Calvinism and Arminianism remix

It only does not make sense if you are contrasting it to the God you created.Throw the God you created away.You are rewriting the story to fit the caricature you created instead of reading what the author of the story actually says. You are doing classic apologetics; perverting the Bible to make it fit YOUR narrative.The author(s) of the story found in Genesis 2&3 did not worship a god anything like the God you created or bought. In fact, the god character in Genesis 2&3 is simply a literary device, a god the author(s) created to use in the story. The God the people of the milieu worshiped was very human, certainly capable of lying, cheating and whatever other characteristics were needed to move the story along.In the story the God creates a tree that can give the knowledge of right & wrong, of Good & Evil. The God then tells the people they cannot eat the fruit from that tree. By telling them that they cannot eat that fruit the God character starts them thinking about that fruit.Go back to the Tree. It bestows the knowledge of right and wrong. I repeat; It bestows the knowledge of right and wrong.Until Adam & Eve actually eat from the tree they are simply incapable of understanding that they should obey God. What God says and what the Serpent says are equally valid. They have absolutely no way of knowing which person they should obey.The God character in the story says "If you eat the fruit you will die!" The God character does not say "If you eat from the other tree you will live forever!".The Serpent says "God is just funnin you. Genieen. Genieen. It's good and if you eat from the tree you will become more like God."So what actually happens in the story?They eat and suddenly realize that they did wrong and they feel guilty.They do not die either physically or spiritually.They are not separated from God.They do learn to tell the difference between right and wrong.And the God character says "Hey, they have become like us!"Who created and promoted the attractive nuisance?Who lied?Who told the truth?It is that tendency for man to create their own God that is common throughout history as well as throughout the Bible stories and to then pervert what is actually written to fit into the narrative of the God the reader created that has lead to totally evil religious practices such as Calvinism.

You've inserted the supernatural into the natural world - how much bigger do you need an unnecessary hypothesis to be?Until you can demonstarte the existence of anything supernatural, the working hypothesis is that the universe is naturally occurring.

No.

Scaredy Cat......

Jerk...

Hydrogen and oxygen have an emergent affinity for each other. They don't need an intelligence to bring them together and tell them what to do. Actually, it probably was by chance. Somebody noticed that rocks containing copper melted in a fire, so they got the idea of making copper tools. Then somebody found out accidentally that copper with certain impurities were stronger. The processes were there all along and didn't need any intelligence to bring them together. All the intelligence contributed was to use the existing processes for its own purposes.If you want to believe that God finally figured out how to Frankenstein life out of existing processes, feel free. Actullay, I'm not arguing that in this thread. I'm arguing that that scenario is simpler than one that adds intelligence to the mix.Adding something complex does not simplify anything. A driveway is simpler than a driveway with a car in it. A bottle is simpler than a bottle with a firefly in it. A blank page is simpler than a page with a sonnet written on it.X is simpler than X + Y. Period.

Really? You can't defend your god's behaviour?

I'm pretty sure I can, but you don't get to tell me what my God does.You just can't get over seeing religion as something that is done to people rather than something that people participate in - which explains why you think you can dictate my beliefs to me. It turns out you're wrong.

I suggest you get on with it then. It's true that I made the assumption that your god was the Christain god, but I didn't imagine that you owned him personally. The point of these fori, is to question and critique beliefs held by believers. You've said that twice now and it's puzzled me - I have never said that religion is something that is done to people and I have no idea what it even means. I'm afraid that's something you've just made up. And why on earth would I think that people don't participate in religion? Seems to me you have a personal problem here.

I haven't inserted anything. I simply have an explanation for cause. Either the world, and specifically cellular life is caused by intelligence or by random chance. So we can see the world naturally occurring but that isn't the point. Is that by a mindless cause or an intelligent cause? You can insert the one you choose to believe.You just have made the incorrect choice.

How do you know that. You just observe what happened but you haven't established whether or not it is by design. But you are arguing that. You are saying that the natural processes that have resulted in the world as we know it are simply driven by a virtually an infinite number of cases of random chance, and that constitutes the cause of it all. I am arguing for the much simpler explanation that instead of the all the cases where random chance played a part in our existence there is simply one cause; a creation by intelligence.

You can believe whatever cause you like, but if we're talking about the principle of Occam's razor, your goddidit is an unnecessary hypothesis. Given that everything else we've ever seen or investigated is naturally occurring, the null hypothesis is natural causes.(This is without even considering the infinite regression involved with a 'causal' god.)

I know it's important to you to keep saying 'random chance' but really, you're smart enough to not do this. Chemical processes are not random, evolution is not random, planetary orbits are not random. If you follow physics, you'll see that there are mathematicians like Hawkings that believe that the universe's self generation was inevitable. This is not something I understand, but it's current thinking which does not require a godly intervention.Believe what you like but don't try to justify it with bad science.

But there is no null hypothesis. It is either random chance or intelligence. Random chance is an hypothesis for cause. ..or considering the regression involved of an infinite number of processes driven solely by random chance.

I agree with you when you say that "chemical processes are not random, evolution is not random, planetary orbits are not random". There is a coherence to them. My point is whether or not the natural chemical processes, the evolutionary forces and planetary orbits are the result of intelligence or not. If not than again it boils down to intelligence or random chance.So Hawking believes that self generation was inevitable. I like you don't understand that either, but assuming he is right then the question remains; was the inevitability there due to chance or intelligence?