(July 10, 2015 at 9:12 am)Randy Carson Wrote:

(July 10, 2015 at 3:27 am)Neimenovic Wrote: All this typing and all this effort. And for what?

Look at it from a perspective, Randy.

There is a being, who is all-powerful,  all-knowing and all-present. It created humans and cares deeply about what they believe about it, so much that it decides what to do with them after death depending on that. It has been interfering with human lives for centuries. It even went down to earth itself, as a human.

And you're struggling to provide something that isn't even evidence for it.

How can you believe in the face of such a disproportionately underwhelming, if not entirely absent evidence for something that should be the easiest thing to prove?

This has been explained MULTIPLE times.

<once more with feeling>

God is not struggling to reveal himself to you nor am I struggling to show you what evidence we do have. You're struggling to accept it. That's all.

If God were to make a more overt gesture of His existence, He would interfere with our free will.

It's just that simple.

Uh huh.

Like he had no problem doing before the invention of cameras. Straight up smiting people, too.

Just another weak excuse. The fact that you need to make it makes your god even less plausible.

(July 10, 2015 at 9:12 am)Randy Carson Wrote: This has been explained MULTIPLE times.

<once more with feeling>

God is not struggling to reveal himself to you nor am I struggling to show you what evidence we do have. You're struggling to accept it. That's all.

If God were to make a more overt gesture of His existence, He would interfere with our free will.

It's just that simple.

Sorry, but that's the snake rattle of the charlatan.  It's the fall back to most unprovable supernatural phenomenon--if you don't want it or won't accept it, it won't appear for you.  Every medium who claims to speak to the dead, or read your mind does it.  Skeptic and camera shy claims, are nothing more than hot air.

Before you get hot under the collar, I'm not suggesting you are lying about your beliefs, only that the excuse you offer is used by people who do, because it's the excuse of very last resort when trying to prove the unprovable.

Right. The claim that Yahweh would interfere with our precious free will if he provided unambiguous evidence of his existence is the last resort of scoundrels and apologists. The Bible is crammed with alleged examples of God doing just that, and it is telling that his latter-day followers have to resort to such silly arguments to avoid acknowledging his blinding and deafening absence from the scene.

We don't "struggle" to accept his existence. We struggle to keep straight faces when other adults resort to such empty and transparently stupid arguments in lieu of actual evidence.

(July 10, 2015 at 9:12 am)Randy Carson Wrote: If God were to make a more overt gesture of His existence, He would interfere with our free will.

As if threatening sinners with Hell isn't interfering with free will.

Laughably childish.

(July 10, 2015 at 10:30 am)Parkers Tan Wrote:

(July 10, 2015 at 9:12 am)Randy Carson Wrote: If God were to make a more overt gesture of His existence, He would interfere with our free will.

As if threatening sinners with Hell isn't interfering with free will.

Laughably childish.

Oh, but the Potter and the Potter's clay . . . um, shepherd and flock . . . uh, free will . . .

*Head explodes*

It must be terrible to exist in such a state of denial and cognitive dissonance.

But wouldn't a resurrection or any revelation from a god interfere with the free will of the witnesses of it by this line of reasoning? What a cop out.

(July 10, 2015 at 11:17 am)Pizza Wrote: But wouldn't a resurrection or any revelation from a god interfere with the free will of the witnesses of it by this line of reasoning? What a cop out.

Dumb question: how are Randy's 3rd and 4th facts even relevant to what he's trying to prove? Admittedly, I'm not intimately familiar with all of the Jesus story. I grew up Catholic, but that was more on the cultural side than the religious side. I know Jesus was supposedly killed because he was considered a criminal/upstart, and that he supposedly rose from the grave three days later.

But, why are people's changes of heart even meaningful to the events in question? Yeah, they add to the narrative of the effects Jesus' sacrifice had on people, but why are they relevant to the actual events? The argument presented isn't that Jesus was a good guy, or that his sacrifice changed people's hearts, but that he came back to life after death.

(July 10, 2015 at 11:32 am)KevinM1 Wrote: Dumb question: how are Randy's 3rd and 4th facts even relevant to what he's trying to prove?  Admittedly, I'm not intimately familiar with all of the Jesus story.  I grew up Catholic, but that was more on the cultural side than the religious side.  I know Jesus was supposedly killed because he was considered a criminal/upstart, and that he supposedly rose from the grave three days later.  

But, why are people's changes of heart even meaningful to the events in question?  Yeah, they add to the narrative of the effects Jesus' sacrifice had on people, but why are they relevant to the actual events?  The argument presented isn't that Jesus was a good guy, or that his sacrifice changed people's hearts, but that he came back to life after death.

If you had the thankless task of trying to present an argument for the historicity of the alleged resurrection, you'd probably throw as much shit against the wall as you could, too.  That's all that is really happening here.  Too bad for Randy that none of it sticks, except to his shoes.