10 Questions Every Christian Needs To Answer.

[Neo-Scholastic]

5. Even if there is a God, you are obviously free to do what you want.

Yeah they believe they have free will, and their god gave them a choice. Except if they do anything their sky daddy deplores he will come after them and murder them. Resurrect them. And murder them again in a lake of fire.,,,

You're just saying that because of the initial conditions of the universe. You don't really believe that!

[Ryantology]

Don't you follow the laws of the country (or at least most of them). This is akin to saying, "If you follow the rules of the road, how do you ever get to where you want to go?"

If the rules of the road were written by God, the primary rule would be "using any road in any way, shape or form is punishable by death and eternal torment." And then he'd make it physically impossible to go anywhere or do anything unless you use the roads. And then, he'd make you an offer: "if you completely erase everything that makes you an individual human being and become my robot, willingly, I'll save you from the punishment for using the roads".

[orangebox21]

@Rhythm

Gotcha.

I was thinking through two different positions, 'have rainbows always existed?' or 'were they created at the time of their designation as a sign?'

So far I don't have a satisfactory reason as to which one is true (though one may be more plausible than the other). Honestly it's somewhat irrelevant to me which of these two hypothesis are true within the context of our conversation. Either way, God created the water cycle and the nature of light and thus the rainbow. Either at the time of creation, or at the time He designated it as a sign.

I misunderstood the value you would get out of our conversation. Namely you were looking to explore how God could have changed the water cycle to create rainbows at the time He designated them as a sign and not what I was pondering. Since the former is of interest to you I would suggest looking into Whitcomb and Morris. From what I understand one or both of them hypothesized a model that involved what is called a vapor canopy. It's not something I'm very familiar with but from my understanding they hypothesized that the earth's atmosphere was in such a state that the planet was like a giant terrarium. In this environment there would be no rain and so no rainbow. They further hypothesized that the effect of the flood on the atmosphere changed it into a state that we observe today (along with the 'newly created' water cycle). And thus, we have rainbows immediately following the flood but not before.

I must caution you though. From what I know most scientists who look at creationist models have rejected the 'vapor canopy' model as viable.

[Cato]

9. What’s your view of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris? Do you read anything else but the bible?

They’re a bunch of clowns. Hume, Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus are more challenging. Are you assuming that Christians are ignorant of contrary opinions? Kinda prejudiced don’t you think? How many atheists have seriously studied Plotinus or Aquinas?

Careful Chad, your comparisons are absurd (hope you get the joke). Coughing up a list of philosophers/authors and claiming they're challenging doesn't really get you anywhere. Kant, Hegel and Wittgenstein can be considered challenging, but what of it?

Regardless of his opinion about god, Dawkins is a preeminent evolutionary biologist. The men on your list can't touch him here, nor did they ever enjoy his audience. Hitchens is the greatest polemecist in the language since Mencken. Even Camus couldn't approach him for insight or turn of phrase.

As a percentage, I would be willing to wager more atheists have studied Plotinus and Aquinus than believers. In fact, I guarantee most believers couldn't tell you who Plotinus and Aquinus were. Hell, I'll throw Augustine in for good measure. I would throw in Martin Luther, but most believers in the U.S. would likely only pass because of Martin Luther King, Jr. name recognition.

[Minimalist]

oooo. I like these threads!
Because I found God at the end of my quest, as promised.

Yeah...I stopped looking for my car keys when I found them, Drippy.

But I don't worship them.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Careful Chad, your comparisons are absurd (hope you get the joke).

Awesome!

...claiming they're [my philosopher list] challenging doesn't really get you anywhere. Kant, Hegel and Wittgenstein can be considered challenging, but what of it?

I didn't mean challenging in the sense of difficult to parse. I meant challenging to the Christian faith.

Regardless of his opinion about god, Dawkins is a preeminent evolutionary biologist.

There's not 'regardless'. He should stick to biology, because his theology is childish.

Hitchens is the greatest polemecist in the language since Mencken.

That puts Hitchens in the same category as Protagorus. There is a deep chasm between rhetoric and philosophy.

As a percentage, I would be willing to wager more atheists have studied Plotinus and Aquinus than believers.

I would actually take that bet if we included Catholic priests and seminary students.

...most believers couldn't tell you who Plotinus and Aquinus were.

I think you're right. If you totaled amount of dust collected on all the family bibles in the US you could top off several landfills. Then again, who's Mencken?

[The Grand Nudger]

Rainbows are not predicate on rain, there would be even more rainbows under a "vapor canopy" (it's the vapor, and not good thick drops of rain that causes the phenomena in the first place). To be a fly on the wall when apologists come up with this stuff...lol.

Now personally, I can tell you (and you're free to join me in another thread on these boards) that the flood never happened. Never could've, never will, not anywhere, not at any time - but if we had evidence that the properties of light or water had been changed say, 4k years ago - that would make me reassess that position. I'd be wondering what else had been messed with (but I would also wonder...if things could be changed, whether or not my conclusion that things -had been- changed would actually be all that strong). The idea that a god lazily pointed to a naturally occurring thing that requires no godly sauce as a sign that he would not do again what he never did in the first place, is...to me, absurd.

It's a rabbit hole.

[Jenny A]

I was thinking through two different positions, 'have rainbows always existed?' or 'were they created at the time of their designation as a sign?'

So far I don't have a satisfactory reason as to which one is true (though one may be more plausible than the other). Honestly it's somewhat irrelevant to me which of these two hypothesis are true within the context of our conversation. Either way, God created the water cycle and the nature of light and thus the rainbow. Either at the time of creation, or at the time He designated it as a sign.

You think so? Really? It's a natural result of how light is refracted when passing through objects such and water, glass, and plastic. Having designed both light and substances light can pass through, he'd of had to work harder to prevent rainbows than to create them.

I misunderstood the value you would get out of our conversation. Namely you were looking to explore how God could have changed the water cycle to create rainbows at the time He designated them as a sign and not what I was pondering. Since the former is of interest to you I would suggest looking into Whitcomb and Morris. From what I understand one or both of them hypothesized a model that involved what is called a vapor canopy. It's not something I'm very familiar with but from my understanding they hypothesized that the earth's atmosphere was in such a state that the planet was like a giant terrarium. In this environment there would be no rain and so no rainbow. They further hypothesized that the effect of the flood on the atmosphere changed it into a state that we observe today (along with the 'newly created' water cycle). And thus, we have rainbows immediately following the flood but not before.

That kind of hogwash is exactly why the Bible (or any other book) should not be used as an infallible source. That it's bad science follows directly from the initial decision to try to squash all the evidence into a pattern that would fit Genesis.

[orangebox21]

The idea that a god lazily pointed to a naturally occurring thing that requires no godly sauce as a sign that he would not do again what he never did in the first place, is...to me, absurd

You're not maintaining logical consistency. If God created the properties of light, water, and the water cycle, then He created the rainbow. In other words, if He had created water, light, and the water cycle with drastically different properties then rainbows wouldn't be naturally occurring (they wouldn't exist). He then pointed to something He created, not to a 'naturally occurring thing that requires no godly sauce' as you have put it.

Of course if you reject God, then yes a rainbow is a naturally occurring thing as you have defined it. However the context of our conversation presupposes that God is the creator.

That kind of hogwash is exactly why the Bible (or any other book) should not be used as an infallible source. That it's bad science follows directly from the initial decision to try to squash all the evidence into a pattern that would fit Genesis.

Would that include books that teach the scientific method?

[Whateverist]

The idea that a god lazily pointed to a naturally occurring thing that requires no godly sauce as a sign that he would not do again what he never did in the first place, is...to me, absurd

You're not maintaining logical consistency. If God created the properties of light, water, and the water cycle, then He created the rainbow. In other words, if He had created water, light, and the water cycle with drastically different properties then rainbows wouldn't be naturally occurring (they wouldn't exist). He then pointed to something He created, not to a 'naturally occurring thing that requires no godly sauce' as you have put it.

Did god intend the rainbow? Perhaps it was the natural fall out of his having intended light and water. We read in the bible about how god said an incantation to create light. Must he have said the unrecorded incantation "let there be shadows", or were these unintended consequences?

I have to say this conversation feels pretty ridiculous. The very idea that every minute detail of the universe represented a micromanaged intention of a OCD god gives me the lulz.