Critique Time!

[Strider]

Directly, and indirectly.

Angels, dreams, visions, the Holy Spirit, and the bible. God also uses people who know Him.

I have an earnest question, Drich. Do you not sometimes feel that you're making meaning of things that have no inherent meaning at all? Don't get me wrong. I, along with everybody else, have intuition and things like gut feelings. Now, I could understand how one could interpret either of these as a sort of divine message.

I have this strange feeling that this is what I should do. It must be God speaking to me!

...except that it's not. It's a psychological phenomena, an exceedingly interesting one but all the same. So, have you at least considered the possibility that you are falsely attributing natural occurrences that everyone experiences to supernatural forces (God, angels, devil, etc.)?

[Mudhammam]

I mean, simply, that I've never understood how Protestants such as yourself perceive a particular collection of writings as holding supremacy over and above the authority of popes, councils, and tradition, when it was only by the command and direction of those ecclesiastical offices and functions that the New Testament Canon was conceived and enforced.

But that's just it. "The ecclesiastical offices and functions" were never established with in the New Testament cannon. One can not worship the God of the bible with doctrine and traditions that God does not sanction in said bible. If catholic people want to worship the God of the pope then so be it. For me and mine we worship the God of the bible.

... Yeah... but... um, isn't it obvious that when you remove all pretension of divine authority from the clergy, you eliminate the difference between the writings of the New Testament and everything else that inherits a claim to inspiration, timelessness, insight, or whatever it is that one might delineate works of "the spirit" from works of "the flesh"?

[robvalue]

I thought of a simple piece of advice for any religious person wanting to debate an atheist. At least, an atheist who is fairly committed rather than apathetic (which there's nothing wrong with).

Consider how strongly you know that your religion is true, your God is real, how it all just is right beyond any reasonable doubt. Now consider that the atheist feels just as strongly that your God, your book and so on are entirely unreliable and probably made up.

So if you try to tell us that "the bible is true" for example, as an unsupported assertion, that means as little to us as if we said to you "the bible is made up".

If you keep that firmly in mind, I think we could have more fruitful discussions. If you don't, I think you are utterly wasting the time of everyone involved.

I never mean to act like a spokesperson for atheists, and of course not every atheist will feel exactly the same. So I hope my statements are general enough that most atheists, at least on this board, would mainly agree. If not, please let me know as I would hate to misrepresent anyone.

Thanks for reading!

[Godscreated]

I thought of a simple piece of advice for any religious person wanting to debate an atheist. At least, an atheist who is fairly committed rather than apathetic (which there's nothing wrong with).

Consider how strongly you know that your religion is true, your God is real, how it all just is right beyond any reasonable doubt. Now consider that the atheist feels just as strongly that your God, your book and so on are entirely unreliable and probably made up.

I do understand this and did before I came to this forum. My problem is atheist seem to refuse anything we state, no consideration of it's possible validity. To totally disregard the Bible just because one doesn't like what said in it IMO is being dishonest. Things Christians use from the Bible are tossed aside, atheist refuse for the most part to examine what we present, they pass it off as worthless. I've given valid explanations to Bible verses even using the history ie. life style of the day and yet the info is rejected without consideration I'm correct, no counter proof given to discount what I presented. Yet atheist believe we should accept everything they say about science and this is when they state things that are at best speculation, no solid proof to go with it, yet we're suppose to accept it without question.

So if you try to tell us that "the bible is true" for example, as an unsupported assertion, that means as little to us as if we said to you "the bible is made up".

If you keep that firmly in mind, I think we could have more fruitful discussions. If you don't, I think you are utterly wasting the time of everyone involved.

Thanks for reading!

This has to work both ways or all we're going to get is things like Min's little snipes.

GC

---

I would be very interested in how exactly God communicates with people.

I'll try to get to this later, if I forget remind me, do not have time at this moment, probably will be Monday.

GC

[robvalue]

No, we don't accept what you say because it has no evidence for it whatsoever. Science on the other hand has so much evidence anyone would struggle to even read all of it. It's entirely, completely different.

No, we won't accept stuff straight out of the bible as truth, because it's a story book with no other decent corroborating evidence. Especially for the supernatural claims, which are all but impossible to verify even if we had other sources.

Do you accept the kuran as truth? Believe every word of it? What about all the other holy books? Zeus? Thor? Flying Spaghetti Monster? Illusionary pink unicorn? Would you believe anything I said about them if I had nothng to back it up?

If you think science has nothing to back it up, all that means is you can't be bothered to research it, end of story. Science is only competing with religion in as much as science shows us all the glaring errors in a supposedly infallible book.

I could quiz you on the bible all day and show you how you don't follow it, but you'd just tap dance like every apologist and make excuses. If that's not the case, tell me whether slavery would be fine today or not. Or stoning someone to death for picking up sticks on a Sunday. Would you stone me to death for picking up sticks on a Sunday?

What you need to try and get your head around is that the bible (which just happens to be the religion you were indoctrinated in, you'd be a Muslim if born somewhere else) is a book of claims. Someone is saying stuff happened. That does not mean it happened. The book is not magic, it is just a book. Anyone can write anything down they like. Why is the bible special, in that it is magically true? Because it's the word of God, so it's true so it's the bible so... Circular logic. You cannot prove something is true by appealing to itself. If I say I do not lie, can that be taken as evidence that I do not lie? Because I said I do not lie? No.

I could go on all day but... I know you'll never change your mind. But God does say he wants you to think about it more, as he thinks you are misreading some signals. He hasn't communicated with anyone today, we've been quite busy. Jesus has gone home now, I caught him on the furniture again. He knows the rules!

Anyhow, thanks for chatting. I know you did read what I said and tried to take it to heart but I fear we will never be able to see eye to eye. So, thanks for making the effort to meet me half way. It's much more than most so.

[Ryantology]

I do understand this and did before I came to this forum. My problem is atheist seem to refuse anything we state, no consideration of it's possible validity. To totally disregard the Bible just because one doesn't like what said in it IMO is being dishonest.

The only dishonesty here is in this quoted segment.

We totally disregard the Bible for three reasons.

1. There are too many flaws and contradictions in it. These mean nothing to you, obviously.
2. There is no reason to accept, on faith, that anything in the Bible is true. This, also, means nothing to you.
3. No Christian has ever been able to objectively prove that a single premise of the Bible is based on reality. Not one, and none of you even come close. Most of you think it's beneath you to even try. Not only do none of you prove that your god is real. None of you can offer even one rational, coherent reason why we should accept it on faith.

Christians have to prove that the Bible is valid and that their god is real. If you hide your god behind curtains of invisibility and vagueness and a 'supernatural' that you can't even describe, then you're asking for just the sort of treatment you get. You wouldn't accept the claims of a child insisting that they had invisible friends that can talk only to them. Why should you expect that we accept the claims of adults saying the same thing?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I wonder if there's a format in which we could ensure GC understands the above point?

Because for some weird reason he's harboring under the delusion that likability has to do with our rejection of unevidenced claims. As though us hearing him tell us we're going to hell means we outright refuse to believe that hell exists as opposed to him being totally unable to demonstrate that it exists.

[robvalue]

The only thing I can think of is to repeat back exactly what has been said, inserting other words like Santa or giant penguin, or Harry potter book. To make the point that assigning absolute truth to a random book makes no sense, nor assuming the characters and events in it are real, just "because".

Then we can see if a theist accepts the new claim?

It's not original I know, but I think it provides a stark contrast between what is accepted without thought and what is dismissed without thought.

I mean, I've been saying how God is sitting next to me all day, but it's not been taken seriously. Why is that?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

The only thing I can think of is to repeat back exactly what has been said, inserting other words like Santa or giant penguin, or Harry potter book. To make the point that assigning absolute truth to a random book makes no sense, nor assuming the characters and events in it are real, just "because".

Then we can see if a theist accepts the new claim?

It's not original I know, but I think it provides a stark contrast between what is accepted without thought and what is dismissed without thought.

I mean, I've been saying how God is sitting next to me all day, but it's not been taken seriously. Why is that?

I don't think that will work. GC's been here, what, 4 years or so, and is still using the 'you just don't want to believe' BS as his main argument. If you point out the absurdity of their arguments by simply replacing their 'god' with another equally unevidenced being/creature/item/'thing', they accuse you of not being serious because, of course, their god is the real deal and all those others are totally fake.

Lost cause if there ever was on, mate.

[robvalue]

Hmm, yeah. Thanks for trying to help. It's a real shame, it's frustrating to be talking not only past each other but into alternate dimensions.

I feel I've tried everything I can to explain my position. I can't in any honesty just start saying I believe stuff because I "should". Even if I wanted to, I literally can't. I guess that's another important thing to say. I can't. My brain requires convincing before it changes that switch over. So it's not a matter of choice, or choosing not to believe. All I can do is listen to cases presented, and see whether they have any merit which might convince my brain.

Yes God, I'll put you to bed soon! Yes, you can have a story. No, not that one, it got you too excited last night.