If everything has a purpose then evil doesn't exist

[The Grand Nudger]

So much for his mighty magical powers, I guess.

[R-Farmer]

Kinda answered this with mr agenda:

So.. let's say god sent Noah live birds and or reptiles.. and 1 chicken lays a few dozen eggs.. Noah sees this chicken that takes up/Needs say 2 cubic feet to live... but the dozen or so eggs it laid in the last week early takes up 1/2 a cubic foot. which one do you think someone responsible for getting 7 pairs of clean animals and 2 pairs of unclean animals on a limited food and space hand built wooden ship?


Not not say every animal needed to be an egg or baby. just the big ones, the dangerous ones or the ones who eat non stop. Why wouldn't someone do this? If Elon makes it to mars and the goal is to colonize the planet do you think he is sending live chickens who need a whole host od support to keep live? or a few dozen trays of fertile eggs in stasis where He could choose the time and place to incubate the eggs?

If a 4 year old could make this call (as to which passenger chicken or egg is more efficient to transport) Why is it your opinion the man who built a boat big enough to save creation would be too stew-pid to have the spacial reasoning of a current 4 year old?

‘Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark.’

Spin it however you like. Even the most cursory reading precludes eggs or baby animals. The story isn’t meant to be taken literally (it’s an allegory about the wages of sin), so arguing the it was an historic event makes you look - no offense - like an idiot.

Boru

Look I'm not representing any of this as canonical doctrine. I'm just sharing a plausible interpretation of How this all could be done. If you are a literalist and only want to view the Bible from a on page literal stand point then, you are right. None of what I shared is represented scripturally. But if you think god is bound by our interoperation of what the scriptures say, you clearly haven't read/understood the clashes and conflicts Jesus had with the priests/pharisees of his day. As the vast majority of the issue He took with was concerning their literal interpretation of the law. He humiliated and blasted these men to the point that they conspired to kill him for it.

[The Grand Nudger]

You're sharing no such thing, lol. You have hasty and lazy ad hoc rationalizations which don't survive the slightest whiff of scrutiny. I guesss it's more important to have something to say, then to say something true, in your christian morality.

You just told us you worship the god of the dungheap. Is that true? Next you'll tell us it turned on the water by cranking huge spigot.

[Silver]

god of the dungheap ... triceratops?

[The Grand Nudger]

Look, if you have enough dinosaur shit on a boat, you could hatch as many griffon chicks as you wanted.

[Mister Agenda]

History is not a falsifiable science. History is largely based on eye witness testimony and period documentation. As there isn't an experiment we can do to independently verify whether or not Columbus sailed in 1492. The evidence we have comes from eye witnesses and period documentation. So unless you are saying falsifiable science is now accepting eyewitness testimony as scientific proof, then history and science are two different intellectual disciplines with two different rule sets. Just like theology is an independent discipline who like history does not need to obey the rules of 'science' to be vetted/verified.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method

[Mister Agenda]

All you're saying is Jesus knows there's a hell in the religion he invented, like Rowling knows Hogwarts exists in the world she invented. I don't disagree.

You do understand that I'm not saying Hogwarts or hell is real just because the author of both frame out their respective realms right? I'm pointing out If anyone were to be an expert on Hogwarts or hell it would be the authors.

Now to determine whether or not either place exists is real means we have to approach them canonically. This means we must first see what the author claims about them. Do they even claim either place is real?

Hell yes, Hogwarts no.

So for Hell we must then look at what Jesus said about hell, and approach testing what he said in a way consistent with what He is describing. Otherwise it would be like trying to prove AI is self aware with a yard stick. In that the measure or tool you want to use has nothing to do with the subject being evaluated. As this just leads to a confirmation bias.

Basing a deterimination of whether something is 'really real' on whether the author intended you to take it as 'really real' is a daft method for trying to determine if something is really real. By that standard you should be a Mormon. Or anything, really; because there is no shortage of authors making contradictory claims about what's really real, so you can't pick one without rejecting what's canon to another one.

[Mister Agenda]

What I'm saying is test the story with in the frame work of the story and make a conclusion from an honest effort. Otherwise you are simply setting parameters, the story was never met to meet.

If the story was never intended to meet a reasonable standard of evidence for determining if its claims are actually true in reality, in what way am I mistaken for not believing the story is actually true in reality?

[Mister Agenda]

Which is my point.. Nothing in canon says your test, your way, will yield anything.
To be objective you must test with in the parameters given.

A different example is if I said I had a formula that turned lead into gold.  And shared the formula with you, but you being a man of science says it is impossible to turn lead into gold and to prove it you take some off the shelf scientific theory that has been proven wrong 1000 times. Then claim based on your effort here turning lead into gold is impossible.

Never once having tested the formula I came up with.

You had a belief and only confirmed what you already believed.

I should reject your claim to have a formula that turns lead into gold as false on the face of it unless you have a suspiciously large amount of gold. Then it might be worth testing just on the remote chance you're not a charlatan. I have no obligation at all to take your claim seriously just on your say-so.

On the other hand, the 'canon' method you're suggesting is a form of self-brainwashing. The trouble isn't that I don't think it will work, the trouble is that I'm concerned that it will; for reasons that have nothing to do with whether the underlying claim is actually true in real reality or not.

[Mister Agenda]

I'm not dismissing their potential psychological value, but there's no convincing evidence that the visions originate from anywhere but inside our own brains.

If the purpose of a successful vision quest is to gain access to knowledge not previously known, then how can you claim the vision was a product of our own brains? How can a brain produce knowledge that it does not correctly possess?

Because it having a purpose of gaining access to knowledge not previously known doesn't mean it can actually give you knowledge not previously known. If you think visions give you knowledge that you don't already know, that's testable. We know how to induce visions and we know how to make information inaccessible to someone. Have at. Until a vision can produce inaccessible knowledge under controlled conditions, the conclusion that they are hallucinations under stress is the most parsimonious. Sometimes those hallucinations can provide insight that would otherwise be locked in your subconscious; or inspire you to change your ways, and that's nice.