One question for Christians

[Statler Waldorf]

You have reason to suspect that it's not synchronous? Please, feel free to suggest a testable hypothesis to explain how the speed of light through the same medium is dependent on travel direction.

Please do. We could use a laugh.

A laugh? Why would you laugh? Nothing I said was inaccurate. You seem to be arguing from a Newtonian understanding of synchrony rather than an Einsteinian understanding of it. It’s impossible to demonstrate that it takes millions of years for the light from distant galaxies to reach Earth; you can stipulate that it does, but that proves nothing.

“That light requires the same time to traverse the path A → M as for the path B → M is in reality neither a supposition nor a hypothesis about the physical nature of light, but a stipulation which I can make of my own freewill in order to arrive at a definition of simultaneity” – Einstein, Relativity: The special and general Theory, 1961

So, in your mind, because science can fail sometimes, would that make faith healing better than decades of research into medical science? Can god cure amputees, or should we continue our research into bionic limbs? There are gaping holes in this argument, SW. Just because the Bible says its infallible, does not make this automatically true. Just because thousands of people claim to have been abducted by aliens and can recount their experiences in vivid details, corroborating the stories of everyone else abducted throughout the years, does this make their claims true?

You’re confounding the issue; I am talking about the truth of scripture’s claims, not about giving up modern medicine for faith healing. Scripture doesn’t ever conflict with empirical science, in fact it establishes a foundation for its practice, scripture only conflicts with scientific theories of origins. That’s where I’d rather take the testimony of scripture over those who change their theories and explanations weekly it seems. When someone tells you, “I was wrong every other time in the past, but trust me I am right now!”, should you believe them? I’ll pass.

No, he’s getting to the source of the issue, and since you’re all but dodging his “question-begging epithets”, that puts you in the awkward chair, not him.

No, he was using biased language and trying to use that language to prove his point, it doesn’t.

You know what’s interesting? You seem stuck on the idea that science can fail sometimes. This is true, but to a certain point. For instance, since we’re talking about the age of large bodies such as galaxies, do you know how old scientists think our universe is? Before we had the means to truly measure it, the Biblical account was thought to be the correct age, for there was no other explanation beyond that book for a while. And then we found out that earth was older than previously thought, and we learned about how planets were created, how suns were created…all because we observe these things all the time through things called telescopes. We can see the different phases, calculate the time it takes for these things to happen…and in doing so, we could find out other things, like the age of stars, of galaxies, and even the universe itself. 6000 grew to 10000 grew to 100000 and eventually we reached into the millions of years, as new evidence became available. Eventually, we came to the number that we have today: approx. 14 BILLION years for the age of the universe. You see…the age never decreased or fluctuated in its calculations. In fact, as our science and instruments became better and more fine-tuned, so did our understanding of the cosmos. And, to be honest, if we’re STILL wrong about the age of the Universe, it only means that it’s older than 14 billion years, not younger.

Age is not an empirically measurable property of matter; it’s all based upon assumptions. You just proved my point though, the age they thought it was a century ago, 50 years ago, 25 years ago, ten years ago, and now are all different. Why should I believe someone who changes their story hundreds of times? “I was wrong a century ago, I was wrong 50 years ago, I was wrong 25 years ago, I was wrong 10 years ago, but trust me…I am right now!”

So…okay, it’s impossible to truly know, but to go and accept what you seem to believe as fact, that is, the Biblical account, then that would be very irresponsible of us.

Not at all, you’d be using an infallible source to correct the errors in our fallible source, that seems very rational to me. Non-believers are trying to use a fallible source to correct the infallible source, which is completely backwards.

Of course, as long as there’s a source to shine it. Which light would this be? The light god reflected off his ass cheeks?

No, the light created on day 1, which proves you can have days without the Sun. I love the story of Moses getting mooned by God, it’s a great passage.

So if the Bible were wrong, we would fall off the earth? Is that the gist of what you’re saying?

Well there is a way to argue that yes, but what I was actually saying was that if the Bible were not infallible, it’d be impossible to know anything about reality at all.

So I should believe there’s a Bigfoot just because someone showed me a photo of him and had on hand a plaster mold of his foot? I see TV ads about Messing with Bigfoot all the time…are they trying to tell us something new about ol’ Sasquatch?

Reason and logic can exist independently of Bigfoot, they cannot exist independently of God, so I am not sure where you were going with that example, I do like watching, “Finding Bigfoot” though, good show.

Why should I believe anyone when they tell me there’s an invisible, grumpy old man in the sky? Why do you?

I don’t believe there’s an invisible, grumpy, old man in the sky.

Why do you hold your scripture to a higher standard than the holy books of other nations? That seems a little…odd. If the other two mentioned are at a lower standard, then why don’t you believe in them first before the Bible? Do you even understand what I was asking here?

Because they do not even pass my lower standards, so there’s no reason to apply the more rigorous standard to them; not what you were asking?

Anything that needs to be interpreted should be held with a high level of scrutiny. How the fuck is this a loving god if he leads his children to him through the most baffling of clues? You would think he’d do a better job of spreading his message. Katy Perry does a better job of getting her message across to the world than god ever could. She is more powerful than He.

This falsely assumes that God is desperately trying to save as many people as He can, that’s not taught in the Bible. I really doubt there are 2.3 Billion Katy Perry fans in the World though.

And so do Alien Abductees, and believers of Big Foot, and those who have sighted the Loch Ness monster.

Billions of people have been abducted by aliens? That seems a bit…high.

You’ve already shut me down from making any attempts to show you proof to the contrary, since you mentioned a 30-plus page thread that you think failed to do so. I guarantee you that any one of the contradictions presented there were genuine on some level or another, even though you chose to ignore the evidence proferred. I’m going to stay in different territory with you.

I didn’t shut you down (I respect your opinion too much to do that), you could always provide an example not given in that thread, but something is either a logical contradiction or it’s not, so it is impossible for them to only be “genuine on some level.” They’re also impossible to refute, and yet three of us theists refuted every single one of them rather easily.

Yes. Were you raised in a religion?

My best friend during school is a Mormon; they’re tough to discuss things with. I was raised Christian, but became a Reformed Christian about 5 years ago.

It’s pink because I know it’s pink, and you just need more faith in order to fully understand just how pink it is! (Sound familiar?)

Not really, but still clever.

I didn’t say all, but it seems that you wish I had.

Well why not all? What’s the criteria?

I’m sure many people see claims that way, which is true about claims concerning god. I’m saying that just about these small time claims that require a lower standard of evidence. If Jimmy tells you he had chips on his lunch break, but then you find out later that he actually ate crackers because you found the empty wrapper on his desk, is it really that big of an issue? So Jimmy was false on his claim, but there was no need to call him out on it. The same cannot be said for bigger claims, such as someone who tells you that he/she can read minds.

Ok, I am following you so far, but how do you determine whether a claim requires a higher or lower standard? Surely it cannot be determined by people, since truth is independent of us.

That actually doesn’t change the status of the claim one iota. Whether one person or two hundred or even one billion claims that a dragon is real, the facts always speak for themselves, not majority rule. There is no democracy when it comes to pure, undeniable fact, and the fact is that claiming the existence of dragons when there has been no proof of them in the past still makes the claim an outrageous one, if not a silly one.

Yes, I am aware that truth is not determined by majority, but are you really suggesting you do not believe in anything that you’ve never personally seen?

Think back to what I said about Alien Abductees. Do you believe they were all abducted by aliens? Why or why not?

No, I think it’s a supernatural experience, but not one with aliens. However, if 2.3 billion people all claimed to have been abducted, I think you’d join me in thinking something remarkable was going on, no?

It was a rotten branch to begin with. You need to get off the tree entirely.

We’re all standing on that same branch, and it’s what keeps us from dying a horrible death, and you keep trying to saw it off. Stop it!

Oh, sorry, I forgot that God also made a temporary Greenhouse all over the earth that turned artificial light into something beneficial to all the new little plants he was growing for his fun, fantastic garden in Eden.

If the light is in the right spectrum, plants don’t care where it came from.

How could I possibly know that?! I DON’T because I made it up. Man, it feels good to lie!

You didn’t make it up though; Genesis 1 clearly says there was light on day 1, prior to the creation of plants.

That’s putting on the assumption that Science deliberately lies. Therein lies your problem, no pun intended. (That little guy you named science in that story actually sounds more like the Catholic Church; the science community isn’t out to hide anything, and if you believe they do, then I know a few doctors who can help you overcome your delusions and paranoia.)

I never said he intentionally lies, and it doesn’t matter either way, if there’s a possibility he’s wrong (even by accident), and we know there is a very high possibility he is, then he cannot be used to prove my boy Scripture is capable of making mistakes too. Right?