Testing The Christian Apologists

The "bad burrito" is intended to illustrate that our perceptions can be altered chemically. Ebenezer Scrooge said the same thing when he saw Jacob Marley's ghost and concluded that "a fragment of an underdone potato" might cause his senses to cheat. You mentioned drugs, so you know that they can affect your senses. And different drugs can affect them in different ways.So you had one experience that was not the same as any drug experience you have had and you conclude that that is an indication of something different? Not surprising, since that is the cultural belief that they all grew up with. Warm and loving like Faith? But it isn't a difference. It's all part of the same cultural milieu.

Are you the same guy who wants to preserve his retirement at all costs?

An apologist by definition defends the historic faith. Are you essentially claiming that any honest person is not going to defend a transcendent experience (or life) due simply to the fact that the god of science has already framed all of the conversion experiences into an explainable cultural milieu? I will not only disagree with that answer but completely ignore it.Granted, it may well be that today's fundamentalists are all brainwashed or sharing a common attribution error, but they will be a presence in world politics and will only get stronger if they become poorer. And yes, I am that same guy that wants to preserve my inheritance. I qualify as needy...as needy as any other disabled person. I am blind now in one eye and let me tell you, it makes me angry. If this society ignores me in pursuit of their own greed, the whole lot of them needs to be judged. And I believe that God will in fact do it. You may ask why I'm not counting on Jesus but on people. My answer? I am counting on Jesus. He does not expect the poor to give all that they have to help other poor.The widow gave two mites. I might give one mite if transformed enough...

You haven't been able to tell us how to recognize a "transcendent experience" or how to distinguish it from any of a number of other experiences that warp our perception. I am certainly going to look at other possible explanations before I jump on the transcendental bandwagon. Nobody's denying that fundamentalists could become a dangerous force in the future. Do you think that helps your case?

Why would a loving god blind you? The only way that they can be judged is if we manage to create a society that cares about its citizens. Part of that process is in recognising that the needs of people in this world are important and that wasting time, energy, politics and money on hoping for an improvement AFTER WE'RE DEAD. Is just plain stupid.But I'm sorry about your eye. Really.

You are blind in one eye, Phat? I'm so sorry to hear that. That operation didn't work? What happened?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Stop blaming our loving God. We are fallen, we are all living in a soup of sin. It gets all of us in different ways. It's us, not God. God will get us through it too.

According to you, someone called Eve fell not Phat. What's that got to do with Phat?And according to you god loves Phat. But he's allowed him to go blind and will eventually die. Strangely, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. How is he going to do that? By killing us? How loving.

Oh you're going to play that disingenuous game eh?Actually Adam is given the responsibility for the Fall more than Eve because the man is given the responsibility by God. In any case we all inherit their original sin and add plenty of our own to it so we're all guilty, including Phat.And yes God loves us. Things could in fact be a LOT worse than they are but we are shielded from the worst. We won't be in Hell though. And those who are saved will finally get all the goodness you think we should get here, because there we won't have any sin at all. It will be glorious beyond our imagination. Griping about it isn't going to do you any good you know, and I suspect you do know it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The original sin here is all god's - condemning all life forever into the future for a 'sin' that they did not commit and that god knew would be committed anyway. What an evil git your fantasy god is. He doesn't seem to love our Phat at the moment. Oh, that's lovely - 'he could have made things even worse'. Well what a nice chap. That's just a childish delusion.

Nobody mentions Satan. He is the evil one, not God. He tempts the people to go to war, dares them to wipe out their enemies, and causes them to stumble time and time and time again.

I do find it hard to discuss this stuff because you guys just introduce random nonsense that I'm supposed to take seriously. Satan ffs! (Weirdly, I've just noticed that Satan is an anagram of Santa.two total fictions.)How could a Satan exists if god didn't want him to?Sometimes I think I'm arguing with children. Really Phat you can't believe this drivel. It doesn't even makes sense in its own way.How can a loving god allow evil??? How can a loving god allow one of hisown devout believers to go blind? It's crazy.

Not according to the Bible. In the Bible it is God that commands his people to go to war and even makes other nations attack his own people.Have you ever read the Bible Phat?

I understasnd that you don't LIKE Christian theology but if you could just put aside your feeling about it you might at least be able to recognize that the theology does hold together. I find it to be completely consistent myself and all your objections just hit me as ...some kind of thinking problem.Yes it is original sin that explains why we suffer, along with all our own personal sins piled on. You just say how the original sin is something else that you yourself made up about God's condemning us etc etc. So you don't like original sin, so no wonder you can't make sense of Christian theology. If you just keep objecting based on your own feelings there is no way to have a conversation about these things.The truth about Hell etc is "just a childish delusion," something else you made up because you don't like Christian theology. OK you don't like it so nothing anyone says about what it really is has no influence on the conversation. There's no point in continuing.

There's nothing random about it. It all holds together if you just stop getting carried away by your feelings. Purely coincidental. And we've all noticed it. "Satan" is from the Hebrew for "adversary" and "Santa" is the Latin base word for "Saint." No linguistic connection you see. That is actually a reasonable question for a change. Luther said "The devil is God's devil." He's on God's leash as it were. Apparently you do. That does make conversation difficult. Well, so much for that. We can all go home now.But I suppose Phat will answer you eventually.