Will The Real God Please Stand Up?

The Bible can be used, but it can not be treated as authoritative.The fact that the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Harvey the pookah are not mentioned in the Bible can not be taken as evidence against them. Similarly, the fact that Jesus or Sophia are mentioned in the Bible can not be taken as evidence in their favour.In the question of "Who is God?", the Bible can carry no more weight than the Bhagavad-Gita or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or the adventures of Huckleberry Hound. Their identification is the question, not the answer.

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Well, I insist on using the English meaning of your words. That's yer problem right there. Ain't none of us "transcendent" here, so yer "transcendent" words ain't got no more meanin' than the whistlin' o' the wind. This proceeding exists to find out Who Is. Who You Are is not a given.If you care to prove Who You Are, then stand up, as you have been asked, and give your evidence. Otherwise, go whistle.

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That's part of the problem with your approach - you presuppose that God was ever at the meeting.If you submit four candidates and the premise that only one of them can be God, you imply that three of them must not be God. Unless you deliberately stacked the strawman so that your favourite would win, we have to conclude that any of them might not be God.And if any of them might not be God, then all of them might not be God.Bottom line: we have to demand the same standards from all of them (and from any other candidates who step up).Since the OP refers to "the nature of God", we have to determine what the nature of God is before we can decide Who has that nature and who doesn't.

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At last, some progress. A "Supreme Being" would not produce such a non sequitur, so we can firmly rule out Malachi-II as God. An embarassment of riches - he gives us two proofs that he is not God. He fails to understand a simple OP.

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Deftly "noting the presupposition" doesn't make it any less prejudicial.Isn't this proceeding complicated enough without adding extraneous issues, such as "sin", that some of the candidates don't even recognize? The admitted fact that His "followers" fail to follow Him in any meaningful way should count against Him. Billions of people **yawning** ask, "Who?"

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Are we? Then why would we expect Him to show up at the meeting? Willingness is not the issue. We have not established yet whether or not God is "embraceable". Isn't "collective Ego" an oxymoron? Aren't we trying to sift through all the different egos (and Egos), the different views of the nature of God? I've been avoiding smilies (mostly) because I don't think they're appropriate for such a solemn proceeding. But if we're taking a break:That's better.

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That's what I've been asking from the beginning.

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One thing we've learned about the nature of God: He didn't create paragraphs.

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You're making assumptions about the nature of God. That "difference" has not been established here. Two more unwarranted assumptions: first that Jesus rose from the dead and second that it was done by some external power. Neither sheds any light on the nature of God. Tolkien created a universe. Asimov, Bradbury and Clarke created lots of 'em.Who's to say the universe created by your God is more "real". The YECs have proven that theirs isn't. Invalid conclusion.You know to call an electrician, but you don't always call the right one. The one you call might be too busy or he might be a screwup. You know to call a doctor, but he will often refer you to a different doctor.You may feel the need to call a deity instead of self-medicating or self-elecrifying. But you might be calling one who is too busy or one who screws up or one who will refer you to a Specialist.

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What is Gandhi's success? What is Martin Luther King's success? What is Albert Schweitzer's success? Better than most.

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I would think that He would be Self-righteous by definition. And He would know the difference between pedantry and clarity.

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Sure He could, by you own definition:

quote:

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Self-righteous, confident of one’s own righteousness....

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Is God not confident of His own righteousness? Which I did. My vast fan club is unlikely to change their opinion of me at this late date. If only out of courtesy, I don't always shoot to kill.

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And you failed to include the word "esp." which is in your own definition. "Especially" but not "exclusively".Yes, God is confident in His own righteousness, even if He isn't smug about it. Thanks for noticing. Boo hoo.

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Out of curiosity, who challenged your sincerity?

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Just to clarify, we're not required to have "genuine respect" for our listeners. We're only required to show respect. The problem is that we can't always see the "core issue of his subject" if his terminology is unclear. Hence the nitpickery.You may also be familiar with the concept that I only have to break one of the legs of your table to make it fall over - even if it is a very tiny leg that you don't think is significant. That's what smilies are for. Do I need to increase my smilification for your benefit?
Here's one I don't use very often: ------------- Unfortunately, that doesn't constitute evidence in this proceeding.

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