Gods forgiveness is worthless.

[Ryantology]

You mean to tell me that you atheists would accept such rules as reasonable? Whatever the restitution, you guys would just bitch that it really doesn't make up for the lost nut.

Nice dodge of the question, John.

Slaves of Yahweh have fucked themselves over by making God out to be 'perfect'. We expect God's rules to be perfect, and yet they are, almost to the last, nothing more than examples of the most primitive and brutal forms of human justice. There is no subtlety or fairness, no regard for context. They are so flawed that only the most insane modern Christians even attempt to hold to them.

We accept imperfect rules and laws in the real world because we accept that they are formulated by imperfect people. We do not expect perfection from them.

What would have made the entire Yahweh fairy tale much easier to accept would have been to craft his character as powerful but imperfect, willing to experiment and learn, wanting to better himself. God would actually make sense then. It would be easy to understand the concept that we were 'made in his image'. Even if no atheist would believe in such a God, I think a lot of us would find it much easier to live with those who chose to follow it.

It shouldn't matter in any case. God could just replace the lost nut, since you allege that his abilities are in no way limited, but chooses not to. The responsibility ultimately lies on him.

[Neo-Scholastic]

...up for the lost nut.

Pretty few things can make up for a lost testicle.

---

Slaves of Yahweh...

I'll take that as a compliment.

[Question Mark]

Slaves of Yahweh...

I'll take that as a compliment.

By the Lady Hestia, man. If you can take pride in being a slave, then there is no hope for you.

[ronedee]

I'm not the one making the assertion. I am using your definition of god (omnipotent, omniscient) and your own flawed logic (you have to have faith to get the evidence to have faith) to demonstrate (quite effectively, I might add) that belief in a god is an exercise in circular reasoning.

Would it surprise you to know that I was baptised at the age of 23 and was an active member of my church? I sought your god but noe evidence was forthcoming.

Oh, wait...I probably wasn't doing it right, huh? I wasn't seeking him properly. I wasn't a True Christian®.

So let me get this straight....YOU want GOD to prove Himself to YOU!

Hmmmmmmmm. Good Luck!

---

We know gravity is there because we can test gravity. I can pick something up, and every single time I drop it, it'll fall. I do not take it on faith that each and every day gravity will be there, I have reasonable expectations based on past occurrences that gravity will be present. The same with the sun rising every morning. I take nothing on faith, because faith is not a pathway to truth. Faith is a means by which one can believe in something without evidence.
And you just admitted that. "God needs to prove nothing to us! He gave us LIFE!", yet no evidence is forthcoming, because your god is exempt from needing it. That's disgustingly ingenuous, and a clever way to deceive people.

For instance, some years back when I had started college, there was a fellow on my campus who had a box, which he said contained a goldfish that could swim in air as well as water, and which was invisible and intangible, so no one could see or touch it. He said that god had given him the fish, and had created the box to contain it. It had the number 777 carved on the front beneath a silver lock to keep the fish inside.
Do you believe Justin had an invisible, intangible, air-swimming goldfish that god gave him?

I also know someone who picks his nose and wipes it on the wall in a cross shaped design thinking he's blessing the building...maybe he is and your friend has fish swiming in his head! Who gives a ratz posteer?

Look, we can go round and round here about what our "opinions" of God are. But no one can explain LIFE!

Think about this FACT: There was a beginning. There will be an end.

There is NOTHING that explains what happened before, and what will happen after.

So, what do we do? You have your thing...and I have mine! Hopefully we will meet and be friends, joke and laugh about this whole mess on the otherside!

[Question Mark]

We know gravity is there because we can test gravity. I can pick something up, and every single time I drop it, it'll fall. I do not take it on faith that each and every day gravity will be there, I have reasonable expectations based on past occurrences that gravity will be present. The same with the sun rising every morning. I take nothing on faith, because faith is not a pathway to truth. Faith is a means by which one can believe in something without evidence.
And you just admitted that. "God needs to prove nothing to us! He gave us LIFE!", yet no evidence is forthcoming, because your god is exempt from needing it. That's disgustingly ingenuous, and a clever way to deceive people.

For instance, some years back when I had started college, there was a fellow on my campus who had a box, which he said contained a goldfish that could swim in air as well as water, and which was invisible and intangible, so no one could see or touch it. He said that god had given him the fish, and had created the box to contain it. It had the number 777 carved on the front beneath a silver lock to keep the fish inside.
Do you believe Justin had an invisible, intangible, air-swimming goldfish that god gave him?

I also know someone who picks his nose and wipes it on the wall in a cross shaped design thinking he's blessing the building...maybe he is and your friend has fish swiming in his head! Who gives a ratz posteer?

Look, we can go round and round here about what our "opinions" of God are. But no one can explain LIFE!

Think about this FACT: There was a beginning. There will be an end.

There is NOTHING that explains what happened before, and what will happen after.

So, what do we do? You have your thing...and I have mine! Hopefully we will meet and be friends, joke and laugh about this whole mess on the otherside!

The point of the fish example was to see if you apply faith to something connected with your god, instead of only for your god. I find it remarkable that many theistically minded people take faith in god extremely seriously, but then scoff at applying it upon anything else. It's a form of special pleading.

Having no explanation for an event does not justify making something up. I'm perfectly happy saying "I don't know" in answer to a question when that is the honest truth of the matter.

Incidentally, we have some theories on explaining life. Whether you or anyone else accepts them is when we drift into the realm of opinions, and when debate can no longer be a possibility.

I would delight in being friends with you here and now, in this life we both know that we have. I would rather that than wait for an afterlife I'm not sure I'll ever have, and have no evidence for.

[ronedee]

The point of the fish example was to see if you apply faith to something connected with your god, instead of only for your god. I find it remarkable that many theistically minded people take faith in god extremely seriously, but then scoff at applying it upon anything else. It's a form of special pleading.

Having no explanation for an event does not justify making something up. I'm perfectly happy saying "I don't know" in answer to a question when that is the honest truth of the matter.

Incidentally, we have some theories on explaining life. Whether you or anyone else accepts them is when we drift into the realm of opinions, and when debate can no longer be a possibility.

I would delight in being friends with you here and now, in this life we both know that we have. I would rather that than wait for an afterlife I'm not sure I'll ever have, and have no evidence for.

Done Mark! We are friends!

Hey like I said in an earlier post....my brother and father are agnostic and atheist. So that is not an issue in my friendship or love!

And I would be a fool to say I have proof to give anyone... BUT, I have witnessed many, MANY miracles in my life and others in relation to God.

I really don't say too much about all these things...well....because for one, I don't want them (miracles) to end, and am a bit superstitous. And 2, because I struggle with the fact that maybe my Faith [alone] has a big part in things happening! And should be enough, without me needing proof. Reading back here...its hard for me to explain it really!

That may seem odd to even the religious out there, but it's my thing. And something I need to sort out and deal with.

[Neo-Scholastic]

My question then becomes this: What should I watch out for? Upon asking earnestly for him to reveal himself, what is it that he will/might do to make himself known to me?

I've asked before, honestly I have with earnest intention asked for god to make himself known, and to my mind it has not happened. What had I missed?

It keeps coming back to what evidence you would accept. Probably none. I found a blog post that says why better than I could say it.

...in his book "Arguing about Gods", Graham Oppy says:

'even if it were conceded that the parting of the Red Sea occurred, it is not clear that the parting of the Red Sea demands a supernatural explanation; and, more important, even if the parting of the Red Sea does demand a supernatural explanation, it is not clear that the best supernatural explanation is to suppose that it is the result of the actions of an orthodoxly conceived monotheistic god (p.377)'

The "it is not clear" that the parting of Red Sea demands a supernatural explanation could be available to the atheist as an excuse even if hard evidence for the parting of the Red Sea were available. Hence, based on such an excuse, the atheist would have a reason to avoid accepting the existence of God.

And...

"Someone who has naturalistic preconceptions will always in fact find some naturalistic explanation more plausible than a supernatural one... Suppose that I woke up in the night and saw the stars arranged in shapes that spelt out the Apostle's Creed. I would know that astronomically it is impossible that stars should have changed their position. I don't know what I would think. Perhaps I would think that I was dreaming or that I had gone mad. What if everyone else seemed to me to be telling me that the same had happened? Then I might not only think that I had gone mad-- I would probably go mad" (J.J.C. Smart in his contribution to the book Atheism and Theism, pp.50-51. Emphasis in blue added)

So, the naturalist has a unfalsifiable assumption in favor of naturalism which precludes the efficacy of any evidence for the contrary. The naturalist position is being treated like an unfalsifiable hypothesis (and hence, like an unscientific one).

[Ryantology]

It keeps coming back to what evidence you would accept. Probably none. I found a blog post that says why better than I could say it.

It keeps coming back to 'evidence an individual would accept'. No. I want evidence strong and clear enough that anyone would accept it, strong enough that belief was irrelevant.

That, conveniently, is the goal line beyond which theists have planted the posts. God will only reveal himself to those who have conditioned their minds to interpret natural mental glitches as the work of God.

'even if it were conceded that the parting of the Red Sea occurred, it is not clear that the parting of the Red Sea demands a supernatural explanation; and, more important, even if the parting of the Red Sea does demand a supernatural explanation, it is not clear that the best supernatural explanation is to suppose that it is the result of the actions of an orthodoxly conceived monotheistic god (p.377)'

The "it is not clear" that the parting of Red Sea demands a supernatural explanation could be available to the atheist as an excuse even if hard evidence for the parting of the Red Sea were available. Hence, based on such an excuse, the atheist would have a reason to avoid accepting the existence of God.

And...

[quote]"Someone who has naturalistic preconceptions will always in fact find some naturalistic explanation more plausible than a supernatural one... Suppose that I woke up in the night and saw the stars arranged in shapes that spelt out the Apostle's Creed. I would know that astronomically it is impossible that stars should have changed their position. I don't know what I would think. Perhaps I would think that I was dreaming or that I had gone mad. What if everyone else seemed to me to be telling me that the same had happened? Then I might not only think that I had gone mad-- I would probably go mad" (J.J.C. Smart in his contribution to the book Atheism and Theism, pp.50-51. Emphasis in blue added)

So, the naturalist has a unfalsifiable assumption in favor of naturalism which precludes the efficacy of any evidence for the contrary. The naturalist position is being treated like an unfalsifiable hypothesis (and hence, like an unscientific one).

I find it very telling that both of these examples presuppose events that have never been observed to have happened. Furthermore, both examples make the extra presupposition that if no naturalistic explanation can be provided, it must therefore be the specific handiwork of Yahweh.

The brilliant thing about the tenor of this debate is that the theist could disprove every single naturalist explanation our current understanding affords and still come away with zero evidence supporting any supernatural explanation. We're simply supposed to cram God into those gaps (and, of course, it's the Christian god, even though we lack any evidence that it is the work of any god.)

The reason that naturalist assumptions are of greater value than supernatural is extremely simple: no supernatural explanation, for anything, at any time, has ever been independently and critically observed, verified, and documented. This is not the case for naturalistic assertions. You can demonstrate the effects of buoyancy to explain why a ship floats on the sea, you can't ever demonstrate the presence of water spirits creating magical floatation shields to explain why a ship doesn't sink.

[Question Mark]

And I would be a fool to say I have proof to give anyone... BUT, I have witnessed many, MANY miracles in my life and others in relation to God.

I really don't say too much about all these things...well....because for one, I don't want them (miracles) to end, and am a bit superstitous. And 2, because I struggle with the fact that maybe my Faith [alone] has a big part in things happening! And should be enough, without me needing proof. Reading back here...its hard for me to explain it really!

That may seem odd to even the religious out there, but it's my thing. And something I need to sort out and deal with.

Well if you have personal experiences, it's not my place to say that you didn't, or to proclaim to anyone else that you didn't (unless they take it as an example for their own belief, at which point I will feel obligated to point out the flaw in that)
Personal revelation and experience is something particular only to you, and can't reasonably be countered against you by someone else, but at the same time can't be used as evidence for anyone else.
That's all I'd say to that.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Personal revelation and experience is something particular only to you, and can't reasonably be countered against you by someone else, but at the same time can't be used as evidence for anyone else. That's all I'd say to that.

I remember reading much the same in Thomas Paine's "Common Sense". While I understand the sentiment, some consideration of the source may be appropriate. I have had my own personal spiritual experiences though I would not expect those to be believed except by those already inclined to do so. That said, I imagine the revelations to a random stranger would be much less authoritative to you than a famous scientist. For example, what if Stephen Hawking claimed to have received messages from angels or Daniel Dennett reported having an NDE. I imagine you would take their reported experiences more seriously. Of course, those two would probably dismiss them as fantasies, bits of undigested cheese, no matter how compelling the experience.