Why does science always upstage God?

[ayost]

Well, what Romans is saying is that if God revealed it to you, then the message got through. You are suppressing your knowledge of God. Which I think you second sentence demonstrates pretty clearly.

Well, you may be reading it wrong because of your presuppositions about the world, gods, and other people, don't you think?  Not magic book, mind you, it says silly things like that all the time.  My comment.  

I can't see the utility in suppressing something that doesn't matter to me - the existence of a god is inconsequential to my opinion of their religions.

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I mean, that would clearly challenge my beliefs, I guess. I'm not sure how that matters here, though.

In what way?  You don't assume that the criticisms you offered for atheists wouldn't also apply to you in that event?  That you might deny the god in your living room?  Suppress clear evidence?

In fact, I posit that you have - and that your comments are clear evidence that you are suppressing the truth of zues in your living room.  Or maybe you just never met the guy.  50/50?

First of all, feel like I came in hot when I was here before. Not my original intention, but the head butting got the best of me. So sorry about that, but for that reason I disengaged. I'm also hoping we can avoid the insults and condescending, harsh language so we can have a conversation. If cutting wittiness is your m.o. that's cool, I will just try to read through it as not personal, haha.

OK, so I have been thinking about what you said here, about suppressing the knowledge of Zeus. Which is an interesting counterpoint. At first I was like "This is dumb, we all know Zeus and snake gods don't exist. That's not even an honest critique." And then I thought well what if Grand Nudger was actually a religious person he was earnestly told me I am denying the knowledge of Zeus. What would I say then? So this frustrated me for a while. Then I thought what if he wasn't a person just trying to punk me on a forum. What if he was a Muslim and he told me I was suppressing the knowledge of Allah. So that's how I thought about it. 

And I think that it still represents the same suppression of truth, but from a very different position. So I went back to Romans 1 starting with verse 18 and thought it out in that context. Now, I know you're denying that you're suppressing any truth, I get that, and not to be insulting, but I believe what the Bible says about us before I believe what we say about us. I believe the Bible because it's true and I am convinced that the evidence supports it's truth. I also believe the evidence shows that we lie about ourselves. I say all of this just for context, so you understand where I'm coming from. I don't say that to edge you on and I'd like to set aside debate on the Bible being true in an effort to focus on suppression, though they are closely tied together. So in that context:

The truth that is being suppressed: since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen (meaning the Christian God).

You got me sidetracked on the type of evidence. We are not talking about the evidence of God showing up in your living room, or a miracle, or anything supernatural. That is not the truth that is being suppressed. The truth that is being suppressed is knowing that God exists through creation. Does that answer every question about God? No. I'm not saying that.

Atheist: Sees God's eternal power and divine nature in creation, but suppresses that knowledge by denying that God even exists.
Theist: Sees God's eternal power and divine nature in creation, but suppresses that knowledge by creating another god that closely resembles but isn't the true God.

That theist could believe in Allah, Zeus, carved snake gods, you name it, the deity doesn't matter. The believer in Zeus or snake gods is just one step "closer" I guess you could say, in that they at least understand a god exists and the respect that eternal power and divine nature, even if that respect is perverted (Romans addresses that in the following verses). The believer in Allah is one step closer from them, knowing that there is only one God and maybe some other basic info. The atheist is one step "further away" in that he lacks that initial respect for a creating being. Also, I really don't like the further away/closer analogy, just FYI.

But my response would be mostly the same, and that's to try to do an internal critique of whatever worldview and see if it has consistency and reflects the experience of reality. To which I can imagine you jumping up and down screaming "Christianity doesn't reflect reality!!!" Hahahaha. Fair enough. I'm laughing as I type that. But unless we can have an honest conversation we can't hash these things out. I think I can defend the consistency of Christianity (not individual Christians) and show that it reflects the actual experience of life. And you can call it "my version of Christianity", I'm fine with that. The reason I chose Reformed theology over, say, Catholic theology is because Reformed theology was consistent and reflected my experience in reality more than Catholicism. We can do a critique of any theology and see if it's good theology. I'm convinced Reformed theology is the most sound.

To you, the evidence for Zeus is of the same nature as the evidence for the God of the Bible. I think part of your argument hinges on the idea that any god is a made up god so the evidence for each is the same. I think if we're being honest, you'd have a hard time defending that in a public debate. I think the evidence for the truth of the Bible and Jesus is orders of magnitude better than Zeus or carved snake gods. It's grounded in history and people. First. I think we have to want to actually know the truth no matter where it takes us, not just win debates or punk out people on forums.

So if you want to actually defend the existence of Zeus, that's fine, we can explore that worldview. I know you think atheism doesn't have a worldview, fair enough, we could also explore your personal worldview and see if it has consistency and reflects your experience in reality. Maybe you want to do neither, that's also fine, haha.