(January 23, 2016 at 11:45 am)Crossless1 Wrote:

(January 22, 2016 at 7:41 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: Athrock, why the continued need to rationalize/justify your belief to us? You're allowed to believe what ever you want, it's OK.

What are you really looking for?

What does any apologist want other than to reassure themselves that playing make-believe is intellectually respectable and that their sophistry is pleasing to their god?

Every morning when I wake up, I'm plagued by doubts caused by the inevitable march of science.

So, I log in here to steady my trembling nerves.

(January 23, 2016 at 1:31 pm)robvalue Wrote: So I'm living in a magical fairy land...

No. I'm still not going to go slaughter people just because he's been handing out presents. The minute he starts ordering violence is the minute I stop paying attention to him.

I'm sad to hear your morals are so easily corrupted by some sparkles.

Typically shallow thinking, rob. Try again. 

As a member of one of the tribes of Israel, you've witnessed actual miracles performed by God with your own eyes.

Do you trust Him? Do you obey Him?

(January 23, 2016 at 2:03 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(January 23, 2016 at 1:03 pm)athrock Wrote: Prostitution and child sacrifice.

So far, the Canaanites sound like wonderful folks.

What's the problem with consensual prostitution? Like, how is that a moral issue at all?

As for child sacrifice... I dunno, maybe you need to go and familiarize yourself a bit with old Jepthah before you start disparaging the worshipers of other gods for that particular act, dude. Bible god is perfectly fine with that so long as the sacrifice is to him.  

I'm guessing that you're not terribly familiar with the story...

(January 23, 2016 at 2:53 pm)athrock Wrote: As a side note, does any atheist here ever go into a Christian bookstore and buy a decent book in order to understand what Christians actually believe?

Which book? Which god?

Actually, don't answer that, it doesn't matter. You're asking us to play a game I know in advance it's impossible for us to win, and impossible for you to lose. Like so many other believers- not all, but a startling majority from what I've seen- you've conflated your specific interpretations of your religion for the religion in its entirety. But you're not alone in that, and you're also not the first theist to waltz in here and loftily assert that, because we aren't already a full bottle in what you believe and why you believe it, we're inadequately equipped to deal with christian theism as a whole. We clearly don't understand a thing, because what we're saying about christianity doesn't map totally over whatever apologetics you've sponged up from elsewhere and think presents some towering theological edifice we cannot surmount.

We don't know what you believe, therefore we don't know christianity. But did you think you were the only one doing that?

Maybe it's just really hard to see from the inside. Maybe you're so deep in your own beliefs that you can't even imagine there being an outside of them, let alone different denominations, so let me let you in on a little secret here, let me tell you what it's like to be a non-believer and have to deal with you people: we had a Catholic here a while ago that I had to have this exact same conversation with, because he talked like you do. We hadn't read the books about what he believed, which I'm sure differed from your beliefs in a few respects, and so we obviously didn't know christianity. But we have Protestants here saying the exact same thing, yet again, saying we don't get christianity because we aren't intimately familiar with their beliefs. Both of them assert that the totality of the things they believe represents all that "true christianity" is and ever could be, and they are but two people in a throng of christians who take any disagreement with the religion to be the result of ignorance, where the person making it isn't speaking specifically about the things each individual christian within that crowd believes.

Obviously they can't all be right: the Protestants and Catholics saying these things to us believe in mutually exclusive practices and doctrines. Even within denominations there are beliefs like that, leading to ever more splintered, fractured, specific beliefs being held up, with no thought at all to actually justifying this, as "true christianity." And every last one of you clamors to dismiss what we atheists have to say, because we aren't speaking directly to you and what you believe when we talk.

But how could we? How could we possibly know what license you've given yourself to spin or dismiss the bible in your own special way ahead of time? How can we discuss these issues with you, if there's so many of you willing to demand exclusive rights over christianity, without even seeming to notice the thousands of other denominations attempting to knock down that same door? Especially when none of you seem interested at all in actually showing that, you all just want to assume without evidence that what you believe is what all christians believe, even when it's demonstrably not.

How are we, sitting on the outside, unwilling to just heedlessly privilege the things you believe because you believe them, supposed to handle this? You put the burden on us to make your case for you, shove books into our hands as though you've somehow got the right to give us homework before you'll deign to have a discussion with us, completely unaware of all your peers doing the same: oh, you don't know christianity unless you've read William Lane Craig. Oh, Lee Strobel truly understands the gospel! How can you have made an informed decision egarding Christ without having read Lewis Carrol?!

... And so on. It's not a game an atheist can ever win because it's designed from the ground up to make atheists lose. That's what you want, really. That's what you're all striking out for here: you don't need to argue your case, you're fine with just invalidating ours. In the silence that follows, your beliefs must win by default, right? Don't play this game with us. Don't just presume your beliefs to be the only beliefs contained within christianity, and don't just sit there making vague accusations as to strawmen in place of actually involving yourself in the discussion. Realize how the deck is being stacked against us here, stop ignoring the thousands of other denominations with their own books and an equally high opinion of their beliefs, and stop trying this bullshit game with us!

(January 23, 2016 at 2:11 pm)mh.brewer Wrote:

(January 23, 2016 at 1:25 pm)athrock Wrote: Imagine that you were one of the Israelites travelling with Joshua. You've been wandering in the desert for 40 years following a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Every morning you eat manna with has formed like frost on the ground. When you need water, Moses strikes a rock with his staff, and bam....water for milions of people and livestock appears out of nowhere.

Your parents and grandparents, all dead now since they were not permitted to enter the promised land because of their disobedience, told you of all that God did in Egypt: the plagues, the passover, the parting of the Red Sea. In your tent, you still have the jewelry, coins and other precious items that the Egyptians gave to your grandparents and parents as they left Egypt.

In the past few weeks, you entered the Promised Land - passing through the Jordan River which God also parted so that the people could walk through on dry land. You saw all this with your own eyes. And for the past six days, you've marched around the city of Jericho every day. Today, you've just marched around the city seven times, you've blown your trumpet, and you've seen the mighty walls of the city fall.

You tell me, rob...in view of all that God has done in the course of your parents' lives, in light of all that you have witnessed in your own life, and given what has transpired in just the past couple of hours, are you gonna believe and obey God's command to enter the city and destroy its wicked inhabitants or not?

Can you not hear/perceive the amount of fantasy included in your post? 40yrs desert, following pillars of cloud and fire, magically appearing food and water. Plagues on command, killing of first born only, parting water(s), walls fall due to walking and sound. And now, after all the magic has been done for you, you are expected to do the killing. Why not just another plague? Just another passover only wack them all? Nope, you had to now take lives. The price for believing.

Sorry, babe...if we're going to consider whether Joshua's conquest of Canaan was "genocide", then we have to do so in proper context.

1. The Canaanites were judged by God and punished accordingly.
2. The Israelites had seen proof of God's existence, etc., in the "fantasy" I cited.

That they responded in obedience is understandable IN CONTEXT.

(January 23, 2016 at 3:15 pm)athrock Wrote:

(January 23, 2016 at 11:45 am)Crossless1 Wrote: What does any apologist want other than to reassure themselves that playing make-believe is intellectually respectable and that their sophistry is pleasing to their god?

Every morning when I wake up, I'm plagued by doubts caused by the inevitable march of science.

So, I log in here to steady my trembling nerves.

Who said anything about the march of science? 'Make-believe' was the operative phrase. You Christians believe obviously contrived and fantastic stories, yet you don't hesitate to dismiss the equally fantastic stories of other traditions. For some believers, such blatant hypocrisy demands some sort of explanation -- some reasons. Hence, apologetics. It's the back-handed compliment religious faith pays to reality and the demands of intellectual integrity.

It just falls far short of the mark.

(January 23, 2016 at 2:58 pm)athrock Wrote: We are all entitled to our own beliefs, mh, but we are not entitled to our own facts.

Very good - now you need to go stand in front of a mirror and repeat that 100 times. Because the only people who are creating their own facts are those in the >1,000,000 different and conflicting religious sects, and even more who make up their own independent god beliefs.

Quote:The unfortunate belief that God is immoral is one that can be overcome by close attention to evidence presented well.

God isn't immoral - he cannot be when he doesn't exist, and here you are like every other dumb-as-fuck theist not even attempting to prove what you can't, but instead attacking the unbelievers in your harmful attempts to torture them with your Stockholm method of controlling people by displacing through destructive means everything they know, love, and believe with you and your shit. You'll never know why it doesn't work with atheists because you don't understand how atheists think.

(January 23, 2016 at 3:25 pm)athrock Wrote: Sorry, babe...if we're going to consider whether Joshua's conquest of Canaan was "genocide", then we have to do so in proper context.

1. The Canaanites were judged by God and punished accordingly.
2. The Israelites had seen proof of God's existence, etc., in the "fantasy" I cited.

That they responded in obedience is understandable IN CONTEXT.

In the context of a fantasy. Of course, great fantasy story. Still, would have been better if god pulled one last magic trick.

(January 23, 2016 at 2:22 pm)robvalue Wrote: Normally, when an account includes a large amount of magic stuff happening, that's a warning sign that it's bollocks.

These accounts, at best, are probably retroactive explanations for why they went and slaughtered a bunch of people. Seriously, how hard is it to make some shit up about god telling you to do it? Or maybe some of them were genuinely deluded and were hearing/seeing things.

Normally? Sure. Supernatural stuff doesn't happen every day, does it?

But tell me, atheist, does that mean supernatural stuff NEVER happens? Has it EVER happened in all of recorded history?

If it had occurred in the past, how would you know?

(January 23, 2016 at 3:21 pm)athrock Wrote:

(January 23, 2016 at 2:03 pm)Esquilax Wrote: What's the problem with consensual prostitution? Like, how is that a moral issue at all?

As for child sacrifice... I dunno, maybe you need to go and familiarize yourself a bit with old Jepthah before you start disparaging the worshipers of other gods for that particular act, dude. Bible god is perfectly fine with that so long as the sacrifice is to him.  

I'm guessing that you're not terribly familiar with the story...

*Sigh.*

In the particular instance I'm discussing, Jepthah had been enlisted by the elders of Israel to rally the people therein in war against invading armies that had been able to do so due to god withdrawing his protection from the land in response to idolatry and so on among the Israelites. Though initially reticent to help because of his poor treatment and banishment from Israel prior, he agrees when he's made a general on the condition that he be made a judge once he wins the war. Jepthah prays to god and vows that if he is allowed to win the battle, he would sacrifice the first living thing he sees on an altar to thank him. God, knowing well in advance that this would be his daughter and having established his ability to intervene to stop a sacrifice of this sort during the binding of Isaac, accepts and aids Jepthah in his conquest and remains silent during the two month stay of execution Jepthah had, and allows Jepthah to "do with her according to his vow," and sacrifice her.

There. Have I proved I've done my homework to your satisfaction, teacher? Have I earned the honor of having you descend from your pedestal to engage with me yet?

It's at this point that I'd remind you that "pfft, you don't know!" is not a rebuttal. It's a rank dismissal and an avoidance of the argument.