Summations Only

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Some of the free will creations with great senses of humor will distract the seriousness of the reality messages with lighthearted off topic comparisons...suggesting, perhaps, that it is all just a comic book story!

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Honestly, I feel that Dan's analogy was right on topic and he made an extremely valid point. Suggesting that the two motives / stories are incomparable does not get you out of the dilemma that your initial argument is basically flawed as Dan points points out quite elloquently.
cheers

Hi,

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OK..for the record, how is my initial analogy flawed? I must be dense.

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No need to call yourself dense.. I'll have a stab at your analogy anyways:

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1) People known as Christians would be made out to look as ignorant and stupid as possible. Much of it would be their own fault, for they would try and live as believers and as worldly people at the same time.

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Does not follow from your premise ('What if they were real...'). Also, you are erecting a strawman in claiming that Christians are being made to look ignorant and stupid. I claim, they are not. I think, pretty much everyone on the forum will agree that religion is a personal choice. The point, where many will draw the line, is when religion is taken from its private background and used as a means to further a political agenda. This is where severe discussion and possible ridicule sets in, but that's not caused by believe, lack thereof, or the existence of any supernatural beings.

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2) Other religions would appear tranquil and quiet. Satan would have no need to mess with them.

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(a) They do not necessarily appear tranquil and quiet. See other threads on this forum, where certain (very pronounced) Christians actually claim the opposite.
(b) This, again does not follow from your premise.

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4) Many would call themselves Christians who were not.

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Again, this does not follow. There is simply no need for this to happen (just from the fact that both Satan and Christ were real).

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5) The Bible would be ridiculed and scorned for its fantasy, yet concepts such as alternative universes and the Tao of Physics would be reverently considered.

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Take it from a physicist, they are not.
Your claim about the Bible being ridiculed, however, merits some attention:
The discussion of bible errancy or of contradictions contained in the bible stems from the claim of inerrancy (and not vice versa). Personally coming from an European Catholic background, let me tell you that the first time that I stumbled over these types of discussion was less than a year ago. If you accept that the bible is a collection of stories, defining a religious background, collected and written over a period of 1000 or more years, then you will view them just as that and accept or even expect errors. The presence of these errors will, however, not affect the way you perceive the contents of the book.

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7) Satan would not let us know about him. He would make us think that we were the ones in control of our future by refusing to bow to anyone!

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Let the poor supernatural being do its job, will you..
(and what happened to free will anyway?)

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8) Anytime that the topic was brought up, people would attempt to either refute the basic message or distract attention from it.

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This, again, does not follow from your original premise ('Suppose they were real').

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Second, my analogy is a "what if" analogy. Explain how flaws can exist? Perhaps in keeping tune with my analogy, Satan is using human intellect to ridicule itself.

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Any analogy, any argument can be flawed. Yours is flawed because your points do not follow from the premise. Where, btw, do you take the notion that "Satan is using human intellect to ridicule itself"?
my best regards

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Light is. It's a partical or wave, or whatever. Last I heard the jury was still out on that one. But in any case it is something. It is something we can measure, it is something that can be tested.

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Light is both at the same time, confusing but true...

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God is. He is light, he exists with all his attributes that I'm sure have been talked about several times around already. Since God is good, then anything he is (love, etc.) is good. Anything that is not like God is, is evil. God didn't create evil, the idea of evil existed as something that was not like God. By allowing free will God allowed this evil to become a reality with the fall of Lucifer. Evil was not created, it existed as opposite of what was already there. Evil exists because it is the places where God's attributes have been turned aside from.

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Wait a moment:
(a) God cannot be directly measured (in contrast to light)
(b) You attribute the property good to god (for which you have no prove and given some of the contents of the bible, I'm sure some would claim that this is not so, but anyways...). Now you say that by measuring "good", we can deduce God's existence? That's like saying, by knowing that light exerts a pressure (albeit small) on matter it interacts with, we can deduce the presence of light from the observation of pressure?
(c) You keep forgetting about omni-presence (so there's no place where he isn't) and omnipotence... Never mind that he's the creator of everything...so much for your analogy.
my best regards