One apologetic, I forget who, said magic is real. But what God does is not magic. Magic is like evil sorcery or something that humans do, and God does some other special thing which isn't magic. (But of course he doesn't explain what the actual difference is.)

If you believe in religion, you're much more likely to accept other nonsense uncritically.

(August 18, 2015 at 11:30 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: God is not complex. He is simple. No parts. God is pure spirit; there is nothing material about him.

So the creator and governor of the entire cosmos, able to know the mind of every living being within it and is omni-absofuckinglutely everything isn't complex. Please, do go on...

Quote:And no, it does not follow that something outside of creation had to have been designed or created.

Ah, special pleading...dull. Again - an omniscient being is the very definition of complexity. And 'outside' of creation makes absolutely no sense except to those who possess the capacity for extraordinary cognitive dissonance such as yourself.

Quote:True. As far as it goes. Science deals with the material. See above for why science will not have anything to say about God even in the next few centuries.

The moment we get some actual fucking evidence for The Divine Dictator, you can be asured the entire scientific community will be raving over it.

Quote:But what you have faith in is not just science but scientism. That's a belief system, plain and simple.

Bless your little cottons. Randy, just because you've surrendered your ability to think for yourself, it doesn't mean everyone is part of a fucked up groupthink like you are. There is no such thing as 'scientism'. There is the scientific process, which among other things has allowed us to go to the moon, birthed all of the technology we use today (including the device you're currently using to distribute your manure), unlock answers about the nature of reaility and the origins of life. If enough observable, testable, verifiable evidence is accumulated that supports a hypothesis, then it becomes accepted scientific knowledge.

Whereas you and others like you preach whatever the ancient, utterly obselete morally dubious collection of fairy tales tells you to do. Good job!

Christians are in more denial about magic being in their book than GRRM is in his.

Just get to the White Walkers, and stop trying to be a historical text because you're not!

(August 18, 2015 at 11:30 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: [...]
God is not complex. He is simple. No parts. God is pure spirit; there is nothing material about him.
[...]

Laughable. How can you make judgments on complexity of beings which you can't possibly perceive, examine or test?
"Parts"? Is that your best measure of complexity? lol Seriously - that's kind of like a plumber saying that a micro-chip is not complex, because there aren't any pipes in it...

It's just made-up simplistic nonsense, hopeful speculation, that only satisfies simple minds of primates, in which it originated.

(August 18, 2015 at 11:30 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: And no, it does not follow that something outside of creation had to have been designed or created.

Very well then - prove the existence of one thing "outside of creation" and I'll grant you the existence of god.
...
Didn't think so...

After reading two sentences of the outline....Citation, please. For everything.

Oh, theology - philosophy's barren cousin...

(August 19, 2015 at 7:56 am)ToriJ Wrote: Christians are in more denial about magic being in their book than GRRM is in his.

Just get to the White Walkers, and stop trying to be a historical text because you're not!

Not historical. Is that what atheist Bart Ehrman, professor at UNC - Chapel Hill has said?

"Serious historians of the early Christian movement—all of them—have spent many years preparing to be experts in their field. Just to read the ancient sources requires expertise in a range of ancient languages: Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and often Aramaic, Syriac, and Coptic, not to mention the modern languages of scholarship (for example, German and French). And that is just for starters. Expertise requires years of patiently examining ancient texts and a thorough grounding in the history and culture of Greek and Roman antiquity, the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world, both pagan and Jewish, knowledge of the history of the Christian church and the development of its social life and theology, and, well, lots of other things. It is striking that virtually everyone who has spent all the years needed to attain these qualifications is convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure." (Ehrman, Bart, Did Jesus Exist?, 5-6.)

He also wrote:

“It is a historical fact that some of Jesus’ followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his execution. We know some of these believers by name; one of them, the apostle Paul, claims quite plainly to have seen Jesus alive after his death. Thus, for the historian, Christianity begins after the death of Jesus, not with the resurrection itself, but with the belief in the resurrection” (Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Third Edition. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, 276).