|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
 Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:24 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| Quote: |
All logic, reason, and rationality sides strongly against the Christian God. That doesn't mean said God doesn't exist, just that:
1) It's probably unlikely.
2) Even if he does, the people who were incidentally correct about it were correct through no merit of their own. |
Reason sides against the Christian God? I don't see how.
| Quote: |
| Saying "God exists, I just know it," isn't an argument, it's a statement. |
Whatever you want to call it, it's a completely valid belief.
| Fox wrote: |
the best I can do is:
1) Reinforce that we have no rational reason what so ever to believe in this God. |
What if scientific experiment revealed that belief in God were healthy? Would that be a 'rational reason?' You don't have to answer that, but my point is this: reason itself is limited when confronted with the question of the existence of God. However, reason has much to say about theology, which presumes the existence of God as an initial assumption (I won't use a priori anymore to avoid confusion in light of Sergio's points).
| Fox wrote: |
| 2) Reinforce how seemingly contradictory and ludicrious this particular account of God is, with the implication that something so contradictory and ludicrious is also very implausible. |
A lot of adjectives and adverbs there. Okay, so I'll bite, what is it about the Christian God (as opposed to say the Deist God or the Aristotelian prime mover) that is so contradictory and ludicrous?
| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| The interesting thing is that laws of nature themselves are an unverifiable assumption. |
We can observe the equivalence of mass and energy in a nuclear reactor. It is not, at all, an unverifiable assumption.
Laws of nature: things are what they are (a=a, Law of Identity) and behave as they do in virtue of what they are (Law of Causality). That is not an unverifiable assumption - it is true a priori, a metaphysical primary and elementary logic. "God exists", in clear contrast, is a posteriori.
|
Yes, these a priori assumptions are unverifiable, even if incredibly convincing. I want to leave the Law of Identity alone (there's a reason I didn't select it) and instead focus on Causality. Any given scientific experiment can reveal coincidence but not causation: the causation is interpretation (completely reasonable and valid interpretation, if all other coincidences can be excluded). But it is yet interpretation.
God exists is not an a posteriori assumption because it is not based on empirical investigation or evidence. Junior here appears to me to be saying we can get to God through evidence. That would be preposterous.
Neither is it a proper a priori assumption, you're right. Kant termed it an antinomy.
| Sergio wrote: |
| Genesis and Exodus have been falsified (they didn't happen). |
Neither did the Greek myths, not literally speaking. Throw them out! Nothing worth reading there.
| Sergio wrote: |
| This means the bad theist (you) has to invent new data - metaphor, allegory, etc - in order to keep Christianity true forever. |
Hello, Justin Hale. Well, I guess we'll always have nuclear power. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:31 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Kuros wrote: |
| Sergio wrote: |
| Genesis and Exodus have been falsified (they didn't happen). |
Neither did the Greek myths, not literally speaking. Throw them out! Nothing worth reading there.
|
Nah, just put them on the same shelf. Love to work in a bookshop.
"Where's your bibles?"
"Over there, between Greek and Norse myths" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ED209 wrote: |
| some waygug-in wrote: |
| ED209 wrote: |
Who is he? The poor Christian's Indiana Jones. Sorry, even AnswersInGenesis have called what he does a scam. Does Wyatt ever name the labs that tested the blood? Or does he always refer to them as 'such n' such n' such n' such?
fail |
http://www.wyattmuseum.com/Zedekiahs%20Cave.htm
He says it was a lab in Israel, that's all. As for the excavations at the cave, he was not in charge of them, his group sponsors the work but under the authority of IAA (Israeli Antiqities Authority) |
Sorry, but surely it would be really despairing for most Christians to believe that a person would base their belief in God on this. |
Who said I or anyone else based their belief on just those things here, these are just in addition to what has already been shown/believed.
http://www.bibleplus.org/discoveries/arkintro.htm
You can watch more videos of Ron Wyatt and his sons on the above link, just scroll down to the bottom of the page.
I don't agree with 7 th day adventist theology, but I do believe Ron Wyatt was chosen by God to do what he did, just like I believe Brother Branham was chosen by God to do the work he did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjADl-STpBM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJIDcL3LuhM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KV8_2ApPUA&NR=1
Last edited by some waygug-in on Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ED209 wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| Sergio wrote: |
| Genesis and Exodus have been falsified (they didn't happen). |
Neither did the Greek myths, not literally speaking. Throw them out! Nothing worth reading there.
|
Nah, just put them on the same shelf. Love to work in a bookshop.
"Where's your bibles?"
"Over there, between Greek and Norse myths" |
ROFL |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:29 am Post subject: |
|
|
| some waygug-in wrote: |
Who said I or anyone else based their belief on just those things here, these are just in addition to what has already been shown/believed. |
I was just saying it would be foolish to believe this simply based on his unverified claims. And that even Christians as fundamentalist as AIG reject what Wyatt claims.
| some waygug-in wrote: |
You can watch more videos of Ron Wyatt and his sons on the above link, just scroll down to the bottom of the page.
I don't agree with 7 th day adventist theology, but I do believe Ron Wyatt was chosen by God to do what he did, just like I believe Brother Branham was chosen by God to do the work he did.
|
Why would you put such faith in someone that could easily be making it all up? Where's that pesky evidence? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:42 am Post subject: |
|
|
Click on the link and read the update at the bottom,
watch the videos if you like, if you still think he was faking these things...
I don't know. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:25 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Kuros wrote: |
| Junior here appears to me to be saying we can get to God through evidence. That would be preposterous. |
If archaeology only confirms to the minutest detail the accounts of some historic text, wouldn't you assume the unverifiable parts of it to be honest and accurate as well?
But not only archaeology. Other secular texts confirm the accounts of Jesus. Not to mention that scientific discoveries later confirmed numerous statements in the bible. The evidence points to the credibility of the bible, not away from it. Of course it requires faith to accept as true the accounts of miracles etc but even these are attested to by reputable historians of the time. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 5:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Julius wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Jesus dying on the cross in no way deals with anyone's sin, especially since the standard penalty for sin according to Christianity far exceeds what Jesus went through. |
By dying, going to hell, and then returning to life Jesus demonstrated a triumph over death. The disciples had lost heart after the crucifiction- they went into hiding and gave up.Had Jesus not risen after 3 days then nobody could have known that he was God or that there was any solution to the problem of death by believing in him. As for the extent of his his sacrfice, we are told that he has undergone every suffering and pain that people endure. |
That's a nice faerie tale. It also at best tangentally related to the text of mine which you are responding to, a common phenomenon in your responses. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 5:27 am Post subject: |
|
|
| flakfizer wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
| God is just. To allow sin to go unpunished, unpaid for, would be unjust. |
No it wouldn't. Only extremely primitive concepts of justice demand such things. Given the Bible was penned by members of an extremely primitive culture, it's not surprising that their understanding of justice would also be primitive.
|
No, only extreme holiness demands such things. |
Holiness is yet another made up concept that I have no reason to believe exists.
| flakfizer wrote: |
| What we have gotten used to and have learned to shrug off is still offensive to Him. |
You're describing God as a remarkably juvenille person. If he finds something offensive, not only can he not tolerate it's presence (unless his supposed son gives it the okay, in which case he suddenly can tolerate it), but he's inclined to consign that which he finds offensive to eternal torture. Even most elementary school children are more reasonable than that. They realize if they don't like something, they can just walk away.
I find lots of things offensive. I don't go around mercilessly torturing people because of it, because I'm a reasonable, ethical person. If God's benevolences and ethics fail even in comparison to mine, well, that's pretty pathetic. There's a reason Christians want to apply a different measuring stick to God's action than they would to anyone else's: because by any reasonable measuring stick, their God is an irrational, contradictory monster.
| flakfizer wrote: |
| I think it is difficult for people to grasp what holiness is and means. |
If holiness means condemning people who do things you don't like to eternal torture, I certainly don't consider it a virtue. If holiness means being totally unable to tolerate things you disagree with, it seems more akin to childishness than virtue. Nothing about what you describe makes me feel anything but revulsion for this hypothetical God. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
SeoulFinn
Joined: 27 Feb 2006
Location: 1h from Seoul
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 5:41 am Post subject: |
|
|
Have you ever read any books about Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Captain Nemo, Sinuhe the Egyptian, Shogun(*)... , Phantom, Tintin, Asterix and Obelix? All these books hold abundance of historically verifiable data, such as people's names and places. Does this make these characters any more real? No. We know for sure that all of them are fictional, because the author told us so.
Could it be that the early Christians may have placed their hero(es) of their cause within the boundaries of the real world in order to make the story more believable and marketable? Isn't this what the Greeks (Japanese, Norwegians etc.) did, but "no one" is claiming that Zeus is real! Failing to tie Jesus and his miracles into our world would have been stupid beyond imagination, as only few would have taken the stories seriously: "Where did you say this Jesus character was doing all his miracles? Oh, in a place far away over the sea? Umm, I think I keep worshiping Poseidon as He's here. But thanks anyway!"
Was there a character named Jesus? Probably there was. Actually, I'm sure there were many. Was any of them divine and did he perform miracles? I don't think so.
I believe the Bible to be a collection of ancient myths that have floated around middle-East for ages. Some beneficial myths for the cause were included in the book, while some were expunged at the Convention of Nicaea.
SeoulFinn
PS. What ticks me is any religion (or group of righteous people) that claims to have the only truth and follow to only real God. Well, if there are so many religions with millions of devout and absolutely sincere followers, then they all can't be correct. If there is ONE God, and he's not worshipped under different names in different cultures, then most of the "true believers" are in the wrong.
(*) A bad example, as a part of John Blackthorne's character in Shogun is based on a English sailor by the name of John Adams. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 5:58 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Julius wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| Junior here appears to me to be saying we can get to God through evidence. That would be preposterous. |
If archaeology only confirms to the minutest detail the accounts of some historic text, wouldn't you assume the unverifiable parts of it to be honest and accurate as well? |
No, especially when the unverifiable parts of it deal in magic powers and people coming back from the dead. But then, I've read a lot of fantasy, so I have a healthy understanding of the fact that books aren't always true. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:05 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Kuros wrote: |
| Quote: |
All logic, reason, and rationality sides strongly against the Christian God. That doesn't mean said God doesn't exist, just that:
1) It's probably unlikely.
2) Even if he does, the people who were incidentally correct about it were correct through no merit of their own. |
Reason sides against the Christian God? I don't see how. |
That's because you don't want to see how, regardless of what is said on the topic (and a lot has been in this thread alone, much less in society in general). And that's fine. But surely even you must recognize that there's a reason the defenders of Christianity have been forced to fall back from literal to figurative interpretations of their holy book, and have been forced to invent increasingly more convoluted and questionable defenses of the actions of their alleged God. It's because they do not have a strong, intellectually sound case, and if you do not have a strong, intellectually sound case, reason is not on your side.
| Kuros wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Saying "God exists, I just know it," isn't an argument, it's a statement. |
Whatever you want to call it, it's a completely valid belief. |
Well, it's a belief. As far as validity goes, it depends on what you mean. If you mean it's a belief they've got the right to hold, you're correct, it's a valid belief. If you mean it's a belief that they have good intellectual reason to maintain, then no, it's not.
Either way, they're welcome to their beliefs so long as they don't try to inflict them upon our society in the form of legislation (something that seems quite challenging for quite a few of them).
| Kuros wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
the best I can do is:
1) Reinforce that we have no rational reason what so ever to believe in this God. |
What if scientific experiment revealed that belief in God were healthy? Would that be a 'rational reason?' |
I've seen certain studies that do claim to reveal that. I would say that no, that's not a rational reason, though individuals might feel the benefits are worth believing anyway (I doubt anyone could find it in themselves to truly believe in God for health benefits, but maybe some exist).
| Kuros wrote: |
| You don't have to answer that, but my point is this: reason itself is limited when confronted with the question of the existence of God. |
Yes, it is limited, but it's still ultimately all we've got. Reason is our best and brightest intellectual tool. It's not perfect, but we've nothing better. When it comes to an important topic with essentially no observable data, anything not backed by reason is only as persuasive or believable as the listener wants it to be.
Reason probably isn't ever going to disprove or prove God's existence. When something is totally unproven and has not been disproven, generally the intellectually correct reserve judgement but act as if it isn't so. This is why I can walk out of my door every day without fear of being jousted down by invisible knights, why I can eat food without fear that someone poisoned it, and why I can live my life without fear of a monsterous, evil Christian God sending me to Hell for not loving his son.
A number of other people in this thread can manage the first two things, but their cult indoctrinations unfortunately make the third impossible, and I'm sorry for that, because it amounts to mental abuse from where I stand.
| Kuros wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| 2) Reinforce how seemingly contradictory and ludicrious this particular account of God is, with the implication that something so contradictory and ludicrious is also very implausible. |
A lot of adjectives and adverbs there. Okay, so I'll bite, what is it about the Christian God (as opposed to say the Deist God or the Aristotelian prime mover) that is so contradictory and ludicrous? |
Why do I need to say "as opposed to" to make my point? The vast majority of religions throughout history have been contradictory and ludicrious. Your God is just as silly and questionable to me as Zeus, or Quetzocoatl, or the Tuatha de Danaan of the ancient people of Ireland, or any other ancient religion you care to name. All interesting folk stories, all totally ridiculous to actually believe in.
If you are genuinely interested in reading one of the "religious" models I find substantially less contradictory or ridiculous, try Spinoza. In fact, you may have all ready read him. Mind you, I'm not saying he's right (especially in the ethics he proposes as a result of his metaphysical claims), just that his proposed model is not just interesting, but barely (and arguably not at all) contradictory, and not particularly ludicrious (probably due to the fact that it was constructed by a single man rather than an entire desert tribe).
Of course his reasoning is entirely circular and he provides no evidence what so ever, so it's not something that can simply be accepted, but it's got an elegant plausibility because it's not utterly drown in the irrational nonsense and folk lore that many other religions are.
Last edited by Fox on Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:21 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Fox wrote: |
You're describing God as a remarkably juvenille person. If he finds something offensive, not only can he not tolerate it's presence (unless his supposed son gives it the okay, in which case he suddenly can tolerate it), but he's inclined to consign that which he finds offensive to eternal torture. Even most elementary school children are more reasonable than that. They realize if they don't like something, they can just walk away.
|
His Son gives it the ok? His Son did not give sin the ok and God did not suddenly tolerate sin. His Son made the sinner ok by bearing the punishment of sin in his stead. If God was suddenly ok with sin, there would have been no need for Christ's death.
Again, "reasonable" to you because you find it reasonable to ignore sin. I love the idea of "walking away" when seeing something "they don't like." Sure. Don't like seeing someone get raped? Just walk away! Don't like seeing someone get mugged? Just walk away! Oh, but those are serious sins that are truly offensive not like those other sins which don't really matter..unless you happen to be holy and hate sin. If only God, on seeing the sin of man, had simply walked away instead of sending his Son to bear the penalty of sin. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
| flakfizer wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
You're describing God as a remarkably juvenille person. If he finds something offensive, not only can he not tolerate it's presence (unless his supposed son gives it the okay, in which case he suddenly can tolerate it), but he's inclined to consign that which he finds offensive to eternal torture. Even most elementary school children are more reasonable than that. They realize if they don't like something, they can just walk away.
|
His Son gives it the ok? His Son did not give sin the ok and God did not suddenly tolerate sin. His Son made the sinner ok by bearing the punishment of sin in his stead. |
The punishment for one person's sin is being barred from Heaven forever and going to Hell indefinitely. Jesus didn't even do that; he spent a very short time in Hell, then went to Heaven. How can Jesus not even bearing sufficient punishment for one person's sin somehow attone for the sins of an indefinite number of people?
Further, true justice doesn't inflict suffering upon an innocent. If Jesus was a true innocent, then this was just another miscarriage of justice.
Irrational nonsense.
| flakfizer wrote: |
| Again, "reasonable" to you because you find it reasonable to ignore sin. |
Yeah, I do, because I'm a calm, rational person that can put things into perspective. Evidently your God isn't.
| flakfizer wrote: |
| I love the idea of "walking away" when seeing something "they don't like." Sure. Don't like seeing someone get raped? Just walk away! Don't like seeing someone get mugged? Just walk away! |
The answer certainly isn't to apprehend the rapist or mugger and torture them forever.
That said, stop talking about sin as if it's all rape and muggery. People are sinners by default in Christianity; even if you do nothing wrong for your entire life, you're a sinner. According to you, God can't even tolerate a baby in the cradle. He has a remarkably low tolerance level. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
| some waygug-in wrote: |
Click on the link and read the update at the bottom,
watch the videos if you like, if you still think he was faking these things...
I don't know. |
| Quote: |
| It appears that God has hidden the Ark from current eyes, as the search was not conducted in faith, but rather to please skeptics. |
I guess God has blinded us and Wyatt's efforts were in vain. Isn't it just typical, God guides this man to find evidence of biblical stories then just when people ask for it to be verified, God snatches it all back again. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
