Reason is the forbidden fruit? And you just made an argument, sinner!

(April 4, 2014 at 7:28 pm)professor Wrote: Alex, this is an assumption on my part- they were created with no bias toward good or evil and made a definite choice to follow the words of the snake.
She considered both the fruit of the tree and the words of the devil.

I thought you might ask about the modern scheme.
There are many of them, the Freemasons come to mind, the occult also.
You could look no farther than the upholding of Reason and knowledge found right here on AF.
(I am sure this will go over like a rat sandwich.)

Truth, if God were the monster atheists make Him out to be, you would be correct.
I reject that view.
Their choice brought specific results (I do not recall it being stated as a punishment).

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orangebox,

Stating the consequences does not make Gods actions ok. And no they were nit equipped to make a judgement and be held accountable for it.

Quote:It's hard on a forum to portray tone so understand when I say the following it is not meant to be insulting but rather a strictly academic statement. Given your premises, you cannot logically infer your conclusion. The short reason why is that two of your premises violate the law of non-contratiction. If you are interested in discussions of logic I'd be happy to offer a more technical explanation.

Worry not about how I take your comments. Fire away - I don't see contradiction so I must have missed it.

(April 5, 2014 at 2:04 am)Alex K Wrote: Stating the consequences does not make Gods actions ok. And no they were nit equipped to make a judgement and be held accountable for it.

To which actions of God's are you referring?
In what way(s) are you proposing Adam and Eve were not equipped to make a judgement?

(April 5, 2014 at 6:25 am)max-greece Wrote: Worry not about how I take your comments. Fire away - I don't see contradiction so I must have missed it.

10-4. The argument again:

Quote:Premise 1: Faith in God produces knowledge of God's existence.
Premise 2: Some people have faith in God but without knowledge of God's existence.
Premise 3: If God doesn't exist, then there is no knowledge of God's existence.
Conclusion: If God does exist, knowledge of His existence could only be had if God is not consistent.

Premise 1 states that faith in God produces knowledge of God's existence. Premise 2 states that some people have faith in God but do not have knowledge of God's existence. If faith in God produces knowledge of God's existence than people cannot have faith in God without knowledge of God's existence.

We know that an argument is valid only when a true conclusion is inferred from true premises and there are no instances where the premises can be true and the conclusion false. There is no instance with which your first premise and second premise can be true at the same time, because premise two is a negation of premise one. So if we were to assume premise 1 is true then it's negation (premise 2) would be false and vice versa. If there is no instance with which all your premises are true you cannot logically infer any conclusion.

(April 4, 2014 at 7:28 pm)professor Wrote: Alex, this is an assumption on my part- they were created with no bias toward good or evil and made a definite choice to follow the words of the snake.

When you think about it, that was the natural reaction of a person who had no concept of good or evil, and who simply did as she was told. Given an opportunity to make her own choice once a crucial barrier (fear of consequences) had been removed, she had no reason to be concerned about taking the fruit.

Thus, the problem was that a talking serpent was allowed to enter the garden and speak to Eve. Presumably, to this point the only beings able to talk would have been the two humans and god, and perhaps any messengers he sent. As long as god was there to tell them what to do, there was no issue with them not knowing what was good or evil. Why did god abandon Eve to the tender mercies of the serpent if he knew that she did not have the necessary instincts or knowledge to reject his offer?

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(April 5, 2014 at 1:58 am)orangebox21 Wrote: So the argument is:
Premise 1. Faith is believing that God will do what He has said.
Premise 2. Belief in God is not a matter of faith.
Premise 3. Belief in God is a matter of God revealing himself to people directly and physically.
Premise 4. If God has revealed himself to people directly and physically for thousands of years then He is able to do the same now.
Conclusion. If God does not reveal himself to people directly and physically now then He does not exist.

Is this a fair and accurate representation of your argument?

Yes, I think that sums it up well. And yes, "belief" is more accurate than "faith" in my last sentence.

CM, it is like-
Do not go into that bramble bush, stay out of it.
Or, as I say about the occult- if you play in that playpen- you will get played with, and the owner of it does not play nice.

How was God under a moral obligation to explain all the details of transgression?
It really was a test.
A fair test would, of necessity, consist of being completely free to choose.
To be otherwise, God would have created beings no more appealing to him than a robot.

You would quickly be bored with a robot for a companion and companionship is the sole reason for creation.

The serpent (satan) understood Man was his replacement (and destined to be higher than him).
Can you not see that the serpent is still here?
His hiss is audible but disguised.
"Hath God said?" Still works pretty good.

(April 1, 2014 at 12:33 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.

Gaius Julius Caesar

Thus proving Jesus was full of shit, and it is much better for intellectual integrity to render onto Caesar than to render onto god.

(April 8, 2014 at 9:43 am)Tonus Wrote:

(April 5, 2014 at 1:58 am)orangebox21 Wrote: So the argument is:
Premise 1. Faith is believing that God will do what He has said.
Premise 2. Belief in God is not a matter of faith.
Premise 3. Belief in God is a matter of God revealing himself to people directly and physically.
Premise 4. If God has revealed himself to people directly and physically for thousands of years then He is able to do the same now.
Conclusion. If God does not reveal himself to people directly and physically now then He does not exist.


Is this a fair and accurate representation of your argument?

Yes, I think that sums it up well. And yes, "belief" is more accurate than "faith" in my last sentence.

Sounds good.


Your conclusion would follow if you changed 'then He does not exist' to 'belief in Him does not exist.' If God does not reveal himself to people directly and physically now then people's belief in Him does not exist. This would logically follow.


Here's why you cannot logically infer that God does not exist from your premises.Your premises are all propositions involving the concept of 'belief' and your conclusion changes concept to 'existence'. You have not argued for existence but rather belief in existence. It's comparable to the fallacy of equivocation. Secondly you have already established that God does exist in premise 4 (a valid argument must have true premises). You state that God has revealed Himself to people for thousands of years (therefore exists) and this revelation has led to belief, but then concluded that God does not exist. This is a violation of the law of non-contradiction (God cannot both exist and not exist).


I'll speculate that a lot of people who derive their knowledge soley from empiricism share in your thoughts. i.e. If God doesn't show himself to me then he doesn't exist. But what should be added to the end of the sentence to make your argument valid is 'to me', 'he doesn't exist to me.' It's doubting Thomas. You can certainly from your premises logically conclude that God does not exist to you (or anyone He doesn't directly and physically show Himself to), however to conclude that God does not exist would be illogical.