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Author | Topic: God says this, and God says that | |||||||||||||||||||||||
John Inactive Member |
quote: Yes gene, you know the stuff that you smell and touch and taste and hear and see? That stuff? Maybe you aren't familiar with it?
quote: And this is where you venture once again deep into fantasy. Lego. Think of Lego. I walk up to my little Lego set and start building with what is there. Some kid comes up to me and starts asking me why I don't build with blocks you can't see or touch and that have no discernable effect on any of the other blocks that I can see. What do you say to this kid? "Shut-up. That's stupid." But until you disprove the invisible blocks you can't discount them either. Then the kid exclaims triumphantly, "Since you are building with the blocks you can see you must be claiming to have positive evidence against the invisible blocks which is contradictory because you don't have evidence against blocks which you can't see or touch so you are assuming that the blocks don't exist so building with the blocks you can see is faith-based too." And the kid sticks out his tongue and scrunches his nose. You BELIEVE this kid is reasonable? Rational? Sensible? Not freaking thoroughly insane?
quote: Do you know the difference between 'evidence against' and 'no evidence for'? You seem to have no grasp of this distinction. ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com
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gene90 Member (Idle past 3822 days) Posts: 1610 Joined: |
quote: Then, I suppose you have found a way to use the material world to give you insider knowledge of the supernatural world? Perhaps you can clear up how an agnostic that claims to have evidence regarding the existance or non-existance of God is not an internal contradiction?
quote: My advice would be that you leave the kid alone because you have no evidence against the 'blocks' he uses and there is no way for you to prove him wrong. Therefore, if you were to engage in a debate with this kid it would turn into a shouting match because neither can prove the other wrong. Either is running on faith. But that's all hypothetical because this is a bad analogy. It's a bad analogy because we all have experience with Lego blocks because they are a part of our natural, everyday world. Hypothetical God(s) are not. God is more elusive and is not necessarily manifest in our physical world in any obvious way, you have to go looking. That does not necessarily mean that God is not there. A real agnostic would admit that he doesn't know if there is a God or there isn't. You're just like the crowd in the art museum in my earlier analogy. You don't know if the box is really empty any more than anybody else, because if you tried to open it security would escort you out. You're just running on faith like the rest of us, no matter how much you want to look superior to us "stupid" Christians.
quote: I've made that distinction, because you seem to be struggling to turn "no evidence for" into "evidence against". That's why you called the kid in your analogy "insane", just as you called my beliefs "insane". Basically, it seems that if you cannot collect direct observations of something, it doesn't exist? What happens when I put my money in a bank? When it's in the vault and you're locked outside you can't "smell", "touch", "taste", "hear", or "see" it. Does that mean it ceased to exist? [This message has been edited by gene90, 12-13-2002]
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John Inactive Member |
quote: Supernatural world? Oh yes, that is that extra-physical universe that your ilk made up and which you insist I disprove.
quote: Perhaps you could explain why you have such a hard time resisting the urge to claim I have said things I haven't?
quote: So, in short, you do believe it is reasonable. LOL......
quote: But one can point to stuff, the other can point to nothing at all.
quote: Of course you need to think so, otherwise the foolishness of what you maintain would come crashing down and sufocate you. It isn't a bad analogy. It is dead-on. Blocks == perceptual data. (The invisible blocks that have no descernable effect on the other blocks, as you have gone to great lengths to point out) == (God or trancendental entities.) The kid building with the tangible blocks would be me and the other kid would be you.
quote: Doesn't really matter to the analogy.
quote: LOL..... What else can I do but start to laugh at this hard-headed repetition?
quote: I don't base my life around what I think is inside that box. I don't argue based upon what I think is inside that box. I don't pretend to know what is inside that box. Christians, and you, do all of these things. You may claim that I don't know. Fine. Never claimed differently. I can argue and investigate and work around that box, without having to know what is in it. You pretend to know. That is the absurd part. You do claim to know. Its funny, really. And claim that that basing a life around pretending to know what is in the box is reasonable.
quote: Actually, dear gene, you are the one desperately trying to make this connection.
quote: It was a question.
quote: No. This is Gene's Logic Fantasy World again. Or, if you prefer, the Misrepresent John Workshop. It doesn't matter if it exists or not, you can't use it, you can't do anything with it if there is no evidence for it.
quote: Talk about bad analogies. Maybe you should be asking if that money exists even though you never had it and thus never deposited it in a bank that has no known connection to the sensory would in which we live? And then ask yourself if it is reasonable to base your life around the assumption that it does, or if it is more reasonable to live as if the money you never had isn't in a bank that you can't see and does not show up on intangible bank statements that never arrive in an ethereal mailbox from which you cannot retrieve the mail anyway? ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com
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John Inactive Member |
{Duplicate of previous message - content deleted - Adminnemooseus}
[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 12-14-2002]
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gene90 Member (Idle past 3822 days) Posts: 1610 Joined: |
quote: You could provide a definition of agnostic that you find more suitable. Or you could redefine your beliefs.
quote: Of course it does. Legos are a part of our naturalistic world. We're quite familiar with them. My problem with your analogy is that you've tried to make belief in God analagous to something that, on the surface, seems ridiculous. Just as your problem with my analogy is that it makes your assumption that what you cannot detect with your sense does not exist ridiculous. Let me ask again. Does not detecting something mean that that something does not exist?
quote: But you are claiming to know what is inside that box. Or more to the point, you are claiming to know what is not inside the box. You do that whenever you claim that Christianity is invalid. I'm merely asking you to support your beliefs. [This message has been edited by gene90, 12-14-2002]
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John Inactive Member |
quote: Because it is analogous to something which is ridiculous. Your critique of the analogy, twice now, has involved claiming that Legos are physical objects unlike God. Of course, that is why I chose them. The Legos represent perceptual reality. What your critique has never touched upon is how the invisible blocks are not analogous to the way you describe God and how the kid advocating the invisible blocks is not like you or like anyone else advocating the belief in a god.
quote: What analogy are you talking about? Because the art gallery analogy makes you look ridiculous, not me, as I explained in my previous post. The money analogy is invalid since it involves only perceptual objects and no untestable objects at all.
quote: No. What it does mean is that the undetectable thing cannot be used as a premise. Using an undetectable thing as a premise is ridiculous, except in the context of testing the premise perhaps.
quote: BS.
quote: Wrong again. I claim that it is silly to argue based upon what is in the box when one has no way of finding out what is in the box and no way, even, of determining IF there is a box at all. ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com
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joz Inactive Member |
Just a quick one John surely the "box" in this case is the uncertainty principle....
I mean thats about the only place it is theoretically impossible to be detected, prime real estate for shy and demure semitic tribal deities I would assume.....
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John Inactive Member |
quote: Gene's box, I think, is some kind of metaphysical universe in which God resides. Both the box and the contents are undetectable, even to the point that they cannot be infered statistically. I happen to think that any God that actually has an hand in the working of the universe ought to be inferrable via some means. Gene disagree though. He has to disagree. Admitting that God can be inferred means that God can be tested and a testable God can be disproven. He appears to fear that more than I. ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com
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funkmasterfreaky Inactive Member |
quote: Thanx for this piece of wisdom Forgiven, I never thought of this, that God just allows us to suffer the consequences of our actions, that the actual punishment is self inflicted, by a bad decision. Then God uses these things to his purpose on my life. I was just thinking of the book of James (one of my favourite) chapter 1: 2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Paul says this almost exact thing in Romans. Anyways thank you Forgiven. ------------------saved by grace
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forgiven Inactive Member |
quote: hi funky... we make good and bad decisions our whole lives... those decisions have absolutely nothing to do with our standing with God or our acceptance by him... he isn't always pleased, of course, just as a human parent wouldn't be pleased when his child behaves poorly... but imo punishment for our actions doesn't enter into it... what would we be punished *for*? sinning? nah, Jesus already paid that debt...
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zipzip Inactive Member |
Hi guys. First of all, I have just read this post for the first time from start to finish. To the current post -- this fits with Hebrews 12 -- punishment for sons that he loves. Just remember that God uses *all things* for the good of those who love him, even their own sins. He allows us our mistakes because his first goal is our salvation and our condition in the next life, not necessarily this one. Funkmaster, your addictions may look like failures in one sense but as far as I can see they were blessings, because they brought you to him.
Funkmasterfreaky, you are a real encouragement to my faith and a solid voice of wisdom (also some other folks here too, but I was struck by your story). Not a drug addict myself but as a physician I have seen a lot of struggles and I don't think many things speak as clearly of God's power as an addict who has been lifted up out of the sewer, shaken clean, and set walking on his/her feet with *dignity*. The problem I see over the last few hundred posts is that this is futile. John, you are not looking to know God. I have a relationship with God that is real, and that is something that you lack, even if you refuse to acknowledge that such a relationship can exist. That is the ultimate point that cannot be gotten over or argued. John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he sent his only son, so that whoever [even me, even you] believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." That is the root of the Good News, John -- God offers us a relationship now and later, eternal life with him and you have to say Yes or No, knowing that your decision will be taken so seriously by God that he will allow you to choose eternity apart from him. If you say Yes, even if you don't know how to believe but want to believe that there is something more to life, he will find you where you are (with all the baggage, self-loathing, old mistakes and embarrassments, vices, failures, physical imperfections, and personality flaws) and help you grow into who you were meant to be. If you continue to say No he will continue to seek you out and call to you (wake up John, he is calling to you *now*), but the call will grow fainter. That said, this thread now serves no purpose that I can see. Maybe it is time to shake the dust off your sandals, Gentlemen.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
That, as I see it, is your big problem, John. You don't know how to believe.
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John Inactive Member |
quote: yeah... I guess... ????? ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com
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funkmasterfreaky Inactive Member |
We are all very good at figuring out what other peoples problems are, let's try looking at our own.
------------------saved by grace
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gene90 Member (Idle past 3822 days) Posts: 1610 Joined: |
quote: I agree. Why then, do you argue that the box is empty? Or that, (if it better describes your position) the Judeo-Christian God isn't in there? [This message has been edited by gene90, 12-15-2002]
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