You Christians need to get over yourselves. God is either non-existent or the grand champion of hide and seek; i.e., hiding. Your choice. Using the claim, the Bible, in an effort to explain away the evil prick's elusiveness is akin to having a young child tell you adults can't see their special friend yet actually believing this friend actually exists and not just a figment of the child's imagination. Fucking grow up already.

(June 10, 2016 at 3:00 pm)Cato Wrote: You Christians need to get over yourselves. God is either non-existent or the grand champion of hide and seek; i.e., hiding. Your choice. Using the claim, the Bible, in an effort to explain away the evil prick's elusiveness is akin to having a young child tell you adults can't see their special friend yet actually believing this friend actually exists and not just a figment of the child's imagination. Fucking grow up already.

This isn't really fair, Cato.

The questions asked in this thread are questions that are asked of us all the time ("Why doesn't God show Himself", "Why does evil exist").

Steve started this thread to open up discussion and answer your questions about the God that he believes in. If you don't want to participate, don't. But there's no reason to come in here and tell us to "f*cking grow up" for trying to answer questions people have regarding our views.

(June 8, 2016 at 8:32 pm)wiploc Wrote:

(June 8, 2016 at 8:13 pm)SteveII Wrote: Your argument needs to address why free will would not have a higher purpose than God permitting suffering.

Here you are assuming that god is not omnipotent.  If a god is too weak to have free will without suffering, he is not omnipotent.

If god and free will exist then that god is not omnipotent as it doesn't have power over all things, suffering existing or not.

(June 10, 2016 at 1:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: I apologize for mis-representing your position as to why you deny the events of the NT. However, I don't think it actually changes the fact that your reasoning is circular. You are assessing a low probability to the NT--but not zero:

YOU: Why does God hide himself? (a claim that he is)
ME: reference the Bible
YOU: That does not count, we don't know if the Bible is true. 
ME: Then aren't you the one determining that he is hiding himself.

Um, aren't external observations of a universe in which your god has never verifiably shown up once in all of recorded history determining that your god is hiding himself, if he exists as you claim? The bible isn't the only source of observations we have to determine things, and the point is that without an indication that a specific claim within the bible is accurate, there's no reason to take it seriously. Books are not, themselves, evidence; they can be, but only insofar as they reflect the external reality they claim to. Surely you don't just take all books totally seriously? Take away your special exceptions for the bible, and it's just another book, potentially true or false, in whole or in part, the same as any other; pointing to a claim that it makes doesn't say anything without external verification.

(June 10, 2016 at 3:21 pm)Constable Dorfl Wrote:

(June 8, 2016 at 8:32 pm)wiploc Wrote: Here you are assuming that god is not omnipotent.  If a god is too weak to have free will without suffering, he is not omnipotent.

If god and free will exist then that god is not omnipotent as it doesn't have power over all things, suffering existing or not.

What we believe is that He does have the power to take away our free will but chooses not to.

(June 10, 2016 at 3:25 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(June 10, 2016 at 3:21 pm)Constable Dorfl Wrote: If god and free will exist then that god is not omnipotent as it doesn't have power over all things, suffering existing or not.

What we believe is that He does have the power to take away our free will but chooses not to.

And why does he make that choice? Why so inconsistently, too, since our free will only seems to matter on Earth, and not one jot once we die? For that matter, how do you know this at all? It really does just seem like an argument of convenience, rather than anything based in verifiable observations.

(June 10, 2016 at 3:24 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(June 10, 2016 at 1:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: I apologize for mis-representing your position as to why you deny the events of the NT. However, I don't think it actually changes the fact that your reasoning is circular. You are assessing a low probability to the NT--but not zero:

YOU: Why does God hide himself? (a claim that he is)
ME: reference the Bible
YOU: That does not count, we don't know if the Bible is true. 
ME: Then aren't you the one determining that he is hiding himself.

Um, aren't external observations of a universe in which your god has never verifiably shown up once in all of recorded history determining that your god is hiding himself, if he exists as you claim? The bible isn't the only source of observations we have to determine things, and the point is that without an indication that a specific claim within the bible is accurate, there's no reason to take it seriously. Books are not, themselves, evidence; they can be, but only insofar as they reflect the external reality they claim to. Surely you don't just take all books totally seriously? Take away your special exceptions for the bible, and it's just another book, potentially true or false, in whole or in part, the same as any other; pointing to a claim that it makes doesn't say anything without external verification.

I don't think Steve's point is to try to give you evidence/proof that God exists, merely explaining why he thinks the God he believes in doesn't show Himself, and why the God he believes in doesn't contradict the existence of evil.

(June 10, 2016 at 3:28 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(June 10, 2016 at 3:25 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: What we believe is that He does have the power to take away our free will but chooses not to.

And why does he make that choice? Why so inconsistently, too, since our free will only seems to matter on Earth, and not one jot once we die? For that matter, how do you know this at all? It really does just seem like an argument of convenience, rather than anything based in verifiable observations.

None of us can know for sure why He makes that choice, but Steve has already given his theories (which are also the widely accepted theories in Christianity) in the past several pages. 

As for why we believe what we believe, I think that is a topic for a different thread. This one isn't meant to be some sort of "proof" to you guys that God exists.

But it is a fair topic as evidence against the likelihood of him existing.

(June 10, 2016 at 3:28 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I don't think Steve's point is to try to give you evidence/proof that God exists, merely explaining why he thinks the God he believes in doesn't show Himself, and why the God he believes in doesn't contradict the existence of evil.

Well, sure, but those explanations also have to be valid to hold any weight, and just appealing to another portion of the narrative doesn't do that. It might convince him, and it might convince you, but in this respect, that's not hard, since you're already invested. That doesn't prevent us from pointing out the problems with the arguments being made, nor in responding to Steve's claims regarding the circularity of the responses he's getting, which is what I was doing.

Quote:None of us can know for sure why He makes that choice, but Steve has already given his theories (which are also the widely accepted theories in Christianity) in the past several pages.

As for why we believe what we believe, I think that is a topic for a different thread. This one isn't meant to be some sort of "proof" to you guys that God exists.

I guess my problem is that why a person believes what they believe is way more important than the content of the beliefs themselves. With respect, talk is cheap, and discussing the content of your beliefs divorced from why you believe it is little more than particularly cheap talk, because without knowing why we have no way of assessing how good the belief actually is. I don't consider "why?" to be a different topic, I consider it an integral part of propping up the "what?" as something that merits serious consideration.