Nah, landfills are already permitted to receive all sorts of trash, garbage and refuse. Just have to dice you up to be unrecognizable. A wood-chipper should do nicely, or a hamburger grinder.Gawdzilla wrote:You'd have to file an Environmental Impact Statement.Seth wrote:Or, we could just stuff your rotting corpse in the landfill.
Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
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"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
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Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
I don't know if I want to share a landfill with your mind.Seth wrote:Nah, landfills are already permitted to receive all sorts of trash, garbage and refuse. Just have to dice you up to be unrecognizable. A wood-chipper should do nicely, or a hamburger grinder.Gawdzilla wrote:You'd have to file an Environmental Impact Statement.Seth wrote:Or, we could just stuff your rotting corpse in the landfill.
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Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
I think that when most people use "God" they probably fail to distinguish between the Jewish God and the Christian God; after all, the Babble says they're the same. Folks with a bit more education might even fail to distinguish between that and Allah.
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Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
CES wrote:
Or, one would think that if the deity created the universe with humans as the object, he would just create a single large planet. If he wanted decorations up in the sky, they wouldn't be stars and galaxies light years away, they would just be jewels attached to perfect crystal spheres.....you know...like people thought a god would do before they discovered that things were bigger and farther away than they could have imagined....


Nurse, where the fuck's my cardigan?
And my gin!
And my gin!
Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
Fair point, but the attack is specifically against the Christian God, as indicated by the thread title.Coito ergo sum wrote:
Just to chime in -- "against all gods" would be a more precise phrasing of it. Against God is a reference to a particular god, given the upper case "G."
Oh come now, if it's just a political movement, what is everybody bitching about?Coito ergo sum wrote:Well, the title doesn't refer to any god, but rather a political movement.
"Just pointing out that if you're going to use silly, smarmy arguments against all gods, you might want to formulate them a little more carefully..."
Moreover, I think calling the argument "smarmy" or "silly" is not accurate. If I understand Feck correctly, he's basically saying that it seems rather unlikely that a supreme creator would create so much stuff that is inhospitable to life.
And my point is that it's hubris at the very least to assume that he knows more about creating universes than God does.
Why would it "stand to reason that such a god need not" do anything at all? That's merely imposing human limitations and judgments on God, which seems a bit narrow-minded. Since God is omnipotent (in this model) it takes no more effort to create a hundred billion galaxies than it does to create a grain of sand, it's entirely UNreasonable to assume that God "needs" or doesn't "need" to to anything or everything, or that whatever God does do is "unnecessary."Well, that depends on one's assumption of what the particular god's capabilities and intelligence is. If we are assuming the Christian God, then we need to assume an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent being that has perfect knowledge and no incapacities. We also are to assume that said being created the universe with humans in mind, as the pinnacle of creation, in that god's image. It would stand to reason that such a god need not create hundreds of billions of galaxies, none of which have anything to do with us, and certainly such a god would have been capable of creating the universe as "perfectly" as man once conceived it to be - a single Earth below the heavens, with the heavenly bodies being tiny shining objections that revolved around the Earth to serve predictive functions. Anything more is unnecessary, which is why theologians 1500 years ago didn't imagine there to be anything more than that.
It may seem unnecessary to your puny intellect, but then you're not God, so you're not privy to all the motives, intentions, and plans that God has for the universe, are you?
If God had created just the Earth and hung twinkling lights in a crystal sphere surrounding it, how would that appear "impossible or nonsensical to us?" If that were the case, then our entire understanding of the universe, science, physics and everything else would conform to that reality, and it would be perfectly "natural" for the universe to be that way.It's also not hubris to suggest that an omnipotent and omniscient deity could have created the universe any way he chose, even one that would appear impossible or nonsensical to us.
There you go again trying to impose your puny intellectual abilities on the "need" of God. This is the conceit of science, and Dawkins in particular, when arguing against divine creation. Dawkins falsely presumes that a more complex or "supernatural" explanation for the way things are when it comes to genetics is "needed" or "necessary" than evolution. But that's just an ignorant conceit of the parsimony of science.So, there would be no need for that deity to have random rocks floating around a hundred million light years from Earth. It's certainly possible for that deity to have some undisclosed purpose for what to us makes no sense. It's possible. That sounds an awful lot, however, like someone just saying "It doesn't make sense, but I'll believe it anyway."
Just because something is "unnecessary" as an explanation for how it exists doesn't mean that it isn't the actual process by which it occurred.
I've used the example of GMO corn or Roundup-ready sugar beets before, and the example still applies. Looking only at the genetic structure of either, one would conclude some natural force caused the evolution of genes that make the plants resistant to the chemical glyophosate. But the truth is that intelligent design is actually responsible for those genes. Looking only at the genetic structure, without any knowledge or reference to history or how those genes actually got into the plant's structure, Dawkins would conclude that it was an evolutionary process and that intelligent design was "unnecessary." But he'd be completely wrong. And that's exactly the same flaw you are suffering from. Just because you, with your limited intellect and knowledge, think that the universe is "unnecessary" to God, that doesn't constrain either God or logic to your understanding of things.
Seth wrote:It isn't a disproof of gods, because, of course, one god or another might be capricious, arbitrary, or just not all that talented, etc. This may be the best that a given god could do.
This falsely presumes that what God hath wrought is somehow flawed, which is merely arrogant ignorance on the part of a creation of God.
I am. But that doesn't mean I'm ignorant of theology, reason or logic.I thought you were a nontheist?
Anyway - no, it doesn't presume that anything is flawed. It presumes that an omnipotent god didn't need to create galaxies hundreds of millions of light years away full of mostly if not completely lifeless space.
There you go again with the "need" canard.
Here you falsely presume that God is constrained by the "holy book [Christians] use." Has it ever occurred to you that Christian understanding of God is neither omniscient nor infallible? You cannot argue that God does not exist because Christians understand God imperfectly.That's no different than the pre-scientific theistic idea that the Earth was a fixed center of the universe, surrounded by the heavens, with no thought that there would be billions upon billions of stars and galaxies, all monumentally far away. Why would the Christian presume that? Because based on the holy book they use, there is no need for it. When science discovered the reality of the situation, the reality was something that first had to be denied, and then later had to be harmonized with Christian theology - the square peg of reality had to be shoehorned into to the round hole of theology.
What "they" think is of no importance at all. We are discussing God here, and God's powers, intentions and "needs," not mankind's, nor mankind's interpretations of God's powers, intentions or "needs." Again, you cannot use an imperfect or inconsistent understanding or claim about God on the part of human beings as an argument that God does not or cannot exist. That's a compositional fallacy. The human claim that the parts of God it believes it understands has attributes X, Y and Z does not mean that God, as a whole, has attributes X, Y and Z, or only attributes X, Y, and Z.Even today, people are still in the denial phase, as we see some folks denying that life evolves over time. Some Christian theologies have harmonized that notion with the religious dogma, like Catholicism, but some others still steadfastly refuse. They refuse because there is no reason why a person would think that an omnipotent god would need to set in motion forces and processes that take billions of years to complete. He could just engage in a special creation, and it makes no sense for the deity to do otherwise.
You are looking at the situation backwards, as is common with atheists. You are looking at the claims of Christianity, including historical claims and claims that may have changed over time and you are imputing characteristics to God based on what Christians claim about God, and are trying to argue that God is defined by the understanding of humans regarding God and that God is therefore fallible and flawed somehow (such as your suggestion that he built a universe "unnecessarily." But that's as much of a fallacy as the parable of the blind men and the elephant. What you, or Christians, see and know of God is but one small part of God that may itself be imperfectly perceived or interpreted, not the whole of God or what God's intentions or purposes actually are, which of course no human being can possibly know, if there is a God, merely because we are not all-knowing.
Seth wrote:
As I said before, there are many potential reasons why God might have chosen to create the universe as he did that have nothing to do with lack of ability on his part.
To you, perhaps. But then who cares what you think? Certainly not God, you're not even a believer of his.Sure, but none of them make much sense.
Indeed, so what are you arguing, exactly? Feck was implicitly arguing that God doesn't exist because if he did he would have made some mistake in making a largely empty universe hostile to "life." When challenged in that specious claim, he weaseled all around his logical failure but failed to support his original claim or his amended one.As I said, it's not a disproof of gods per se. Gods might be practical jokers - or they may enjoy putting together Rube Goldberg machines. We don't know.
God's might indeed be practical jokers, or right bastards, or they might have purposes and intentions beyond your understanding, and your part in those purposes and intentions is so microscopically small and insignificant that you're unworthy of his notice.
That still makes absolutely no argument whatsoever against the existence of God. Your failure to understand God's plans are not, I'm afraid, any evidence or argument against God's existence.
Seth wrote:
To presume that God is required to create a universe to suit man's fancy is, well, silly and ignorant.
And here is a concise example of the Atheist's Fallacy, a tautology wherein the atheist bases his conclusions about the existence of God only upon the claims of theists about the existence and nature of God. It's circular because in order to make the argument that the "Christian god we are asked to believe" is flawed according to the claims of Christian theists, the atheist must circularly presume, as a premise of his argument, that the claims of Christian theists about God are true. The fallacy is that Christian claims about God may be in error while still being claims about a real and existing God.It's not a presumption of a requirement. It's a conclusion based on the characteristics of the Christian god we are asked to believe, and the application of logic.
But then you are just a human being who cannot understand why it might not be silly for God to do that. That doesn't impeach the existence or omnipotence of God, it just points to your own frailty and inconsequentiality as a human being with less-than-perfect knowledge and understanding.I fully admit that gods may be illogical, capricious, arbitrary, silly, or wasteful or plenty of other things. He may have created the universe in a way that makes no sense to us. For me, it seems really silly for a god to do that.
What about the universe doesn't make sense to you, pray tell? I was under the impression that science has shown an elegant beauty and order in the universe. Theists as well see this elegant beauty and order, they just believe that the source of this order and beauty is intelligence, not chaos and randomness.I would think that a god would create a universe that makes sense.
So, what you're saying is that because you don't understand the totality of God's design and intentions in designing the universe and life as it exists, that this is logical proof that God doesn't exist? Theists think exactly the opposite. They see the grace and beauty and order of the universe, and all the myriad harmonies that make the universe function as it does as logical proof that God DOES exist, which is not as irrational as I'm sure you think it is, given the fact that we have a very small understanding of the universe and how it came to be, and how it came to be ordered and configured as it is. The presumption of science is that it came to be the way it is through natural processes, but that ignores the fact that God is part of, and indeed is (if he exists) the very essence of nature.I would doubt that a god that wants us to believe in it would create a universe that looks like a universe that came to be through unguided, undirected natural processes. He may have done so, of course. I can't be 100% sure. I just think it sounds crazy for an omnipotent god to do so - it's akin to the idea that a deity placed dinosaur bones in the ground to fool us. Might it have? Sure, it or they might have done so. But, it makes no sense.
This narrow-minded focus on "natural" explanations for everything stubbornly endures even when a perfectly rational, logical and completely scientific hypothesis for the existence and nature of the universe as a function of inter-dimensional intelligent design is put forward. This is probably because the anti-theistic bias is so strong in most atheists, and many scientists, that they are simply incapable of reasoning carefully and logically when it comes to stepping outside of their narrow understandings.
Seth wrote:
According to my reading, God created the Heavens and the Earth, and THEN he created man, and gave man dominion over the EARTH. The Bible says nothing whatever about giving man dominion over the rest of the universe, now did it?
Thanks for confirming that premise of the Atheist's Fallacy that you just committed above.The Bible says nothing about the rest of the universe, because the people who wrote it had no idea that there was a rest of the universe.
Just because the authors of the Bible did not understand the physics of universe-creating doesn't mean it didn't happen or that this is the best way they could think of at the time to explicate the events without confusing their audience with irrelevant technical details. I suppose the authors could have said "There was this empty bubble universe laying around as God sat around in his lab in the next universe over pondering what to do with it for awhile, and then he injected a monoblock of matter from his lab's matter-supply cabinet into the empty bubble universe and there was a Big Bang that put out a lot of energy in the form of light and elements were created by high-energy particle collisions that eventually coalesced into lumps of matter that became the Earth," but they didn't. That doesn't necessarily change the reality of what occurred, it only reflects a faulty understanding on the part of the authors about what happened.The way I read the Bible, god created "the heavens" and the earth. At first, earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of god was hovering over the waters. There are heavens and there is earth, but the earth was empty and without form, and dark. God just hovered there for a while. Not being able to see, I guess, he said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. He then separated the light from the darkness, making night and day. Strangely, this was able to occur without there being a sun, yet. But, the god is omnipotent, so we just have to throw up our hands and say that that's what it did - who are we to question?
Yes, exactly. They had a faulty understanding of physics and the universe, so they explained it in terms they understood. But the terms they describe the universe, and how it came to be, do not define how the universe came to be, do they? Well, likewise the description of how God caused the universe to come to be does not constrain God in actually creating the universe, it merely reflects a flawed and incomplete understanding of how the universe came to be and who, if anyone, was responsible for it.Then the god made a "vault" to separate the heavens from the waters. That's because the writers of Genesis, living under a Babylonian cosmology, conceived that there had to be something holding up the heavens. Hence, a vault. Without a vault holding things up, the heavens would fall. Things fall unless they are held up. The vault is the sky. Above the sky you'll find the heavens. The Sun and the Moon were created to serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, God set the stars "in the vault of the sky" to give light on the earth. Their purpose is clear - to give light to the Earth, and the were "set" in the "vault of the sky." Right? Set - in the vault. That's what they look like from Earth - they don't look at all like they are large bodies floating all over the place and moving around. They are "set."
Okay, not mentioning all the myriad species and processes and interactions in a religious text meant to be a broad-brush description of something is what we in the writing trade like to call "editorial license." After all, the purpose of the bible is not to catalog the species or describe how they interact, it's to give the congregation a brief description of how the universe, the earth, and the creatures on it came into being. You can hardly argue that God does not exist merely because the editors of the bible said "Sheesh, God, if we have to publish all that stuff, the Bible will have to come in a thousand volumes. Do you mind if we synopsize it a bit, for brevity's sake?"The Earth at this time was completely covered in water - so the god commanded the waters to be gathered together so that dry land would appear. It wasn't that elevation had to be changed - the deity just had to "gather water together" in certain places to let the dry land appear. Having some dry land, he then created vegetation on the land, but no mention of water vegetation, and no mention that some plants rely on animals to survive (flowers/bees, etc.).
Ibid. You're now trying to argue that the brevity of the Bible somehow proves that God doesn't exist. Please, use some reason.Then, after vegetation, god created lights in the sky, including the sun and the Moon. The Moon, of course, is not a light, but only reflects light. And, it's odd that vegetation which requires sunlight could survive without the Sun, and no mention of how cold the Earth would be without the Sun, and how the rotation of a Moonless Earth would be wild, creating a torrential and windy environment, not hospitable to present day plants and animals.
Yup, there you go. Earth was created for man to have dominion over, NOT the rest of the universe, which provides a perfectly satisfactory and parsimonious explanation of why God went to the trouble ("No, really, it's no trouble at all," said God) of creating the rest of the universe: to give other creatures dominion over other earths.Then came the living creatures in the sea, air and land. And, to rule over the animals and plants, mankind was created.
Again, so what? You are resorting to the Atheist's Fallacy again. The observations and explanations by bronze-age astrologers or religious leaders of the nature and origin of the universe do not necessarily accurately reflect what God actually did or how he arranged things due to nothing more than the primitive technological nature and understanding of the time. That in no way reflects upon God's abilities or intentions.So - what does the creation account tell us? Well - read it carefully - is there ANYTHING in there that is not a conclusion drawn from what bronze age astrologers could see with the naked eye? Conspicuously absent is anything that one doesn't see -- no asteroids and meteors - the planets are even left out, because back then they were just thought to be odd stars. All the lights in the sky are called stars, even though many of them are, in fact, galaxies containing billions of stars. The sky is a structure which holds up the heavens - it was a physical object, resting on the waters. That made sense to writers of the Bible at the time because that's the Sumerian and Babylonian cosmology. Even the Egyptian cosmology involved an enclosure on a fixed flat Earth.
Unless, of course, "the earth's farthest bounds" was merely an observational misinterpretation by the king based on the limitations of spherical curvature and a lack of understanding of physics and optics by a primitive potentate. You're resorting to the Atheist's Fallacy again.And, the Bible requires the Earth to be flat, incidentally - Daniel 4:10-11 refers to a king who “saw a tree of great height at the centre of the earth...reaching with its top to the sky and visible to the earth's farthest bounds.” If the earth were flat, a sufficiently tall tree would be visible to “the earth's farthest bounds,” but this is impossible on a spherical earth.
Maybe Jesus and Satan were using a series of observation satellites and video screens that showed the centers of government for all the world at Satan's mountaintop vacation cabin. Atheist's Fallacy again.Likewise, in describing the temptation of Jesus by Satan, Matthew 4:8 says, “Once again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world [cosmos] in their glory.” Obviously, this would be possible only if the earth were flat. The same is true of Revelation 1:7: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds! Every eye shall see him...”
Of course we should. Few people, even of strong faith, think that Genesis is an exact, second-by-second complete detailed description of the beginning. You're supporting your argument on a very thin reed here. Genesis is a compact synopsis by a primitive culture, nothing more, and thus cannot be used as evidence that God does not exist.So, we may wish to be a bit skeptical about what we read in Genesis.
So what? God saw fit to create earth for man and give him dominion over it. God did not necessarily or implicitly create the rest of the universe for man, nor was God under any obligation to tell man about the rest of the universe or even correct any misunderstandings of man based on man's ignorance. Your claim here is that God does not exist because Sumerian and Babylonian cosmological understanding is flawed and primitive? That doesn't begin to demonstrate careful reasoning or logic.Sure, Genesis says that man will rule over the animals and plants on Earth, and doesn't mention other places. But, also absent from creation are those other places, and creation is in accord with Sumerian and Babylonian cosmology which has a flat Earth domed by a vault which holds up the heavens, and in the dome of the sky are "set" stars (and nothing else), and the Sun and the Moon are there to measure days and weeks and months and sacred holidays. There is no creation account wherein other galaxies and planets and the true glory of the universe is created - Genesis is simply a story that is in line with then prevailing astrology.
Seth wrote:Exactly. But to infer that God made a flawed universe merely because man is not welcome in most of it is not even rational, it's a demonstration of illogic and unreason even if one doesn't believe in God.We don't know.
I did not infer that, or even imply it. The idea is that a highly intelligent, extremely powerful being wouldn't create a lot of wasted space. Most of the universe appears, for all intents and purposes, wasted.
The key word here is "appears." That's an admission of your own fallibility and failures in knowledge and understanding, not any fault on the part of God. That you do not understand or know why God created all that empty space is not the least bit of evidence that God does not exist, it's just an admission of your own fallibility and ignorance.
Ibid. Your lack of understanding of the purpose of the universe is utterly irrelevant to God's purpose for creating it, and it's not evidence that God does not exist.Could we posit some use for it? Could we use our imagination and come up with something? Sure. But, that would just be guessing. Based on what we see of the existing reality, there doesn't appear to be a purpose for most, if not all, of the universe. And, certainly the purpose of the universe does not appear to be life. As I said, this is not "disproof" of gods. But, it's not a point in their favor, that's for sure.
Seth wrote:Indeed.However, based on a description of most gods who are given the role, we are asked to assume that the god is all knowing, all powerful, ever present and can do "anything."
Indeed.And, in word.
Seth wrote:Yes, such a god could certainly do this.Such a god, it stands to reason, could have created a universe that is positively glorious and teeming with life - and maybe even with warm, breathable air between all the planets, and a gravitational system that allows easy transportation all over the place.
Yes.Well, we presume that, anyway.
Seth wrote:Or, one would think that if the deity created the universe with humans as the object, he would just create a single large planet.
Indeed. But what leads you to the belief that God created the universe with ONLY humans as the object?
But that's what you're arguing, so we are permitted to make the rational inference that you have made the claim based on something. What is that something?Nothing, since I don't believe a god created the universe at all.
And how does that in any way impeach the existence of God? You imply that God was under some obligation to explain himself in a more detailed fashion to the authors of the Bible. Upon what basis would God be so obligated?The universe said to have been created in Genesis 1 of the Bible doesn't exist in the real world, but if it did, it certainly places man as the pinnacle of creation and mentions nothing else anywhere in the universe, with the exception of the Sun, Moon, stars set in the vault, and the heavens where god and the angels live. The rest of the universe is unknown and not recounted in creation - which stands to reason because the astrologers of the day had know way of writing about what they didn't see, and god apparently only inspired them to write about that which they could figure out for themselves.
Seth wrote:
There is no such claim made in the Bible. God created the earth and gave man dominion over THE EARTH. Therefore, it is rational to assume that God did not give dominion over the rest of the universe to man,
And you think that a failure to mention it in the Bible means it doesn't exist or that God didn't create it? How about God just didn't care to tell the Bible's authors about such things, preferring perhaps to allow mankind to figure it out on their own?The Bible makes no mention of the rest of the universe, and sets the stars in the vault of the sky. There isn't anything else in Biblical cosmology for man to have dominion over.
You're right back to the Atheist's Fallacy again. Please stop.
Seth wrote:
and it's also perfectly logical to assume that God created a universe with plenty of space where he could create other creatures and give them dominion over their planets while keeping each separate from the other by the simple expedient of distance and vacuum. All perfectly rational and logical, if you think like God for even a moment, rather than being quite so anthropocentric and arrogant as to believe, without any evidence in the biblical record, that the entire universe was made to suit humans.
Precisely correct, as was the case for the authors of Genesis. And you, like they, are only capable of explicating such things based on the knowledge and understandings that YOU have, which are of course imperfect. But that doesn't change the nature of what actually happened, how the universe is constructed, or who, if anyone, constructed it, now does it?I don't presume to be able to think like a god, even for a second, since there is no way of knowing how any such being thinks. We can only make assumptions about what the characteristics of such a being are, and then imagining things based on that.
Seth wrote:Why wouldn't they be stars and galaxies?If he wanted decorations up in the sky, they wouldn't be stars and galaxies light years away, they would just be jewels attached to perfect crystal spheres.....you know...like people thought a god would do before they discovered that things were bigger and farther away than they could have imagined....
Atheist's Fallacy...again. Please stop.Because stars and galaxies are not "set in the firmament" or "set in the vault of the sky", depending on which version of the Bible you read.
Seth wrote:
God is infinitely powerful, and it might please him to create an entire universe of stars and galaxies specifically for the intellectual pleasure and stimulation of his earthly creation: man. He might have created it all precisely so that we would wonder about things and strive to learn things.
Indeed. But the fact that we don't know proves nothing either way about the existence or non-existence of God. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.As I said, we can imagine any number of purposes for doing something. That doesn't mean they make sense. He might have done it as a goof. We don't know.
Seth wrote:
You simply cannot second-guess God and assume that your puny intellect is up to the task of judging God or the correctness of his creation, because you're going to inevitably be wrong.
Now this is actually a true statement. Just because God may be all-knowing and all-powerful does not axiomatically mean that God's powers of intellect in using and applying that knowledge and power are just as advanced. God could be simply a very well-informed and very powerful (compared to us) child playing with toys in some other-universal playpen who created our universe entirely by accident.It's an unwarranted assumption to assume human intellect is puny compared to a gods. The Bible says we were created in the god's image - therefore, it's possible he gave us intellect close to his own. Maybe that's why we are alone among the animals in being able to life ourselves into space, and we've even got ideas about engineering universes of our own.
Seth wrote:
The best theological minds on the planet,
Well, I did specify "theological" didn't I?![]()
...or, the most well-read on Aesop's Fables...
Seth wrote: for thousands of years, have pondered such questions and they acknowledge that an all-powerful God is going to have reasons for doing what he does that are beyond the capacity of mere humans to understand, and that it's pretty much a waste of time to claim that God did something or the other for a reason based in human reasoning. And if God exists, this is perfectly sound and logical reasoning, now isn't it?
That may in fact be the case. You've certainly done nothing to demonstrate that it's not.Not really, because it just amounts to saying that whatever thing we see that seems to make no sense must be said to be perfectly sensible because a god exists.
Seth wrote:
Therefore, you cannot, with any hope of rational or logical strength, try to use what you perceive as a flaw in the universe to try to disprove the existence of God, which is precisely what the original ignorant rhetorical question Feck asked is completely irrational and illogical, even coming from someone who doesn't believe in God. It's indicative of shallow thinking and an inability to reason with any precision or logic, which is a feature of much of Atheism's supposed "reasoning" against God.
What, that he made man with less-than-perfect intellect? Again, you're presuming to know God's intentions and purposes based on what YOU think the "favorable" thing to do is.I think I've already said that it doesn't amount to a disproof of gods. I don't think Feck said it "disproved" gods either. It's certainly not a point in gods' favor.
Nonsense. I've already told you that the biblical description you refer to is a flawed understanding of God's perfection. To make the universe imperfect so as to fit the imperfections in understanding of primitive people would be convenient for you, but not, I suspect, for God.What would be a point in gods favor is if we found that the universe really was composed of a flat Earth, with a Sun and Moon going around it, and stars "set" in a vault which is the sky.
If we found that, that would be spot on persuasive proof that the Genesis account was true in that respect, and we'd be like - holy shit - these astrologers from back in the day nailed it.
This falsely presumes that God is under some obligation to make belief in him easy and convenient and that he's obliged to leave easy clues for you to find that lead you to belief in him.
No it's not. It's nothing of the kind. It's merely human frailty and lack of understanding at play. Man's misunderstandings of God say nothing whatever about the actual existence, nature or purpose of God. You are again spouting the Atheist's Fallacy.As it happens, the Genesis story had to go from "this is the way it happened, " to "this is the best way for imperfect humans to relate to their position in the universe and how they got here, it's not exactly true in a literal sense..." and then to "well, it's pretty much a bronze age metaphor, which we know didn't happen anything like the way it's said to have happened." None of that, of course, is a "disproof," but it is a brick in the edifice of various proofs that point in a direction other than gods' existence.
Er, just because you couldn't see God in the trees and rocks and crops and mountains and volcanoes merely speaks to your inability to perceive God, it's not evidence that God does not exist. And just because primitive people claimed to see gods in trees and you can't doesn't mean those gods weren't real, it only means that YOU couldn't find them.It's kind of like how, back in the day, folks believed in gods all over the place. They showed up in trees, and in rocks and mountains, they ruled the waves and drove the winds and brought the rains and punished them with droughts and all that stuff. We looked in the volcanoes....no gods there. We looked into the crops, and realized they grew without gods. We learned how the winds came about, and realized that there weren't any gods there. We figured out that tidal waves came from earthquakes and volcanoes, and not Poseidon or the Jormungandr Serpent writing at the bottom of the sea. We learned that trees didn't have gods in them, etc. God lived for a while in the heavens which could be traveled to -- like Jacob's Ladder, and folks could be taken up to heaven physically by moving up through the sky. We figured out that wasn't true either. So, since we've played hide and seek with the gods for millenia now, and the gods or God now occupy some place in hyperspace, conveniently "outside the universe" and "outside of time", and isn't directly involved in bringing on storms and earthquakes, etc., but rather he's sort of the prime mover who created everything and let it all unfold, and he gave the so called "spark of life" - etc. -- conveniently occupying only those remaining spaces where we can't tell he's not there -- he only occupies the unfalsifiable places....
Indeed. A pattern of illogic, unreason and over-use of the Atheist's Fallacy by atheists trying to speciously prove God does not exist....is that "disproof of gods?" No. But, there does appear to be a pattern that has developed...
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
- Schneibster
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Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
Oh, and I just thought: failing's not always bad. Failing to be a racist, for example.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. -Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -Thomas Jefferson

Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
Failing to be a racist is doubly bad because not only were you trying to be a racist, but that you failed in your attempt to do so, which means you failed twice.Schneibster wrote:Oh, and I just thought: failing's not always bad. Failing to be a racist, for example.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
- Schneibster
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Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
You don't have to try, to fail. Try not trying in a sword fight and let me know how it works out for you.Seth wrote:Failing to be a racist is doubly bad because not only were you trying to be a racist, but that you failed in your attempt to do so, which means you failed twice.Schneibster wrote:Oh, and I just thought: failing's not always bad. Failing to be a racist, for example.
ETA: Do not post

or
Much to learn, he has
Thank you.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. -Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -Thomas Jefferson

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Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
Some people on this forum have way too much time on their hands, and/or they are olympic standard speed typists... 

Nurse, where the fuck's my cardigan?
And my gin!
And my gin!
- Gawdzilla Sama
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Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
"And my point is that it's hubris at the very least to assume that he knows more about creating universes than God does."
Hubris is a victimless crime.
Hubris is a victimless crime.
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Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
Coder.JimC wrote:Some people on this forum have way too much time on their hands, and/or they are olympic standard speed typists...

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. -Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -Thomas Jefferson

- Schneibster
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Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
You know, that very same quote struck me, but for a different reason: I'm having trouble finding a definition of "life" that doesn't include matter. Doesn't strike me as "hubris" at all, and calling it that strikes me as a category error.Gawdzilla wrote:"And my point is that it's hubris at the very least to assume that he knows more about creating universes than God does."
Hubris is a victimless crime.
Just sayin'.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. -Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -Thomas Jefferson

Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
In order to "fail" at something, you have to try to accomplish it first. Otherwise it's just "not being a racist." You said "failing to be a racist," which necessarily implies that you tried to be a racist but were unsuccessful. Now, it may be a good thing that you're not successful at being a racist, but you're still a failure because you tried to do something and failed at it.Schneibster wrote:You don't have to try, to fail. Try not trying in a sword fight and let me know how it works out for you.Seth wrote:Failing to be a racist is doubly bad because not only were you trying to be a racist, but that you failed in your attempt to do so, which means you failed twice.Schneibster wrote:Oh, and I just thought: failing's not always bad. Failing to be a racist, for example.
ETA: Do not post![]()
or
Much to learn, he has
Thank you.
A "sword fight" necessarily implies that two or more individuals are trying to fight with swords. If one person fails to fight, he may get killed through that failure, but that's not a "sword fight," that's an "attack by one person with a sword on another who cannot or will not fight," not a "failure to fight."
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
Guilty on all counts.JimC wrote:Some people on this forum have way too much time on their hands, and/or they are olympic standard speed typists...
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
Re: Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?
Wrong again, as usual.Gawdzilla wrote:"And my point is that it's hubris at the very least to assume that he knows more about creating universes than God does."
Hubris is a victimless crime.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
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