What is "FAITH"

[The Grand Nudger]

The things that people accomplish are, in the broader view, still natural Consillius, but lay that aside. We're intent on this being a miracle, then so be it. Human beings are apparently powerful enough to cause miracles to happen as well then. "God" is suddenly -even less- impressive.

[Faith No More]

By 'demand', I don't mean coerced out of people, but naturally deserved.

No, not coerced. He just killed everyone that didn't give it.

Think of it as a police officer and a civilian.

Your analogy here fails to take into account my objections. You are comparing a human in position of authority to the alleged creator of the universe. What I want to know is why a god that is omniscient, omnipotent, infinitely wise, and not only knows the underpinnings of all existence but brought about existence himself is concerned with such petty things like whether or not some hairless primates stuck on a blue rock respect him or not.

[Bad Wolf]

Not true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis

Parthogenesis is not natural. It is made to happen by people.
And, of course, such technology was not available in the 1st century, so the virgin birth remains a miracle.

wrong again:

Parthenogenesis occurs naturally in many plants, some invertebrate animal species (including nematodes, water fleas, some scorpions, aphids, some bees, some Phasmida and parasitic wasps) and a few vertebrates (such as some fish,[2] amphibians, reptiles[3][4] and very rarely birds[5])

You didn't read the wikipedia page did you?

[Consilius]

Parthogenesis is not natural. It is made to happen by people.
And, of course, such technology was not available in the 1st century, so the virgin birth remains a miracle.

wrong again:

Parthenogenesis occurs naturally in many plants, some invertebrate animal species (including nematodes, water fleas, some scorpions, aphids, some bees, some Phasmida and parasitic wasps) and a few vertebrates (such as some fish,[2] amphibians, reptiles[3][4] and very rarely birds[5])

You didn't read the wikipedia page did you?

We are talking about parthenogenesis in a human, which does not naturally occur and could not artificially occur in the 1st century.

[The Grand Nudger]

-which is why stories of it having occurred in the 1st century raise an eyebrow on principle alone. As always, stories of such things aren't in short supply, actual events -are-. Following?

[Bad Writer]

The subtext is based on what the Bible says. It is factually true that the Bible said it. That's the fact the subtext was based on, and that's the textual fact you are ignoring.

Back in my heyday I played a lot of Legend of Zelda. One of the things that kept me coming back was the myth and lore of the game. There was a lot of information in the game, and it somehow added up to some bigger picture. Nintendo even said that the games, as convoluted as they were, had one, consistent timeline.

I became a Zelda Timeline Theorist, and was so for quite some time. I had pieced the games together in such a way that made so much sense, that the subtext I derived from it was all based on facts found in the games and in related media.

What made my interpretation of the events wrong was that not only was the actual timeline not released at that time, but it was all based on my opinion of what the stories in the games said.

In the end, when Nintendo finally released the official timeline of the games, most people, myself included, were very shocked to see how wrong we were.

In the end, the Zelda games were just stories anyway, so it didn't matter how we made the facts line up because we were still wrong, no matter how much we convinced ourselves that we were right. This can be likened to how people piece together the "facts" of the Bible to make a coherent message. Even if there was some grand scheme in place by a god, you won't find it in that book. You'll end up justifying little tidbits here and there until you find the message that works for you. It may be fun in practice, but it should never be taken seriously (or literally, for that matter), because accuracy in this thing is an impossibility.

This is essentially why we can always throw out the Bible as evidence for anything. It's untrustworthy, and those who claim to know what it says are being dishonest with themselves and with others.

Coincidentally, the Bible stopped making sense 2000 years after it was written, in a completely different culture that spoke a different. Those who the Bible did not make sense to said it was because humanity suddenly realized, at around the same time the biblical text was most alienated from their personal experiences, claimed that God had turned into a bad guy. It just took us a different time, culture, and language to find out.

This just comes down to morality. Morals change over time and from culture to culture. When an old way of thinking does not mesh well with the current, established code of conduct, those old ways will cease to be relevant. It's no mystery that god is brutal and harsh in this book. Many cultures today abhor such behavior, which is why this god is labeled as bad. The claim is not unfounded.

Religion is not a scientific authority. It's a moral one. Just because the men who wrote the Bible happened to believe the world was flat, you know, like absolutely every other human being on earth at the time, doesn't suddenly nullify the Bible. I'm not a Christian because I'm afraid of falling off the Earth.

If the bible is wrong on so many different accounts, then why take it as any kind of authority, moral, scientific, or even historic? That's not being responsible.

And are we arguing the authorship of the Bible or the morality it preaches? This argument is about a story about a prophet, not who wrote the Bible. Take that up with somebody who knows more about it.

My points are not irrelevant to the story of the prophet Elisha, but if you wish to move on from it, then we can.

And then we go into a few more of your Bible issues, most of which shouldn't be arguments because Genesis 1-11 is a compilation of Judeo-Christian myths.

Cherry picking. How do you know they're myths? How do you know Job isn't a myth, or even Jesus for that matter? Tread carefully here, because Moses leading millions of Israelites out of Egypt is a story of mythical proportions, and there is no historical evidence to back it up. Elijah riding up into heaven can be treated the same way, just as Elisha cursing a group of kids could be.

Contradictions in the Bible make it more valid. If the Jesus story was made up, don't you think there would be fewer discrepancies in the Gospels? Stereotyped tradition would be carefully copied down so the story would seem more convincing. Crimes are real, but witnesses have different stories to tell about them and sometimes they straight-up contradict each other.

Are you kidding me? This is quite a piss-poor argument for validity.

These people make a mockery of the courtroom, and many testimonies are thrown out as unreliable because of their many contradictions.

Why did the Gospels have to come out so much later after Jesus' supposed death and resurrection? Why did the Romans not record anything about his life, though they kept meticulous records otherwise? Why did Jesus, a Jewish man who was well-versed in the traditions and prophecies of old, a man who even taught in their synagogues, never once write anything of his own? If he was a Rabbi, as he was known to be called, where is his own Rabbinical journal? Why did others have to proclaim his origin for him? Why couldn't such an important "historical" figure speak for himself on these matters?

If you want contradictions, you'll get them big time around the period invovled with Jesus' birth. Again, no record of Herod's baby slaughtering, mismatched timelines are evidenced when you try to pair up the rule of Quaranis [sp?] with the death of Herod, and there's no record of a world-wide census that would have required everyone to head back to their homes of origin. How asanine and presumptuous to put such an event in there. But I guess the author thought he could get away with it since it was 80 years after the supposed events.

Contradictions are bad wherever you find them. Saying that they're present in a court of law doesn't justify them being in the Bible, the most important document in Christendom. In fact, that just makes things worse because it makes it wholly unreliable right there, and should be thrown out just like any bad testimony.

[Consilius]

The things that people accomplish are, in the broader view, still natural Consillius, but lay that aside. We're intent on this being a miracle, then so be it. Human beings are apparently powerful enough to cause miracles to happen as well then. "God" is suddenly -even less- impressive.

Because we can do what God can does not mean that the miracle any less spectacular. We can use magnets to move paper clips without touching them. If a paper clip is made to move without a magnet, then it is miraculous. It still remains that parthogenesis can not occur outside a laboratory.
This argument is useless anyway, because there is no assertion that God can only do things that are impossible for people to do.

---

By 'demand', I don't mean coerced out of people, but naturally deserved.

No, not coerced. He just killed everyone that didn't give it.

Think of it as a police officer and a civilian.

Your analogy here fails to take into account my objections. You are comparing a human in position of authority to the alleged creator of the universe. What I want to know is why a god that is omniscient, omnipotent, infinitely wise, and not only knows the underpinnings of all existence but brought about existence himself is concerned with such petty things like whether or not some hairless primates stuck on a blue rock respect him or not.

God created man so he could love them and they could love him. He values these primates more than anything else.

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh sure it does, as the field of players capable of producing said miracle has doubled. Still spectacular, but at least half as spectacular as before, lol. We can also move paper clips with our hands. Miraculous! Hell, now it isn't just "god" that's less impressive, but "miracles" as a set.

This conversation may seem "useless" from the pov of trying to figure out what some god can or can't do, but who cares? Isn't it interesting to see what people hold as miraculous or "divine", and how their personal appraisals of such pan out against another's dissimilar appraisal of the same?

[Consilius]

The subtext is based on what the Bible says. It is factually true that the Bible said it. That's the fact the subtext was based on, and that's the textual fact you are ignoring.

Back in my heyday I played a lot of Legend of Zelda. One of the things that kept me coming back was the myth and lore of the game. There was a lot of information in the game, and it somehow added up to some bigger picture. Nintendo even said that the games, as convoluted as they were, had one, consistent timeline.

I became a Zelda Timeline Theorist, and was so for quite some time. I had pieced the games together in such a way that made so much sense, that the subtext I derived from it was all based on facts found in the games and in related media.

What made my interpretation of the events wrong was that not only was the actual timeline not released at that time, but it was all based on my opinion of what the stories in the games said.

In the end, when Nintendo finally released the official timeline of the games, most people, myself included, were very shocked to see how wrong we were.

In the end, the Zelda games were just stories anyway, so it didn't matter how we made the facts line up because we were still wrong, no matter how much we convinced ourselves that we were right. This can be likened to how people piece together the "facts" of the Bible to make a coherent message. Even if there was some grand scheme in place by a god, you won't find it in that book. You'll end up justifying little tidbits here and there until you find the message that works for you. It may be fun in practice, but it should never be taken seriously (or literally, for that matter), because accuracy in this thing is an impossibility.

This is essentially why we can always throw out the Bible as evidence for anything. It's untrustworthy, and those who claim to know what it says are being dishonest with themselves and with others.

Coincidentally, the Bible stopped making sense 2000 years after it was written, in a completely different culture that spoke a different. Those who the Bible did not make sense to said it was because humanity suddenly realized, at around the same time the biblical text was most alienated from their personal experiences, claimed that God had turned into a bad guy. It just took us a different time, culture, and language to find out.

This just comes down to morality. Morals change over time and from culture to culture. When an old way of thinking does not mesh well with the current, established code of conduct, those old ways will cease to be relevant. It's no mystery that god is brutal and harsh in this book. Many cultures today abhor such behavior, which is why this god is labeled as bad. The claim is not unfounded.

Religion is not a scientific authority. It's a moral one. Just because the men who wrote the Bible happened to believe the world was flat, you know, like absolutely every other human being on earth at the time, doesn't suddenly nullify the Bible. I'm not a Christian because I'm afraid of falling off the Earth.

If the bible is wrong on so many different accounts, then why take it as any kind of authority, moral, scientific, or even historic? That's not being responsible.

And are we arguing the authorship of the Bible or the morality it preaches? This argument is about a story about a prophet, not who wrote the Bible. Take that up with somebody who knows more about it.

My points are not irrelevant to the story of the prophet Elisha, but if you wish to move on from it, then we can.

And then we go into a few more of your Bible issues, most of which shouldn't be arguments because Genesis 1-11 is a compilation of Judeo-Christian myths.

Cherry picking. How do you know they're myths? How do you know Job isn't a myth, or even Jesus for that matter? Tread carefully here, because Moses leading millions of Israelites out of Egypt is a story of mythical proportions, and there is no historical evidence to back it up. Elijah riding up into heaven can be treated the same way, just as Elisha cursing a group of kids could be.

Contradictions in the Bible make it more valid. If the Jesus story was made up, don't you think there would be fewer discrepancies in the Gospels? Stereotyped tradition would be carefully copied down so the story would seem more convincing. Crimes are real, but witnesses have different stories to tell about them and sometimes they straight-up contradict each other.

Are you kidding me? This is quite a piss-poor argument for validity.

These people make a mockery of the courtroom, and many testimonies are thrown out as unreliable because of their many contradictions.

Why did the Gospels have to come out so much later after Jesus' supposed death and resurrection? Why did the Romans not record anything about his life, though they kept meticulous records otherwise? Why did Jesus, a Jewish man who was well-versed in the traditions and prophecies of old, a man who even taught in their synagogues, never once write anything of his own? If he was a Rabbi, as he was known to be called, where is his own Rabbinical journal? Why did others have to proclaim his origin for him? Why couldn't such an important "historical" figure speak for himself on these matters?

If you want contradictions, you'll get them big time around the period invovled with Jesus' birth. Again, no record of Herod's baby slaughtering, mismatched timelines are evidenced when you try to pair up the rule of Quaranis [sp?] with the death of Herod, and there's no record of a world-wide census that would have required everyone to head back to their homes of origin. How asanine and presumptuous to put such an event in there. But I guess the author thought he could get away with it since it was 80 years after the supposed events.

Contradictions are bad wherever you find them. Saying that they're present in a court of law doesn't justify them being in the Bible, the most important document in Christendom. In fact, that just makes things worse because it makes it wholly unreliable right there, and should be thrown out just like any bad testimony.

Societal values change, morals do not. If they did, you could not condemn the Bible as immoral because the people in the Bible were moral simply because they believed they were.
Witnesses to crimes can't be thrown out of courtrooms because they are the only sources of evidence for the crime. If they mostly agree with each other, they stay.
The Gospels weren't propaganda. They were letters written to established churches to deal with their specific needs. For instance, Mark was written to a persecuted church that was worried about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Suffering is a theme in that Gospel.
Jesus didn't write things down because his purpose on earth was action. He didn't publicly claim himself God, but let his actions speak for him. He allowed his life to be interpreted by those around him. He also preached to poor, illiterate men and women.

---

Oh sure it does, as the field of players capable of producing said miracle has doubled. Still spectacular, but at least half as spectacular as before, lol. We can also move paper clips with our hands. Miraculous! Hell, now it isn't just "god" that's less impressive, but "miracles" as a set.

This conversation may seem "useless" from the pov of trying to figure out what some god can or can't do, but who cares? Isn't it interesting to see what people hold as miraculous or "divine", and how their personal appraisals of such pan out against another's dissimilar appraisal of the same?

Yeah, we can perform miracles too. All we need is a lab, a team of scientists, a Petri dish, and a few weeks.
God did it without any of these before they or the concept of a virgin birth either existed. Other accounts involve the god having sex with the woman.

[Faith No More]

God created man so he could love them and they could love him. He values these primates more than anything else.

Which simply brings us back to my original objection, only this time your claim has a different human characteristic at the helm.

Why would a god want or need love?