Why is belief in a higher power required?

[Ryantology]

The claim, “you are making the positive claim, it is up to you to prove it” is itself a positive claim, so first you must prove this claim before I will accept it as valid. Please follow your own rules.

Well, if you don't accept that premise, then you have to disprove the claim I made as it is true until you demonstrate that it isn't.

I am the creation of a rational God who desires for me to learn about Him through His revealed word and His creation, therefore I can trust my senses enough to learn about His world and His word. You have no justification for trusting your senses because you believe we live in a Universe that is nothing more than matter.

Special pleading.

So? That’s not fallacious. Pointing out that you have to use circular arguments in order to justify your belief that your senses are reliable is completely valid.

I'm sorry, have I missed where you have proven the existence of God and validated even one claim you've made?

So you’re not in your right mind because you believe your senses are reliable and yet you cannot prove they are without using circularity?

If I can't, then everything, including you and the concept of your God, may not exist as anything more than an element in my own personal delusion. If I cannot trust my senses, I can certainly never trust anything you suggest which proves the existence of God, because I must process those through my senses as well. So you still lose.

I have to assume my senses are reliable because existence itself, as I experience it, relies upon this assumption. Since there can never be 100% certainty that my senses are being honest, this is why it is only valid to trust sensual experiences which can certainly be experienced, without special conditions such as a/s/k, by other people.

I see no problems with what He has made.

Your God has many problems with what he has made. Your personal opinion is certainly not relevant next to his, if he's there.

But we do know what the originals said, so that question is based on a false premise.

How do you know what the originals said? How do you know they were truly original? How do you know they were accurate, especially when describing events the authors could never have witnessed, not even accounting for the fact that humans are very capable of embellishing, lying, or getting things wrong?

Why is that the correct definition of evil? Because you say so?

If it's good enough for God, why isn't it good enough for me?

[Esquilax]

Me quibbling, are you serious dude, you're the one who has been insisting it is murder, there is a huge difference in the two.

They are the same damn thing, you obtuse little man.

Really, that's what you see those verses saying, like I said I reread the story and guess what, I could not find where God ordered the Israelites to kill anyone. This is another thing you need to prove to us. By the way what magic words are you seeing?

Okay, I'll admit to reading it wrong on the god thing, but you're still wrong on the murder thing.

No one has ever said that people did not died in that city, we actually know they did, scripture tells us this. Killing and murder are two different things, you're the one calling the act murder, this is a misinterpretation of the verses.

What, would you say, is the difference between killing and murder? And why is the former okay, when the latter is wrong?

Because, you see, when I hear about a horde of people descending on a town unprovoked and slaughtering all that lay therein, I tend to think "ohh, that's bad." You, you seem to be thinking, "well, thank god they only killed them! It would have been awful for them to have been murdered!"

How are you possibly squaring the two as different in your mind?

Christ represents the price payed for all forgiven sin, yes that's right He died for all those who would accept His payment for our sins. The rest will pay for their own sin, so again if God allowed one sin to go unpunished then at your judgement you would be screaming bloody murder. God is just and that should give you reason to pause and think.

Your god routinely lets people off the hook for their sins! What else is your repentance for? According to your own theology, the only unforgiveable sin is a lack of belief; I could be a killer, just like the people depicted in Judges, and still get into heaven by dint of Jesus' sacrifice and my own belief. Don't go pretending that your book actually solves this problem of atonement, because all it is is a loophole so you don't have to be held accountable.

You made a positive claim, that's a bit different than an assumption, my reasonable assumption came from knowing scripture, you however make claims from your own delusions just as scripture says about those who lean own their own understanding of God.

So basically, I'm not being a good Party Member and practicing the correct amount of doublethink? I agree, I'm much more intellectually honest than that. You keep sitting there and thinking that the killing of an entire town was a good thing.

Freedom is Slavery!

You know nothing about the scriptures, you like so many others cherry pick verses and then parrot what others have done before you. There is nothing new about what you do or say it's the same ol' junk we hear all the time.

Somewhere in the world, somebody just died of an irony overload because you typed that.

This is about wives and preserving an entire family of people and you want to turn it into an orgy or some other evil act, well guess what it wasn't an orgy and no matter what you say you can't change it. Your words are worthless on this matter, the family of Benjamin got their wives and the family continues.

It doesn't need to have been an orgy, in fact that's not even what I was thinking of, but it's interesting that your mind went there. However, you did say that the virgins were the ones kept because virginity was prized, and that they were to bear children, which requires a certain amount of sex to have happened. That's your words.

So, you can either admit that, in order for these virgins to bear children they would have had to have been raped, or you can argue that these survivors of a slaughtered village, after having been given away to complete strangers as wives, had willing sex with the men they were married to regardless of their own consent. It's a binary choice, those are the two options.

Oh, by the way they were not sold, you again are wrong, I would think by now you would get tired of being wrong.

No no, you're right; they were just given away. Like pieces of meat. Human beings. Traded like pokemon cards.

Does that make you feel better? You are right: the immorality of the religion you worship should be described accurately, yes.

I'm not the one claiming murder, slavery, rape and what ever else you dream of, I do not deny the scriptures say all but the virgins were killed, that would be foolish because it's plainly written for everyone to read. I've never made a different statement as to what the scriptures say.

You are, however, denying that those things are what they are; namely, murder, slavery and rape. Murder is, after all, the act of killing somebody. And unless you're actually saying the virgins went willingly to their stranger husbands after being given away as trophies of war, then they were raped, and had no choice but to be married off. Hence, slavery.

But I understand; you don't want to use the words, because they're icky. You want to be able to reinterpret these acts as morally good, and since the acts themselves simply can't justify that, all you can do is change the language and hope nobody notices.

But that doesn't change what happened. Concentration camps could be called Happy Fun Magic Time camps, and it wouldn't erase the bloodstains from their walls. The fact that you're more interested in rebranding a tragedy speaks volumes about what's more important to you, though.

Yes I did, however as I have already explained I made an assumption, not a claim as you did, you claimed murder, slavery and rape. I do not have to justify the scriptures, especially against the ridiculous claims you make.

You made an assumption not indicated in the text. I began with something that was in the text- that a lot of people died in a violent conflict, and their virgin women were given to strangers as wives- and considered the logical implications of those two things.

Now, in all fairness, perhaps you're right; perhaps the people who died really did stand there like emotionless dolls, and all their killers had to do was touch them to kill them, by magic. And maybe the virgins really did want to be married off to strange men after being removed from their only homes, and perhaps they were such cock-hungry sluts that they leapt into bed with their new husbands on their wedding nights. Maybe all that did happen.

But does it really seem more likely than the alternative?

Without the words we would have nothing, with the words we have an account of what happened and what happened is not what you depict, God did not tell the people to kill everyone in the town except the virgins nor did He tell anyone to give them away for sex.

But that did happen, right? It wasn't actually an Amazing Lava Funtime Mystical Kitten Journey, was it? People died, and the virgins got given away to bear children, right? That's what actually occurred?

You have already started to change what you were saying, first they sold the women as one would sale a slave, now you have them giving the women away, so which is it, please explain which and why you have changed your mind.

For one, it's both; the women were given away, as one would give away property. What do we call human property? A slave.

Secondly, I do like that you equate changing one's mind with being wrong. Says a lot about your mental state.

Yes those words are found in scripture but, not in the verses you quoted, yes there was killing but, as far as non-consensual sex you have no proof from those scriptures that is what happened, so again the proof lies on your shoulders. Instead of proving anything you are digging a deeper hole for yourself.

So, you're telling me that the virgins consensually had sex with the men they had been given to after having their entire life taken away from them? Because if that's what you're saying, then you need to actually say it, rather than dancing around the point.

Is that what you're arguing, GC? Just tell us, or is there something you're trying to hide?

I claimed nothing dear boy, you are now trying to use a lie to defend what you have said, dishonest, dishonest. The words said killed you said murder, you do not even respect the words used, if they do not fit your delusions then they just can't be right, so what do you do change them.

What is murder? The act of killing someone. What is killing? An act of murder. Or can you think of another thing you'd like to call the unprovoked ending of life depicted there?

Why is your whole argument that the words make you uncomfortable, by the way?

I did not change any words and said those children died, and I suggested that God could have intervened and caused them to feel nothing, I did not claim this happened.

If you weren't claiming that it happened, then why did you use it as an argument in the first place? Why would I be moved by speculation? Why would any of us feel that the issue has been mitigated by what you think might have happened?

Be honest, dude: you said that because you wanted us to think that's what did happen. You said it because you, the same as us, don't like the idea of children suffering, so you rationalized it. But the reason people make arguments is because they want those arguments to be accepted, to be convincing. You said what you did because that's the point of view you wanted us all to adopt, and now that you've been called on a larger hypocrisy, you're backpedalling. Just admit it.

See Esq. run, see Esq. run off at the mouth, see Esq. make himself look dumb. This is kindergarten argumentation, yet it's quite true, so even a kindergarten argument can defeat your childish... actually now that I think about it a kindergarten argument is all one needs with you.

Just so long as you don't have any real rebuttals, then.

"Israelites maybe," man you sure are uninformed, I guess you'll find a way to blame God for that. I am guessing you have proof of your claim it did not happen, don't be bashful tell us, we're waiting. What did not happen was your interpretation of those verses.

Well, I'm an atheist? I don't believe your god existed? At all? Ever? And so the history in the bible... nope. 'Course, it's just my perspective, but given how much of anthropology already disagrees with what's in the bible, I feel pretty comfortable in it.

I haven't ignored what you've said, I have called it misinterpretation and lies.

Yes, and that's all you've done. You've said "nuh-uh!" but that's not an argument. It's contradiction. How have I lied? How is the killing depicted in the bible not immoral? How is it not immoral to give away women to other people?

I know the reason you haven't said so. It's because you know as well as I do that if you say what you actually think, that it's not immoral because it's in the bible and the bible didn't tell you that it's immoral, then you'd look like an asshole.

You have shown nothing but lies and double talk, killing and murder are not the same. Murder is always killing some one, however killing someone is not always murder. Murder must be proven and you have failed to prove anything up to this point, not only that you're back to making slaves out of these women by their sale. Your claiming rape and murder when the passages you gave said nothing about either, like you said earlier murder and rape are in scripture, and this being so why would they not be used here.

Is it actually your claim that killing an entire town was justified? Self defense, perhaps? What were the extenuating circumstances, in your own words, that turns this from a murder into a killing?

And where is your justification for claiming the virgin prisoners of war would willingly sleep with their stranger-husbands that they were given to? Is that in the bible?

I've not been dishonest, nor am I a coward, I've stood up to you and your lies and you can't stand it, I've pointed out all your mistakes and you get mad, you are just being childish about the whole thing.

Dude. You keep doing this, more and more people will die, what with the amount of pure irony you keep pumping into the atmosphere.

I really do not care whither you quite or not, it's actually been enlightening to watch you make yourself look so bad, and if you desire to keep on going and we'll watch. There you go again, "bartering of human beings for sex," they were given away as wives, those men got nothing in return for those women.

How very charitable of them, to give away those women that they owned. What part of "it's immoral to treat people as property" are you missing?

Go ahead laugh all you want, it shows how ridiculous you are, and as for the truth all you have done is to show your ignorance of truth in this discussion. I'm not the one who has made any claims to what those scriptures say outside of what they say, you are the culprit that has done so and you have fail miserably in your attempt to defend the ridiculous statements you have made, you have not defended even one statement in all this discussion, but please go on and try again, failing at scriptural interpretation is one of your best qualities.

Another by fiat assertion. Unfortunately though, the world doesn't bend to your whim; my arguments stand by themselves, and all you've been able to do in return is block your ears and shake your head. There is not a single word of actual content in any of your posts; just repeated denials and ad hominem attacks against me.

[Godscreated]

Me quibbling, are you serious dude, you're the one who has been insisting it is murder, there is a huge difference in the two.

They are the same damn thing, you obtuse little man.

No they're not the same thing, if I cut down a tree and it falls on and kills a man I certainly did not murder him, my actions caused his death so I killed him but I did not murder him.

Really, that's what you see those verses saying, like I said I reread the story and guess what, I could not find where God ordered the Israelites to kill anyone. This is another thing you need to prove to us. By the way what magic words are you seeing?

Okay, I'll admit to reading it wrong on the god thing, but you're still wrong on the murder thing.

Thank you, and no above I explained the difference in killing and murder. So you do not think you may have misread other things or should I say you haven't the whole of the story.

No one has ever said that people did not died in that city, we actually know they did, scripture tells us this. Killing and murder are two different things, you're the one calling the act murder, this is a misinterpretation of the verses.

What, would you say, is the difference between killing and murder? And why is the former okay, when the latter is wrong?

Killing is not always okay, murder is never okay. Killing for the most part is a bad action, it usually brings sadness to someone. When a war breaks out killing becomes a necessary tragedy, that does not make it murder in all cases, self defense in taking a life is killing but, it's not murder. I've not said the killing in those verses was good nor did I say it was bad, what I will say it was just because it served a purpose that proved what God had promised His people the Israelites.

you see, when I hear about a horde of people descending on a town unprovoked and slaughtering all that lay therein, I tend to think "ohh, that's bad." You, you seem to be thinking, "well, thank god they only killed them! It would have been awful for them to have been murdered!"

You equate death with injustice in these verses without the understanding of the whole situation and in this case part of this situation goes back to Moses time. You can not solve a math problem without all the necessary information and I'm saying you have neglected to gather all the information that's available to this situation, so you can not possibly give a correct verdict to those verses. Like I told you I went back and read the story and found that I had forgotten part of it, nothing that would change my stance though. You on the other hand do not even know why this all got started, it was a promise from God to His people, Moses warned them yet they insisted on taking an oath.

How are you possibly squaring the two as different in your mind?

I think I've pretty well have distinguished between the two, however in the case of these verses I say again it was just to God's purpose.

Christ represents the price payed for all forgiven sin, yes that's right He died for all those who would accept His payment for our sins. The rest will pay for their own sin, so again if God allowed one sin to go unpunished then at your judgement you would be screaming bloody murder. God is just and that should give you reason to pause and think.

Your god routinely lets people off the hook for their sins! What else is your repentance for? According to your own theology, the only unforgiveable sin is a lack of belief; I could be a killer, just like the people depicted in Judges, and still get into heaven by dint of Jesus' sacrifice and my own belief. Don't go pretending that your book actually solves this problem of atonement, because all it is is a loophole so you don't have to be held accountable.

God never lets anyone off the hook as you put it, all sin is payed for, either through Christ or, for those who reject Christ through their own selves. You're right you could be a killer, worse than anyone ever and still be forgiven, but only through Christ, there is no other way. If you would not chose Christ as your savior then you would be paying for your sins. I do not pretend the Bible actually solves the problem of atonement, Christ did that, scripture records for us what He did for us, and if that's a loophole I'll take it,why, because God made the loophole for me to have in my favor, praise God on high.

So basically, I'm not being a good Party Member and practicing the correct amount of doublethink? I agree, I'm much more intellectually honest than that. You keep sitting there and thinking that the killing of an entire town was a good thing.

In this case you are being intellectually dishonest because you have cherry picked a few verses out of an entire story, and as I said part of the story Goes back to Moses time. I said that the destruction of the town and it's people was just and it served God's purpose through a promise, so in that sense it was good, though I'm sure you will never see it.

---

This is about wives and preserving an entire family of people and you want to turn it into an orgy or some other evil act, well guess what it wasn't an orgy and no matter what you say you can't change it. Your words are worthless on this matter, the family of Benjamin got their wives and the family continues.

---

It doesn't need to have been an orgy, in fact that's not even what I was thinking of, but it's interesting that your mind went there. However, you did say that the virgins were the ones kept because virginity was prized, and that they were to bear children, which requires a certain amount of sex to have happened. That's your words.

You are the one who keeps harping on sex, sex here, sex there, sex everywhere it seems that's all you can think about, I was beginning to think you wished you could have been one of the 600. Virginity is cared about in today's church, though I'll say virgins are becoming rare in the church.
Of coarse sex was engaged in to have babies, Israel was trying to help the family of Benjamin to survive, but not in a way that you claim, murder and rape were not a part of this.

So, you can either admit that, in order for these virgins to bear children they would have had to have been raped, or you can argue that these survivors of a slaughtered village, after having been given away to complete strangers as wives, had willing sex with the men they were married to regardless of their own consent. It's a binary choice, those are the two options.

They did not have to be raped, the only reason you say this is because you hate God and desire to twist His word into something it's not. Binary choice, you sound like you want to be a god and dictate the only choices these people had. Well you got it all wrong, you do not even know who this women were, they were Israelite women, they were not marrying outside their nationality, just as God had commanded long ago. They could have very well known some of these men, we do not know for sure, but it's not like they live a hundred miles away. Yes that's right the men, women and children that were killed were Israelites, surprised? Do you know why one Israelite town was attacked by the rest of the nation, let's just say they let down the rest of Israel and payed the price and through all this God's judgement came upon the nation. Do you even know how all this got started, it all came about because of rape and murder, yep that's right some men of Benjamin raped and murdered and the tribe would not give up the ones who did this terrible thing. So it started with Israel taking action against Benjamin, it cost Israel dearly but, it cost Benjamin almost everything. I have a suggestion go read the entire story and then find God's promise to the nation during Moses time, you'll have the whole of the story then, even if you do reject it.

... the immorality of the religion you worship should be described accurately, yes.

I do not worship a religion, I worship the triune God, the Father, the Christ and the Holy Spirit, and He is completely just and moral.

The rest of your reply is nothing but a rehashing of the same ol' things, now that you have a sense of what happened and the explanations I've given, I'm not going to bother with them. Why don't you go and read the story before this goes on farther it sure would solve a lot if you would. I say good night I'm finally getting sleepy at 6:00 AM.

[Ryantology]

How self-righteous is one who thinks of his own, personal interpretation of a book with a million different working interpretations, is in any way objectively more accurate than someone else's?

If anything, we're the only ones who can actually be honest about what Scripture says, because it makes God look like a bloodthirsty and barely literate savage if one simply reads it as it is written (and why wouldn't God be like that, when dangerous tyrants commanded the most fear?), and since we're going to hell anyway, we don't have to interpret it in the obviously self-interested fashion all of you do.

Unify your own interpretations before you lecture us on how to do it.

[FallentoReason]

@ Godschild

http://www.evilbible.com/Rape.htm

It's pretty black and white: your god approves, and commands, killing and raping innocent people.

I've read the past few posts between you and Esquilax and I'm absolutely appauled by the fact that you even entertain the idea that somehow.. somehow all of this is remotely ok. You should seriously take a look at yourself, because your posts scream out "amoral".

[Godscreated]

@ Godschild

http://www.evilbible.com/Rape.htm

It's pretty black and white: your god approves, and commands, killing and raping innocent people.

I've read the past few posts between you and Esquilax and I'm absolutely appauled by the fact that you even entertain the idea that somehow.. somehow all of this is remotely ok. You should seriously take a look at yourself, because your posts scream out "amoral".

You know nothing about scriptures and you use a biased interpretation instead of reading with an open mind and determining for yourself what scriptures say, you allow these people to lead you around like a pig with a ring in his nose. You need to prove to us that God commanded murder and rape and it would be refreshing to see a nonbeliever think for himself instead of parroting others.

[Silver]

You know nothing about scriptures and you use a biased interpretation .

Christian interpretation is biased.

[Ryantology]

You know nothing about scriptures and you use a biased interpretation instead of reading with an open mind and determining for yourself what scriptures say, you allow these people to lead you around like a pig with a ring in his nose. You need to prove to us that God commanded murder and rape and it would be refreshing to see a nonbeliever think for himself instead of parroting others.

If only we'd open our minds, we would understand how it can be a good thing to slaughter infants!

Tell us how you would define the terms 'rape' and 'murder'. It seems as though nonconsensual sex isn't rape, and killing in cold blood isn't murder, if God tells someone to do it.

[Statler Waldorf]

Well, if you don't accept that premise, then you have to disprove the claim I made as it is true until you demonstrate that it isn't.

Wait, so you cannot prove that the positive position holds the burden of proof? Then why did you assert that was the case?

Special pleading.

Not at all, I can justify your assumptions, you cannot justify your own assumptions.

I'm sorry, have I missed where you have proven the existence of God and validated even one claim you've made?

Apparently you have.

If I can't, then everything, including you and the concept of your God, may not exist as anything more than an element in my own personal delusion. If I cannot trust my senses, I can certainly never trust anything you suggest which proves the existence of God, because I must process those through my senses as well. So you still lose.

No, you’ve sealed my victory, because now you have to claim to know that God exists as much as you can know anything at all. Either God exists and you can therefore learn about reality, or He does not exist and you can know nothing at all; that’s quite the dilemma to be in.

I have to assume my senses are reliable because existence itself, as I experience it, relies upon this assumption. Since there can never be 100% certainty that my senses are being honest, this is why it is only valid to trust sensual experiences which can certainly be experienced, without special conditions such as a/s/k, by other people.

Sure, and since only God’s existence can justify your belief in the reliability of your senses, experienced existence also relies upon God existing.

Your God has many problems with what he has made. Your personal opinion is certainly not relevant next to his, if he's there.

Where does God say He has problems?

How do you know what the originals said? How do you know they were truly original? How do you know they were accurate, especially when describing events the authors could never have witnessed, not even accounting for the fact that humans are very capable of embellishing, lying, or getting things wrong?

We know because of how documents were copied back then (by hand), if I make an original copy and then ten different people all copy this original, and then those ten copies are spread around the region and ten people copy each of those copies and then ten people copy each of those copies I can then examine these copies and use the similarities between then to obtain the original reading.

Even if I had ten very sloppy people copy the following verse I can obtain what the original said through analyzing the variances in the copied versions.

Copy: In the beginning, God created the heathens and the earth.
Copy: Inn the begin, God created the heavens and the earth.
Copy: In the beginning God created the heavens and earth.
Copy: In the beginning, God create the heavens and the earth.
Copy: In the beginning, Dog created the heavens and the hearth.
Copy: In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth
Copy: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the heart.
Copy: In the beginning, God created the heavens.
Copy: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earths.
Copy: In the beginning, God created the heaven and the ear.

Original: In (9) the (10) beginning (9), (9) God (9) created (9) the (10) Heavens (7) and (10) the (10) earth (5).(8)

Voila!

If it's good enough for God, why isn't it good enough for me?

That’s not how God defines evil.

How self-righteous is one who thinks of his own, personal interpretation of a book with a million different working interpretations, is in any way objectively more accurate than someone else's?

How illogical is one who believes that the existence of multiple interpretations necessitates that all interpretations are therefore false.

[Ryantology]

Wait, so you cannot prove that the positive position holds the burden of proof? Then why did you assert that was the case?

That's fine, then. That means I can just say "There is no God" and it's a fact until you prove otherwise. So get on it.

Not at all, I can justify your assumptions, you cannot justify your own assumptions.

You can offer no plausible basis for your justifications. I'm being honest.

Apparently you have.

Then, be so kind as to point me to a single example.

No, you’ve sealed my victory, because now you have to claim to know that God exists as much as you can know anything at all. Either God exists and you can therefore learn about reality, or He does not exist and you can know nothing at all; that’s quite the dilemma to be in.

Prove that God's existence is necessary for it to be possible to learn about reality. Or, if you prefer, prove that I can't know anything about reality without him. You can't win a debate just by making fiat declarations and saying nuh-uh to every response.

Sure, and since only God’s existence can justify your belief in the reliability of your senses, experienced existence also relies upon God existing.

Proof?

Where does God say He has problems?

Genesis 6:6

We know because of how documents were copied back then (by hand), if I make an original copy and then ten different people all copy this original, and then those ten copies are spread around the region and ten people copy each of those copies and then ten people copy each of those copies I can then examine these copies and use the similarities between then to obtain the original reading.

Which leaves you failing to prove:

a: What the original document is and what it actually says
b: That the original is truly original
c: That any copy is accurate
d: That the original is a flawless record of events which are empirically factual

What amateur horse shit.

That’s not how God defines evil.

Your fellow Christians tell me that evil is whatever goes against the will of your god. Are they wrong?

How illogical is one who believes that the existence of multiple interpretations necessitates that all interpretations are therefore false.

When you prove that a single demonstration is an indisputably correct one, and you take care of the four problems noted above, then you'll be at square one and you actually have an intellectually legitimate basis to make a single claim. Until then, there is no compelling reason to think you're not just a belligerent fraud making shit up, or (more likely) that you're a troll riling us up by making deliberately terrible arguments.