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Author Topic:   Can the Christian God exist without the Bible?
vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


Message 73 of 106 (672403)
09-07-2012 5:27 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by Hawkins
09-07-2012 3:07 PM


You need to think about this a bit more.
In your post, Hawkins, you say:
On the other hand, if a God wants your belief/faith, at least He should do the following 2 things.
First He needs to leave humans with an infallible reference for humans to follow, or else humans don't even know who God is, not to speak how to follow Him.
Second He needs to assign an earthly authority as a keeper of this infallible reference, and to carry it forward alongside human history. Or else, anyone at any point may pop up to claim that his version of reference is the genuine one. On the other hand, because this is an earthly authority it may go corrupted at some point of history. So this authority must be re-assignable.
There is no logical connection between your premise and your two conclusions.
Let me propose two different conclusions to the same premise:
"On the other hand, if a God wants your belief/faith, at least He should do the following 2 things.
First, he should put in an appearance on Earth every 10 years or so, and undertake a magical, un-scientific miracle, to really get the people on their knees.
Second, he should consider designing the men and women that he created in such a way that they have no mental option other than to believe in and worship him. They should be hard wired that way."
Same premise, different conclusions. Neither set of conclusions any more valid than the other. You are choosing the conclusions which fit your own preconceptions, and pretending that they are the only logical ones. This is not the case.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Hawkins, posted 09-07-2012 3:07 PM Hawkins has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 74 by hooah212002, posted 09-07-2012 5:36 PM vimesey has replied

  
vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


Message 75 of 106 (672406)
09-07-2012 5:44 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by hooah212002
09-07-2012 5:36 PM


Re: You need to think about this a bit more.
But then, in the quotation from Hawkins' post, what are the "infallible reference" and the earthly authority, other than an attempt to appeal to evidence ?
Don't get me wrong - I agree that faith is belief without evidence - but I have a special difficulty with a faith which claims that other faiths are demonstrably incorrect, because the first faith's book is the best book.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by hooah212002, posted 09-07-2012 5:36 PM hooah212002 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by hooah212002, posted 09-07-2012 5:52 PM vimesey has replied

  
vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


Message 77 of 106 (672411)
09-07-2012 6:03 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by hooah212002
09-07-2012 5:52 PM


Re: You need to think about this a bit more.
Don't they all say/do that? Even Christian church A does it to Christian church B and random Christian A does it to random Christian B, so on and so forth.
A lot of the time, definitely. I do take some comfort from fairly recent attempts at dialogue and co-operation between the Anglican church and the Muslim Council, but a lot of the time, you're absolutely right - there is a lot of cross-religion/cross-denominational conflict over differing views. And I retain a special difficulty with this, particularly when, at the heart of many of those religions/denominations' teachings are love, deference, tolerance and respect.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by hooah212002, posted 09-07-2012 5:52 PM hooah212002 has seen this message but not replied

  
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