RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
August 31, 2015 at 3:36 am
(This post was last modified: August 31, 2015 at 3:39 am by Mudhammam.)
(August 30, 2015 at 2:14 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote:That reminds me of the quip of Diagoras "the Atheist." Cicero tells it (through his character Cotta) in the dialogue he composed around 45/44 BC, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods):(August 30, 2015 at 2:06 pm)Cecelia Wrote: That's one thing that gets on my nerves a lot. Some Christians expect you to give god credit for everything.
Got a job? God helped!
Found your keys? God helped!
Lost weight? That was god!
Won a football game? you guessed it! God did it.
Something bad happens though, and it's not god's fault. Malaria? Not god's fault. Starvation? Not god's fault. Apparently he has time to help people find their keys, make dresses go on sale, and tell people which car to buy, but not enough time to prevent hunger. He's much like his followers in that way.
If god wants all this credit, then he should expect to be tested before he gets ANY of the credit.
There was an interesting incident on the news a few years ago, there had been a mining accident and many men were trapped. reports came back to the families that the men were alive. The families went around praising god and thanking god being very demonstrative.
The reports were wrong.
All the men were dead.
Silence.
Even if the men had survived it would have been down to the efforts of brave rescue teams and not some impossible creature that no-one has ever seen.
Quote:It may be urged that sometimes the good come to good ends. Yes, and upon these we seize, and attribute them without any reason to the immortal gods. But when Diagoras, he who is called the Atheist, having come to Samothrace, was asked by one of his friends whether he who thought that the gods were careless of human affairs, did not perceive from so many painted tablets how many there were whose vows had enabled them to escape the fury of the storm, and to make their way safe into port, “That is so,” he replied, “because there are no pictures anywhere of those who have been shipwrecked and have perished in the sea”.250-300 years later, Diogenes Laertius, unsure if the anecdote originated with Diogenes the Cynic or Diagoras, stated it as follows:
Quote:When some one expressed astonishment at the votive offerings in Samothrace, his comment was, "There would have been far more, if those who were not saved had set up offerings."
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza