John Wesley, Charles Finney, and others, what was once
heresy has become mainstream?
>
> I can easily phrase my statement without the ought: A willful refusal
> to show up for a relationship is inconsistent with a strong desire to
> participate in that relationship. Consistency is the key thing, because
> self-consistency is the characteristic that separates truth from
> falsehood.
I claim that God prefers to remain hidden, (except for cameo
appearances in miracles). Thus, if God remains mostly hidden, he is
being consistent with my claim. Do you follow me here?
Genuine truth is consistent with itself and with reality;
> falsehood is inconsistent with itself and/or with reality. The wise man
> seeks the truth, therefore it is wise to check the stories of men, to
> see if they are consistent with themselves and with reality. The
> Christian stories are not.
Correction: the ARMINIAN Christian stories are not.
>
> So you're anticipating Heaven with considerable loathing, I assume.
>
No. I believe that God will create other worlds, like Shakespeare
creating another play, and we will become fighting angels in his next
great play. In fact, Aquinas believed that the saved will become Angels
to replace the fallen ones who joined Satan's rebellion.
>
> Ah, another appeal to the teachings of men. I don't blame you, though
> (and I think you know why ;-)
>
Do you believe in science? Are you aware that science is the teachings
of men? Why is it okay for you to appeal to the teachings of men, but
not me?
>
> Ah, there we go. Do you remember when you said Christians were
> obligated to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
> truth? I pointed out that Jesus muddied the boundaries of "truth" to
> the point that Christians no longer feel the need to limit "truth" to
> accounts that correspond to verifiable reality. Here's a case in point.
> You are using the term "show up" in a way that does not involve God
> actually, literally, showing up. Yet you feel you are still telling the
> truth. "Truth" is no longer bound to objective reality, for the
> Christian.
Since I made a distinction between your demand for how God would show
up, and the actual ways that he does show up, my truthfulness remains.
I don't have to conform my definitions to fit in with your arbitrary
demands. You don't get to define God's showing up or not showing up
according to "what would make your argument appear to be stronger."
God simply shows up how and when he wants. This is nearly always in
cameo, miraculous appearances. The Bible makes it clear that no man has
seen God. We will only be able to see him in heaven. Only in heaven
will we see God in the way that you keep demanding.
>
> You realize, of course, that this means Jesus could have "risen" from
> the dead in the same non-literal sense as God "shows up" today, and the
> first century Christians would have sincerely believed that they were
> telling the truth when they claimed Jesus rose?
No. Have you ever actually read what the Bible says about this? It
tells of the resurrected Jesus walking beside two men on the road to
Emmaus. But guess what? He was "hidden" from them even as he was
walking and talking with them. It was only when Jesus sat down to break
bread with them, that they realized with shock who he was..... and he
dissappeared!
Only then did they realize that their hearts had been "burning within
them" as he spoke!
GOD SIMPLY LOVES TO HIDE FROM US! He loves it! He does it all the time.
He seems to get a great deal of fun out of doing it! For you to demand
that he show up in precisely the way you want, is just presumption. And
God won't do it. Sorry.
> without Jesus ever literally coming back to life. And the "witnesses"
> would even martyr themselves for the sake of this "truth," because they
> would believe it as surely as you believe God "shows up" (even though
> He doesn't actually literally show up).
How on earth can you stand to spout such tiresome cliches? Don't you
hate yourself even as you are saying them? I always loathe myself when
I say something that I have heard from other people a thousand times. I
feel like a well trained parrot as I am saying them.
Even if a cliche is true, a lot of times I won't say it, because it is
so drab and dull. I will usually find some other, roundabout way to say
the truth, just to avoid saying the cliche.
>
> Is it as much fun as claiming that God showing up would turn the whole
> world into a lame, boring Barney-land, and then turning around and
> claiming that He *does* show up? ;-)
I am going to make it real simple for you. There are two ways that God
can show up.
1. The way you keep demanding. A literal showing up. But this won't
happen until heaven.
2. The way God actually does show up. In cameo appearances called
"miraculous events."
Hopefully it all is starting to become clear now.
>
> Proud of your righteous prowess, eh?
>
Arm Yourself! Prepare to be pummelled! :)
>
> You think it's great to be forced to put your faith in fallible men?
>
Yeah, kind of like you putting your faith in science, which is
precisely putting your faith in fallible men.
>
> That's not going beyond the evidence at all. Everything you know about
> God comes from men. The Bible was written by men, edited by men,
> canonized by men, interpreted by men, and so on. Men pronounced it
> inspired, and selected which books to include in it.
All bogus assertions, which remain unproven. I claim that God WAS
inspiring the writing, editing, canonization, and interpretation of the
Bible. Your bald, unsupported assertions to the contrary are not enough
to prove your point.
Just because you assert something does not prove it. My old roommate
and I used to joke about "proof by assertion." That is what you are
doing.
Men have
> subjective feelings that they ascribe to God (but these subjective
> experiences are limited: the "God" who speaks inside human hearts never
> does any more than what a imaginary friend could do). Men interpret the
> quirks and happenstances of everyday life in superstitious ways, and
> use rigged scorekeeping to make sure that no matter how things turn
> out, God gets credit for some kind of divine involvement.
Yada, yada, yada. So you claim.
>
> God does not show up. Your *only* source of information about the
> Christian God comes from the stories, superstitions, speculations and
> subjective perceptions of men.
Blah blah blah. Waiting for some kind of actual argument.
>
> You're really hung up on this right-hand left-hand strawman aren't you.
> I never said God couldn't behave in a left-handed way. I'm merely
> pointing out the universal and verifiable fact that God does not show
> up, a fact that is inconsistent with what men say God wants and intends
> towards us.
God not showing up, is precisely God acting in a left handed manner. It
is God getting great fun out of hiding from us. He enjoys it. And so
can we, with the proper attitude.
But you can't seem to break out of your dull cliches. Good luck with
that.
>
> Or you've just found a good person, because the Holy Spirit does not
> show up either. The Holy Spirit only shows up in the words of men, like
> the words you just quoted above from the letter to the Galatians.
Every "good" act we do, is because God is helping us. That applies both
to Christians and non-Christians. Theologians refer to it as "common
grace" for non-Christians, and "specific grace" for Christians. Every
good and perfect gift come from above.
>
> Don't worry, I don't think that. The Holy Spirit does not show up to
> operate on anybody. Each person, even if you want to attribute their
> good behavior to a Holy Spirit, only acts according to his or her
> abilities and inclinations. The "Holy Spirit" has the same limitations
> as any other "God in the heart"--it cannot do anything an imaginary
> friend could not do.
Don't you ever get tired of saying the same exact thing in a thousand
different ways? Don't you ever get tired of impoverished atheism?
Is there not more to us, than cursed dust to dust?
Do you actually believe that we came from nowhere and from nothing,
will return nowhere and become nothing? That all we have achieved and
striven for will be lost forever, and that in thirty trillion
centuries, it will be as if we had never been?
Do you understand that if that is true, suicide is the most rational
solution? In the light of eternity, time is less than the blink of an
eye.
Christians believe that the whole history of an entire civilization is
less than the blink of an eye compared with the eternal life that
people you see every day will live.
Are you really so willing to gamble with your soul, that you are
willing to risk eternal damnation just because God does not show up in
precisely the way you demand?
>
> You see? You even rationalize self-contradiction. The truth does not
> contradict itself the way your stories about God do. That's how we can
> tell truth from falsehood.
Are you aware that Quantum Physics is based on self-contradiction? Did
you realize that light cannot be both a particle and a wave.... YET IT
IS! Same goes for electrons, and the basic structure of reality itself?
It is all self-contradictory?
>
> A theological heritage composed of the traditions of men. I'm glad you
> acknowledge the object of your faith so openly.
As if science were not composed of the traditions of men. Good grief!
But what you baldly assert is nothing more than the traditions of men,
I baldly assert is a combination of the traditions of men, with Holy
Spirit guidance.
My bald assertion contends with your bald assertion. Who wins? Check
back with me after you die. That time is not so far off, my friend.
Your impoverished atheism will have massive consequences. Even though I
believe you will eventually be saved, I might be wrong. In which case
you are seriously in deep, deep trouble. I don't even have to say it.
You know already what might happen.
>
> Just because he's your personal favorite does not necessarily mean he
> was the best. How do you know he wasn't proud, and therefore subjected
> to a strong delusion from God? In any case, he like all the rest was a
> man.
C. S. Lewis said it this way. We get hungry. Well, there is such a
thing as food. We get thirsty. Well, there is such a thing as water.
We long for God and Heaven. You go ahead and complete the analogy.
>
> And of course we'll all experience the consequences that you insist
> will inevitably follow the victory of God's right hand: heaven will be
> so hopelessly lame and boring that everyone will boo it and Barney will
> reign supreme.
No. As I said, I believe that once this Shakesperean play is over, God
will set up a new play, (a new universe) in which we will be the
fighting angels. It won't be boring in the least.
>
> Yeah, so men say, and you put your faith in the words and traditions of
> men. I do not mean to mock you. You have no choice. God does not show
> up, and therefore you have no opportunity to put your faith in anything
> other than the traditions of fallible men.
>
Exaclty like you putting your faith in the traditions of fallible
scientists. So which of us is the pot, and which one is the kettle? And
are we black?
bi...@juno.com
>
> Wow! All creationist arguments I hard so far were in the form "the
> universe is too complex to having been created by some random
> processes. Therefore God did it". Now we learn that god IS a random
> process.
> Strange, isn't it?
I was not referring to the obviously non-random Creation by God. I was
referring to the randomness of God's distribution of Grace.
Grace and Nature are the two realms of reality. Nature is non-random.
Grace is random. What the Calvinists used to call "Unconditional
Election."
>
> Any evidence of this? History tells us that usually the humble, the
> poor, the hurting and the sad become more humble, poor, hurting and
> sad.
The evidence is all the miracles that are currently happening in China,
Africa, and other third world countries.
>
> What is "random" evolution? The Theory of Evolution, the one hold by
> biologists, is surely falsifiable.
There is no way to disprove the following statement:
"Mutations happen randomly."
No matter what scientific experiment you tried to devise, you could
never disprove the above statement. If you happened to conduct an
experiment that showed non-random results, this would not disprove the
statement, since it could be just a statistical anomaly.
Thus, the above statement is non-falsifiable. Any statement that
contains the word "random" in it, is not making a specific prediction
that can be tested. \
Since mutations are the REAL cause of speciation, and Natural Selection
is just a secondary EFFECT of speciation, this means that evolution is
completely not falsifable.
You can falsify Natural Selection. But Natural Selection is just a
tautological concept, that does not add any new information.
>
> Your claim that God is a sort of Robin Hood is, in principle,
> falsifiable, but not parsimonious: If god helps the poor, we should
> observe a certain uniformity in the social status of all mankind, with
> any disbalance quickly disappearing as soon as it appears.
Here you apply, incognito, the Marxist concept that economics is the
true driving force of history. That economics, the acquisition of money
and wealth, is all that really matters.
The very concept of God is directly opposed to this idea. Hegel
understood this, and postulated that ideas, rather than economics, are
the driving forces of history.
America is based on the idea that beliefs and ideas are more important
than economics. That is why the first amendment to the constitution
gave us four freedoms: religion, speech, press, assembly. These four
freedoms are based on the basic premise that idea and beliefs are the
most important things to protect and safeguard.
Communist Russia was based on the opposite idea: that economics and
money are more important than beliefs and opinions. That is why they
suppressed freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly. For a
Communist, the only thing that matters is maintaining a Command
Economy. That way, the so called "benevolent" dictators can decide how
much money everybody gets. Result? Twenty million dead in Ukraine,
bankrupt economy, hopelessness, despair, and sorrow.
The twentieth century has proven for all time that ideas and beliefs
are more important than economics.
>
> So much for the "all-loving" God.
No, you jumped the gun. God's love will show itself when absolutely
everyone, even Hitler, goes to heaven. Until then, though, the
wickedness of the world, and the fact that God allows this wickedness
to exist, makes it look like God is not all loving.
However, when we have all been laughing in heaven for thirty trillion
centuries, the sorrows of this world will hardly be remembered. Only
then will we understood what it means to say that Love Conquers All.
Bobby Bryant
bi...@juno.com writes:
> But since I claim that God PREFERS to hide from us, for the time
> being at least, this means God is acting in perfect consistencey
> with his preferences.
If God desires to be hidden, how did you come by so much information
about what he wants?
--
Bobby Bryant
Reno, Nevada
Remove your hat to reply by e-mail.
Bobby Bryant
"Greg G." <ggw...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> bi...@juno.com wrote:
>
> ...
>
>> It is only God who is allowed to do whatever he wants, including
>> sending strong delusions in order that the proud will be decieved.
>> Kierkegaard wrote a book called "Fear and Trembling" in which he
>> explores the idea that human morality does not apply to God. For
>> example, God commanded Abraham to kill his own son in a human
>> sacrifice. Thus, Kierkegaard argues, God does not have to follow the
>> same commands he gives us.
>>
>> Now, a skeptic might say that God is hypocritical. Why does not he have
>> to obey the same ethical precepts that he commands us to do? But this
>> would be a category error. God does not have to obey any laws
>> whatsoever, and humans have to obey his commands. The category "God" is
>> ethically free in the Nietzschean sense. But if we stick to Nietzschean
>> categories, it is the category "People" who must obey the very ethical
>> laws that the "Overman" is allowed to discard. God then, would be the
>> "overman" who can do what he wants.
>
> Are we to conclude that there is no right and wrong? Righteousness and
> sin are just different sides of God's whims? It's not that God can't
> sin, it's just that if He does it, He decides it's not a sin.
I.e., a theology of "might makes right".
sharon
Mark Nutter
[a very long post]
Let me see if I can summarize your points, in the interests of brevity:
1. Men claim that God is hiding. Lots of men. You, Pascal, Calvinists.
The men who wrote the Bible.
You realize of course that the reason you need a "God is hiding" excuse
is because God does not show up. If God were to behave consistently
with what men claim is His great love for us, men wouldn't be running
around wondering where God is hiding, and why.
1a. You pretend that I am pointing out a fact that only applies to
Arminian Christianity--apparently the only excuse you can find for
accusing me of making a strawman argument is to present a distorted
version of my argument, which you have designed to be more refutable.
Kind of ironic, isn't it?
The Arminian/Calvinist objection you raise, as I've pointed out before,
is irrelevant. It is *believers* who are making the "God is hiding"
excuse, because God does not show up for "the elect" any more than He
does for anyone else.
1b. You pretend that I am making unreasonable demands when I check
men's words against God's real-world behavior. All I'm doing is looking
for that which is consistent with itself and with reality--in other
words, the truth. There is nothing unreasonable or demanding about
doing a reality check on what men claim about God. In fact, it's
reckless and irresponsible to blindly put your faith in the traditions
of men *without* the reality check.
Nevertheless, you repeatedly accuse me, implicitly and explicitly, of
making unreasonable demands on God. Obviously, I can't do that, since
God does not show up for me to make any demands of at all, reasonable
or otherwise. All I can do, and all I have done, is to point out the
verifiable facts: God does not show up, not for you, not for me, not
for the "elect" nor for the "lost sheep." I make no demands, I merely
use the expression "to show up" in its natural, objective, and
verifiable sense, to describe what a loving God would do that the
Christian God does not do.
2. You claim that God prefers to remain hidden, and therefore His
behavior is consistent with your claim. But that's not really the case,
is it. You observe that God does not show up. That's the first step,
and it's an observation men have been making for as long as people have
been telling stories about God. Your "claim," therefore, is simply a
post hoc rationalization for God's failure to behave in a way that
would be consistent with loving us enough to die for us.
God does not show up to tell us that He prefers (or does not prefer) to
remain hidden. The "hidden God" excuse is simply fiction-writing in
action: men find a hole in the story (God does not show up), so men
think up some arbitrary scenario to try and make it sound more
plausible (He's just hiding!). You'll find the same rationalizations
being applied to explain why Allah does not show up, and Krishna, and
Vishnu, and Santa, and even enlightened space aliens. So here again you
are merely putting your faith in the traditions of fallible men. Your
excuse is simply a human invention designed to try and cover the hole
in the story.
3. You seem to invent a new tradition in which the saints in heaven
become God's fighting angels, enjoying an eternity of war and strife,
boo yeah. That's the beauty of Christianity: since God does not show
up, men can invent any new traditions they can imagine, and it has no
less authority than any of the other traditions men have passed down.
Whatever you can get people to believe. No doubt there are plenty of
Christians for whom eternal warfare would be heaven indeed.
4. You try to claim that science is only "the teachings of men." But
that's apples and oranges. Science works with things that *do* show up,
and can be objectively verified. Astronomers are able to study stars
because the stars show up to be studied. Biologists are able to study
living organisms because living organisms really do show up to be
studied. Contrast that with Christianity, where the study of the
Christian God consists exclusively of examining the claims men have
made allegedly on God's behalf.
Scientists earn the right to be trusted because they don't hide their
work behind excuses like "thou shalt not put thy chemical equations to
the test," or "germs prefer to hide from the microscope." They don't
have to, because the things they study really do show up. And I don't
trust scientists any farther than what they are able to offer
verification for.
It so happens that science has brought us farther in the last 200 years
than Christianity has in the last 2,000, because the scientific
insistence on verifiability works so much better than just putting your
faith in doctrines built on words alone. To that extent, science
deserves to be trusted, and I'll be more than happy to give
Christianity the same confidence as soon as it can start showing an
actual connection between what Christians teach and what we observe in
the real world. (Post hoc excuses don't count ;-)
5. You protest that I have no right to say you are using the expression
"show up" in a way that suggests God has shown up when He has not
actually done so, on the grounds that you made a distinction between
how I am using the expression and how you are using it. But that
distinction is precisely the point: Christians use terms like "to show
up" to refer to things in which no literal showing up is involved. If
it were simply a matter of semantics, you could simply admit that God
does not in fact actually show up, for you or for anyone else.
But you do not do that. Instead, you insist that "God simply shows up
how and when he wants. This is nearly always in cameo, miraculous
appearances." Now tell me, is it reasonable to conclude, by your
reference to "cameo, miraculous appearances," that your usage of the
phrase "shows up" carries with it the connotation of a visible,
audible, tangible appearance of the sort I'm describing when I say God
does not show up? If you want to admit that God does not literally show
up, and that His alleged "showing up" is actually nothing more than an
unexpected turn of events which men *attribute* to God, then be my
guest. But it seems to me that your attempted denial only provides
further evidence of the habitual ambiguity of Christian usage.
6. You appeal to the stories men have written into the Bible to try and
defend the idea that Jesus literally rose. You are free to put your
faith in such human traditions if you wish, but it does not solve your
problem for you, because the accounts you refer to weren't written
until the oral Gospel had had a few decades to solidify. That's plenty
of time for the disciples to have "perceived" that Jesus "rose" (in the
same sort of way that God "shows up"), and to have established the
"truth" of the "Resurrection" on that basis.
Interestingly, the earliest account of the Resurrection, in I Cor. 15,
goes out of its way to emphasize that the "resurrection body" is not a
body of flesh and blood, but a "spiritual" body (vs. 35-49). The oldest
written Gospel, Mark, didn't even have a resurrection story at the end
of the original manuscript--that was tacked on later (more than once,
apparently). And even in the Gospels that give a more detailed account
of the Resurrection, the "appearances" of Jesus are described in
decidedly spooky terms, Jesus suddenly "poofing" in amongst them
despite locked doors, and just as suddenly vanishing like a ghost, etc.
So even in the Christian Bible we have evidence that is consistent with
early disciples believing in the Resurrection as a "spiritual truth,"
that only later gave way to the more materialistic insistence that the
physical body also needed to return to life.
And remember, none of the supposed "eyewitnesses" of this resurrection
called it a literal, materialistic resurrection. Why would it need to
be? Jesus had taught them that "spiritual truth" was more important
than mundane, materialistic facts, just as the spiritual "unity" of the
church is more important than the mundane divisions that have been
splintering it since Paul's day. They would think of the spiritual
resurrection as *more* true than real world truth, and would even die
for it if need be. All without Jesus ever needing to actually come back
to life after his crucifixion.
7. You complain about me saying things that have been said before, as
though Christians never do that. But Christian cliches are different,
aren't they? ;-)
8. You almost admit that I'm correct about God not showing up, saying
that this won't happen until heaven. But then you repeat your "cameo
appearances" line, which you somewhat ambiguously label as "miraculous
events." So now you're using the term "appearances" to refer to events
that don't actually involve any literal appearances by God. Or else you
*are* talking about literal appearances of God, in which case it's not
clear how your definition is supposed to be different from mine.
9. You claim I am making "bogus assertions" when I point out that
everything you know about God comes from men. You then turn around and
try to prove me wrong by, guess what, making an assertion that God
inspired the Bible. But of course, God does not show up to tell us that
He inspired anything. That particular assertion comes from men. And
after making this assertion, *you* wag your finger at *me* and lecture
me on how mere assertions prove nothing.
I do not expect you to just take my word for it. All you need to do is
take an honest look at the sources from which you received what you
think you know about God. You've already admitted that God does not and
will not show up, in the sense of being present to visibly and audibly
instruct us or give us any information about Himself. What does that
leave? Who told you that the Bible was inspired? Men did. Who wrote the
Gospel According To John and the Epistles of Paul and the Books of
Moses? Those are all men, aren't they. Who are the theologians and
philosophers you quote? All men.
Who came up with the unique beliefs you have adopted? You yourself are
a man (or a woman), are you not? Guided perhaps by some feelings which
you'd like to think of as the Spirit, but who says that's what they
really are? God doesn't--He's not even going to show up in any kind of
"Let Me tell you something" kind of form until sometime way in the
future. You've only got your own word for it that "the Spirit's
leading" is really coming from the Spirit. And at that, this so-called
Spirit has never told you anything more than what you could get from an
imaginary friend if you really believed in him/her/it.
10. You repeat the assertion that men are only good because God helps
them be good (your Calvinist roots are showing ;-). That doesn't mean
that any Spirit necessarily *is* helping anybody be good, of course.
It's just an assertion made by men that you happen to have put your
faith in.
11. You wonder if I ever get tired of saying the same thing over and
over. Not as tired as I get of hearing Christians make the same
presumptuous and self-righteous pronouncements "on God's behalf" during
His continual absence. But I do enjoy pointing out the truth, I doubt
I'll ever get tired of that, because *my* truth can be verified in the
real world. That's a beauty and a luxury I did not have while
Christian.
12. You repeat some tired and inaccurate cliches designed to make
atheism look so bad that suicide should allegedly look good by
comparison. Is it not pathetic that Christianity has so drained your
spirit that you cannot see anything in this life worth living for for
its own sake?
13. You claim that it is not possible for light to be both a wave and a
particle, but you somehow forgot to include your proof that this
assertion is actually true. And in any case, science does not claim to
have a perfect understanding of the nature of light, so there is no
"truth" there to be self contradictory. I am not clear at this point
whether you've been reduced to arguing that truth contradicts itself.
14. You resort to poor old Pascal's sorry old Wager. Yeah, you'd like
me to just go away and die about now, I bet. But even if I do, that
won't change the fact that God does not show up, and in His absence all
you have to put your faith in are the unsubstantiated traditions and
assertions of fallible men. I fear no Final Judgment, because the men
who made that prediction (threat?) are all dead, and have no power to
fulfill it.
Did you know that resurrection and judgment were not added to Judaism
until after the Jews were exposed to Zoroastrianism and Mithraism
during the Captivity? Jesus himself, when he tried to find a Mosaic
reference to resurrection, could come no closer than the passage that
says "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Notice there's
nothing whatsoever in that verse about the dead being raised? And
Jesus' interpretation is even more bizarre: he says God is not the God
of the dead. What, when you die, God's not your God any more? And
what's the first prerequisite for resurrection? Don't you have to be
dead first? But if they're not dead, then they cannot be raised from
the dead. And that was the best even Jesus could do as far as finding a
pre-Exilic reference to resurrection. That doctrine was introduced by
the Jews who returned from Persia.
Did you know that the Aramaic word for "Persian" is "Pharisee," by the
way? The Sadducees (whose name comes from Zadok the priest) were left
in the land, and their religion included no resurrection and judgment,
but the religion of the Persian Jews (the Pharisees) did. To this day,
the language spoken in Iran (formerly Persia) is called "Farsi".
15. You appeal to C. S. Lewis' argument that if we want something, that
means it must exist. I want a Pokemon, but they don't show up either.
What do you suppose that means?
And I guess that about sums it up. You've got a bunch of ideas which
come from men, you've got a negative view of atheism, you've got a
problem understanding the difference between science (whose findings
can be objectively verified by real-world tests) and dogma (which
derives from and depends exclusively upon the unsubstantiated stories,
superstitions, speculations and subjective feelings of men). You've got
excuses for why God's behavior is not consistent with genuinely loving
us, and you're miffed that I would be so unreasonable as to check
whether God really does literally show up when Christians claim He
"shows up." You've got a lot of faith, a lot of arguments, and a lot of
traditions.
The one thing you don't have is a God who is actually there--in the
real-world, outside-your-head sense of being there, that is.
m
wf3h
bi...@juno.com wrote:
> >
>
> Since mutations are the REAL cause of speciation, and Natural Selection
> is just a secondary EFFECT of speciation, this means that evolution is
> completely not falsifable.
??this is nonsense. differential reproduction is the engine of
evolution. it's pointless to separate mutations from selection.
>
> You can falsify Natural Selection. But Natural Selection is just a
> tautological concept, that does not add any new information.
?? it seems to me you've missed the basis of evolution....differential
reproduction. saying NS is tautological is to erect a strawman.
>
Vend
bi...@juno.com wrote:
> > Wow! All creationist arguments I hard so far were in the form "the
> > universe is too complex to having been created by some random
> > processes. Therefore God did it". Now we learn that god IS a random
> > process.
> > Strange, isn't it?
>
> I was not referring to the obviously non-random Creation by God. I was
> referring to the randomness of God's distribution of Grace.
>
> Grace and Nature are the two realms of reality. Nature is non-random.
> Grace is random. What the Calvinists used to call "Unconditional
> Election."
It seem just an ad hoc hypothesis. You're claiming that god acted in
the natural world following definite patterns during creation, and then
just decided to give up with patterns and start to do random miracles.
Sorry but you can't have both ways, unless you provide some reasonable
argument for this change of behavior.
> >
> > Any evidence of this? History tells us that usually the humble, the
> > poor, the hurting and the sad become more humble, poor, hurting and
> > sad.
>
> The evidence is all the miracles that are currently happening in China,
> Africa, and other third world countries.
Then you (or the people making those claims) can submit that evidence
to the James Randi Educational Fund.
If your miracles are able to stand a serious scientific enquiry you can
win 1,000,000 USD (which you can give to charities if you aren't
intrested in material well being) and more importatly you would give to
the world an almost definite proof of the existence of supernatural.
Nobody who applied for the test succeded so far.
> >
> > What is "random" evolution? The Theory of Evolution, the one hold by
> > biologists, is surely falsifiable.
>
> There is no way to disprove the following statement:
> "Mutations happen randomly."
>
> No matter what scientific experiment you tried to devise, you could
> never disprove the above statement. If you happened to conduct an
> experiment that showed non-random results, this would not disprove the
> statement, since it could be just a statistical anomaly.
>
> Thus, the above statement is non-falsifiable. Any statement that
> contains the word "random" in it, is not making a specific prediction
> that can be tested. \
You show little knowledge of the scientific method.
In science, total randomness is considered the ultimate null
hypothesis: the default belif to hold were no patterns are observed.
While it's possible for a totally random process to produce sequences
with recognizable patterns, the probability that any specific pattern
for the whole sequence become vanishingly small as the length of the
sequence grows.
So you can disprove randomness with a certain bounded probability of
being wrong.
In fact most, if not any, statistical method used in experimental
sciences works this way.
Please note that if your claim were true, then science would collapse:
Just change the word "mutation" with "gravity".
I could claim "gravity is random" and explain away any regularity we
observe (like the objects falling on the ground, Newton's law,
Einstein's laws, etc.) as 'statistical anomalies'.
> Since mutations are the REAL cause of speciation, and Natural Selection
> is just a secondary EFFECT of speciation, this means that evolution is
> completely not falsifable.
Wrong because 'random mutations' is a falsifiable hypothesis.
> You can falsify Natural Selection. But Natural Selection is just a
> tautological concept, that does not add any new information.
Just like the Pythagorean Theorem does not add any new information to
what is already contained in the axioms from which it derives.
> >
> > Your claim that God is a sort of Robin Hood is, in principle,
> > falsifiable, but not parsimonious: If god helps the poor, we should
> > observe a certain uniformity in the social status of all mankind, with
> > any disbalance quickly disappearing as soon as it appears.
>
> Here you apply, incognito, the Marxist concept that economics is the
> true driving force of history.
No, I'm not. I'm claiming that there is no reason to belive that
'unnatural' or 'supernatural' forces guided or are guiding the human
history.
> That economics, the acquisition of money
> and wealth, is all that really matters.
This element of the Marxist theory is not a moral principle, its an
analysis (more or less questionable) of what happened in the human
history.
Marx has the merit of trying to explain the evolution of human
societies without resorting to gods or other metaphysical forces like
the other philosophers did.
> The very concept of God is directly opposed to this idea. Hegel
> understood this, and postulated that ideas, rather than economics, are
> the driving forces of history.
Hegel postulated that a disembodied consciousness guided every aspect
of human life.
Hegel's inference methods were highly questionable and would probably
be considered flawed by modern standards.
> America is based on the idea that beliefs and ideas are more important
> than economics. That is why the first amendment to the constitution
> gave us four freedoms: religion, speech, press, assembly. These four
> freedoms are based on the basic premise that idea and beliefs are the
> most important things to protect and safeguard.
It can be argued that those freedoms are instrumental to a free market
economy.
> Communist Russia was based on the opposite idea: that economics and
> money are more important than beliefs and opinions. That is why they
> suppressed freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly. For a
> Communist, the only thing that matters is maintaining a Command
> Economy.
'Communist' Russia was actually a sort of theocracy without a god.
That is, no gods but the same methods.
> That way, the so called "benevolent" dictators can decide how
> much money everybody gets. Result? Twenty million dead in Ukraine,
> bankrupt economy, hopelessness, despair, and sorrow.
And were was your god in that occasion?
> The twentieth century has proven for all time that ideas and beliefs
> are more important than economics.
You are conflating unrelated things. Even if marxism failed as a theory
of government, some of Marx's historical analysis may have merit.
Anyway even if economy was not the primary driving force in human
history, it doesn't mean that something supernatural was involved.
> >
> > So much for the "all-loving" God.
>
> No, you jumped the gun. God's love will show itself when absolutely
> everyone, even Hitler, goes to heaven. Until then, though, the
> wickedness of the world, and the fact that God allows this wickedness
> to exist, makes it look like God is not all loving.
>
> However, when we have all been laughing in heaven for thirty trillion
> centuries, the sorrows of this world will hardly be remembered. Only
> then will we understood what it means to say that Love Conquers All.
God treats equally Gandhi and Hitler. So why should you strive to do
good, if this life isn't important and whatever you do god doesn't care?
Bobby Bryant
"wf3h" <wf...@vsswireless.net> writes:
>
> bi...@juno.com wrote:
>>
>> Since mutations are the REAL cause of speciation, and Natural Selection
>> is just a secondary EFFECT of speciation, this means that evolution is
>> completely not falsifable.
>
> ??this is nonsense. differential reproduction is the engine of
> evolution. it's pointless to separate mutations from selection.
But very popular among creationists.
Mark Nutter
bi...@juno.com wrote:
> > Any evidence of this? History tells us that usually the humble, the
> > poor, the hurting and the sad become more humble, poor, hurting and
> > sad.
>
> The evidence is all the miracles that are currently happening in China,
> Africa, and other third world countries.
And once again, not surprisingly, these non-specific "miracles" are
happening in places too remote and inaccessible to allow any
verification. So once again we have to rely on hearsay from Christians
who habitually use words that *sound* like God is really doing
something even though they're describing situations that do not involve
God actually doing the things those words denote.
Claiming that God works miracles only highlights the inconsistencies
between what Christians say about God and what we actually find in the
real world. Does God work miracles that reveal Himself, or does He
hide? Christians are the ones arguing that God loves to hide, because
that's the only way they can reconcile their claims with the obvious
fact that God does not show up in the real world--at least, not outside
of the unsubstantiated stories, superstitions, speculations and
subjective feelings of men.
> > What is "random" evolution? The Theory of Evolution, the one hold by
> > biologists, is surely falsifiable.
>
> There is no way to disprove the following statement:
> "Mutations happen randomly."
Sure there is. We happen to observe that mutations occur, and that
there is no discernible pattern to the conditions under which they
arise. But there's no reason that couldn't be different (i.e. if it
were true that mutations were non-random). We could just as easily find
that mutations only occur under specific, directed circumstances that
would allow you to predict precisely when a mutation would occur and
what the mutation would be. Or we could find that mutations didn't
happen at all. Except of course for the fact that mutations *do* occur
in the real world with no discernible pattern (not that this fact is
the evolutionist's fault, of course).
"Mutations happen randomly" isn't a prediction of evolution, by the
way. It's just an observation.
> No matter what scientific experiment you tried to devise, you could
> never disprove the above statement. If you happened to conduct an
> experiment that showed non-random results, this would not disprove the
> statement, since it could be just a statistical anomaly.
>
> Thus, the above statement is non-falsifiable. Any statement that
> contains the word "random" in it, is not making a specific prediction
> that can be tested. \
Well, that's partly correct, in that random mutations are not a
*prediction* of evolution, they're only an observation of what actually
happens in the real world. It so happens that this observed phenomenon
is consistent with evolutionary theory, but that's not evolution's
fault.
> Since mutations are the REAL cause of speciation, and Natural Selection
> is just a secondary EFFECT of speciation, this means that evolution is
> completely not falsifable.
That's a pretty garbled argument. There are many ways in which
evolution could be falsified. It so happens that in every case the
observable evidence supports evolution rather than undermining it, but
that's not evolution's fault. (It's funny how some creationists think
that the only way evolution could be falsifiable is if there were
actually some evidence which proved it false.)
We might have found, for instance, that mutations didn't happen at all,
or that they only happened in well-regulated, predictable
circumstances. We might have found that each kind of creature only
produces exact copies of itself, with no genetic variation. We might
have found that there is no creature living today whose fossil record
does not go all the way back to the pre-Cambrian. There's all kinds of
ways the evidence *could* have been different in ways that would not
have been consistent with evolutionary theory. It's not evolution's
fault that the only evidence we actually do find happens to be more
consistent with evolutionary theory than with any other proposed
explanation.
> You can falsify Natural Selection. But Natural Selection is just a
> tautological concept, that does not add any new information.
Oh please, not the tautology argument again. Natural selection is the
observations that individuals with different characteristics can have
different reproductive success rates. Hello, that's supposed to be a
tautology somehow? Some "clever" creationist thought up a way of
referring to natural selection in a way that sounded vaguely
tautological, but all that proves is that creationists are adept at
creating tautologies that don't correspond to what science is actually
doing.
> > Your claim that God is a sort of Robin Hood is, in principle,
> > falsifiable, but not parsimonious: If god helps the poor, we should
> > observe a certain uniformity in the social status of all mankind, with
> > any disbalance quickly disappearing as soon as it appears.
>
> Here you apply, incognito, the Marxist concept that economics is the
> true driving force of history. That economics, the acquisition of money
> and wealth, is all that really matters.
Yeah, when a Christian says God "helps" the poor, that doesn't mean
doing anything that would literally help them. After all, who wants to
live in a "I love you, you love me" Barney kind of world? God's "help"
consists of allowing the poor to believe what men promise on God's
behalf about all the really great experiences they'll have after they
starve to death or succumb to diseases from the malnutrition and
squalor of their living conditions.
> America is based on the idea that beliefs and ideas are more important
> than economics.
Yeah, "eat your Bibles, you starving third-worlders!"
> That is why the first amendment to the constitution
> gave us four freedoms: religion, speech, press, assembly. These four
> freedoms are based on the basic premise that idea and beliefs are the
> most important things to protect and safeguard.
... says the well-fed Christian enjoying the benefits produced by the
science he holds in such contempt.
> Communist Russia was based on the opposite idea: that economics and
> money are more important than beliefs and opinions. That is why they
> suppressed freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly. For a
> Communist, the only thing that matters is maintaining a Command
> Economy. That way, the so called "benevolent" dictators can decide how
> much money everybody gets. Result? Twenty million dead in Ukraine,
> bankrupt economy, hopelessness, despair, and sorrow.
Yeah, let's overlook the fact that Marxism is itself a belief and an
opinion, and that the economic disasters in the Soviet Union resulted
from clinging to those beliefs despite their failure to produce results
consistent with their promises. (Hmm, now what does that remind me of?)
But what does it matter, right? So the economy was ruined, so what?
It's the beliefs that are important, right? It's only so many more
lucky poor people who now qualify for God's "help."
> The twentieth century has proven for all time that ideas and beliefs
> are more important than economics.
Then why are you citing bad economics, produced by excessive devotion
to beliefs and ideas, as the proof for what you are claiming? What
you're really demonstrating is that consistency with the real world is
more important than clinging to one's beliefs just for the sake of
zealotry. The Soviet failure was a failure to change their beliefs to
adapt to what was actually going on in the real world.
> > So much for the "all-loving" God.
>
> No, you jumped the gun. God's love will show itself when absolutely
> everyone, even Hitler, goes to heaven. Until then, though, the
> wickedness of the world, and the fact that God allows this wickedness
> to exist, makes it look like God is not all loving.
>
> However, when we have all been laughing in heaven for thirty trillion
> centuries, the sorrows of this world will hardly be remembered. Only
> then will we understood what it means to say that Love Conquers All.
Unfortunately, the men who make such promises have no power to fulfill
them. What's worse, these men disconnect themselves from reality by
setting up rigged systems like Luther's "right-hand/left-hand" scheme.
No matter what happens, it counts as Christians being right about
divine involvement in human affairs. If it sounds like what we'd expect
a real God to do, that's God's right hand; if not, it's God's left.
Heads I win, tails you lose. Christians count any and every possible
outcome as though it confirmed what they are saying--even when it is
self-contradictory and inconsistent. Thus they are immune from ever
undergoing a reality check on what they claim.
m
er...@swva.net
sharon
er...@swva.net wrote:
> bi...@juno.com wrote:
> >
>
> (snip)
>
> Terrible question.
simple question.
to falsify evolution:
constrain creationists in lab with a bible with no outside
interference.
no evolution.
to prove evolution:
put creationists interacting on this newsgroup, to ask a question.
... you will witness evolution in action. okay, psychological
evolution, but evolution all the same.
"A mind once expanded can never return to its original dimensions."
-Anne Hathaway