true, but it leaves open the possibility you said, " Positing god as the origin of existence doesn't really get us anywhere, philosophically." , I said neither does the dot exploding (BB)
We should probably define some basic essentials for what makes a god, before starting. In the Christian paradigm (with which I'm most familiar), God ceasing to exist would be irrational by the definition of what God is. Still, the universe's dependence on God does not mean the two are the same. You could ask, "what if the universe ceased to exist one day, would that obliterate God?" I think most people would tell you No. So, the question of his existence does have existential weight beyond that of the universe itself. God popping into existence after the world makes even less sense than God disappearing. What would that imply about God that he was a later-comer? That he is not timeless, nor omnipotent, nor is he the creator. Who believes in a God like that? I don't think I can make any sense of a hypothetical like this. I disagree on 2 points. (1) The extent to which they help explain anything about the world is not the only criterion for importance. If there exists a God that will decide whether you will exist in eternal bliss or eternal damnation, he's important to you whether you understand anything or not. (2) Knowing one way or the other about God has a profound impact on your understanding of the world. If there is no God, your existence and circumstance are meaningless; success and suffering, kindness, sin, everything is meaningless in a cosmic snese. If there is a God who intended your existence, you have meaning. That strikes me as a big difference. On the flipside, if you learned these unicorns did exist, your life would be the same, except with the knowledge these unicorns exist too. I like to think of it as the inverse of Pascal's Wager, which I agree is weaksauce. My complaint is that the Wager is so machiavellian as to render itself ineffective; you won't succeed in making yourself believe in God for the sake of your salvation when you trully believe its bs. As for determining first who God is and whether he exists, I don't believe that's necessary (and, it's a nonstarter anyway). Identify the candidates. Evaluate the implications of each. Throw away the ones that don't matter to you. Examine the remaining candidates for authenticity. As I do this exercise, I find the ones that don't promise benefit/punishment in this world or an afterlife are not important to me, even if true. Those remaining, I look at and discard on the basis of the credibility of their specific claims of authenticity. That's not Pascal's Wager, which advocates religion even if it is false; I'm arguing to only accept religion if you feel confident it is meaningful. I listed the elements of evidence to demonstrate the robustness that is often used in place of proof in most human endeavor. I'll leave the credibility of the particular evidences to the beholder. I do not find them credible, which is why I'm not a Christian. Someone else would feel differently about it. This is an area where rational thought can be applied, but scientific experimentation cannot be. How are you to measure someone's personal relationship with God? They will either be convinced they have one or won't be. You could likewise say you have a personal relationship with invisible pink unicorns, but you'd be lying. Christians who say they have a personal relationship with God are sincere. Of course it is arbitrary; that's why people disagree.
Just glancing at it, these quotes aren't the actual ones in the verses listed. I know that 2 John 1:10 doesn't say anything about shunning non-Christians. Since at the time this was a sect of Judaism they weren't considered Christians.
Look, I've avoided this thread like the plauge since it became a "you're stupid and illogical if you believe in God" extravanganza. But please do me a favor and not quote scripture incorrectly and out of its broader context, without any grasp whatsoever of why each of those books or letters was written or any appreciation of the circumstances surrounding it, in an attempt to support your "argument." It's false, weak and completely unfounded.
I think that's the problem I was trying to address earlier. If one looks at the bible the way a Kindergartner looks at books, it's easy to rail against it. I'm far from any kind of expert, and wish I knew more than I do, but just reading the book from an adult's point of view and delving beyond the most superficial glances of the bible would eliminate some YugoRocket's confusion.
Understanding the context of the narrative from start to finish without picking out a verse here and there to either attack or support some other argument would be good practice for televangelists and people who start websites called evilbible.com
Yes it would be. It's especially true in the case of most of those quotes from evilbible. All you have to do is read the story in its entirety, to see what the point is.
Too easy. But honestly, I dont mind what people beileve in but when you accept it as facts and shun everyone who doesnt beileve in it it makes me laugh, I think Christians have to be the biggest hypocrites on Earth.
Take it easy. I'm an atheist and while most of the Christians I've encountered have not been very Christ-like, MadMax is one of the exceptions. I really don't care what other people believe provided they are thoughtful and consistent in their beliefs and kind to others. If you read MadMax's posts you will find he fits those criteria and any other criteria I can think of when considering what I believe a good person to be.
You have demonstrated that you don't even know what Christianity is. Madmax hasn't shunned others who disagree with him. He has shunned you, because you have demonstrated that you no understanding of the bible, or Christianity. You have shown a complete lack of anything beyond the most surface of examinations into what is in the bible. You try and present the bible as a list of rules. That was never supposed to be the purpose of the bible. You look at bits and pieces of a biblical story and try and assign the whole story meaning based on that part, rather than look at the whole. IT's like looking at the story of Robin Hood, and claiming that the message of the story is to rob people and kill. There are bit and pieces of the story that make it seem like that's what it's about if you only read those parts of the story. But anyone who's read the whole thing, knows better.
I do know what Christianity is. I do know more about religion than the average Christian. I never said the bible was a set of rules, I said it was basically just a religious book. I dont look down at people for what they believe in, but if they try to claim that it is fact then thats what ticks me off I cant agree with the ideas centered around the christian religion, how we came to be, how the Earth got here and so forth. Id rather just beileve in facts, like evolution, we will never find out how we got here and the point of life, but Im gonna live the way I want without having to worship some mythological creature.
Your posts do not support your self perception. Your sneering condescension and condemnation is no less un-Christian than the believers you rail against. ...and I am not a believer.
They dont because I purposely act this way to tick people off online, it works for some reason. I usually stay out of religious conversations unless I hear people say something totally dumb, but we wont get into that.
JV- Before going point-by-point, I want to take a step back and make sure we don't forget the origin of our dispute. My claim is that being agnostic about God is no more justified than being agnostic about Invisible Pink Unicorns. Your main argument against that position (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that the concept of God has more existential weight than the concept of IPU's and therefore deserves more consideration. I disagree on the grounds that concepts cannot by themselves have any existential weight beyond the fact that they are concepts. The concept "God" must be distinguished from the actual God, and the same goes for IPU's. Because neither God nor IPU's are known to exist, they by definition have no existential wieght (I will expound on this point later). If the universe ceased to exist, the persisting existence of God would become trivial to us, as we would ourselves no longer exist. If a God--a Deist one, perhaps--ceased to exist, it would similarly be a trivial event. However, if there was some God that could cease to exist and from whom's absence we could notice a discernable difference in the universe, then that God is reducable (as far as we're concerned) to whatever material phenomena are effected in such an event. The hypothetical is absurde as a result of the absurdity of the concept of God. As with IPU's, God doesn't mean anything because there is no signified to which the sign, or signifier, refers. Everything we know about existence suggests that it is non-permanent. Why should God be exempt from the conclusions of our observations? To answer this point I refer back to the critique of Pascal's Wager: God is equally likely to damn you as reward you for any given behavior/belief. We have no insight into the qualities of God. It does not matter whether or not God exists because her existence does not demand any particular response. You're equivocating existence with essence here. Agnosticism is concerned with whether something exists, not what that thing would be like if it were to exist. The question of existence is prior to any essential considerations. This is why both concepts, those of God and IPU's, have equal existential weight--our knowledge is about the concepts, not the things themselves. For all we know, God may be an IPU, in which case the entire distinction between agnostics about God vs. agnostics about IPU's is short-circuited. I actually have to run out, so I'll get to the rest later (probably Monday, as I'm going out of town this weekend). Again, thanks for the lively and interesting discussion.
YugoRocketsFan, I am a Christian pastor. It is not important to me if you know what Christianity is. I am a below average Christian. You cannot possibly know much about Jesus unless you walk in His shoes (so to speak) I would not judge so much about you until I had 'walked in your shoes a few miles" The ideas of Jesus do not center around anything you mentioned. And living the way you want is nothing to be proud of you don't have a choice. Jesus is not mythological by definition. I would be happy to discuss Jesus with you. Christianity is too broad a topic, let's narrow it to Jesus Christ, He is the topic of Christianity.
classic definition of a troll......THAT is why you got negative repped. you were tactless enough to try to instigate against three people who have always been very respectful of other's views and ftr....unless something changed and I wasnt told, the only people who can neg-rep are mods...so don't go blaming any of these folks.
You're a pastor? Great, bet you rake in the money every sunday. Anything in life is a choice, I choose to be Atheist, I choose to go to college, I choose what I want at Taco Bell and I choose to not break any laws which is why I have been Jailed or pulled over, its common sense that does this not religion., your actions are commited by you, no God, no Jesus. Hitler didnt kill 6 million people because "God" told him to do it but because he thought that he was doing "God's work". We human beings have been brought up to beileve whatever is told to us, Ive chosen a different path, to see everything that is in front of me and anything that has evidence, there are many things we cant see like Evolution and such but we know that it is fact (Im talking Micro, not Macro since Macro is still a theory)
