(March 16, 2015 at 10:04 pm)daver49 Wrote: The question (without a question mark) posed in None's first line: if Christians can explain why (my italics) their god is good without resorting to "Because the bible says" I would also say any statement construed as a challenge implies a question like: "can you do better?" In the case we are discussing, the question is more like, "Can't you do any better than that?" I believe that is a perfectly valid question because we know one side begins by not accepting the authority of the Bible, while another one does. So, how to bridge the gap? Do people want to bridge the gap? Does it even matter?Okay, so you're saying that the question is "Can Christians explain why their god is good without resorting to "Because the bible says"?". I'd suggest that more informative answers (and a broader range of them) will result if we cut out the value-ladened 'Can't you do better...' approach and simply challenge Christians to justify the 'goodness' of their version of the Christian God. Some Christians simply won't be able to cut out the bible whereas others will. Also the justifications will provide us with some pertinent discussion topics. Whether that takes the form of 'bridge-building' (e.g. "I just want to understand where you're coming from...") or a more adversarial scenario (e.g. "That's not 'good' because..") will depend entirely on the people having the discussions.
Sum ergo sum