Why do Christians make God out to be dumb?

Why, though?Remember, this is God we're talking about. If he wanted a way to "close that gap", he could have done it an infinite number of ways besides sacrificing his own son. Like, he could have simply said "let there be no gap!" and there would not have been one.

Oof. That's the kind of saccarine Christianity that could give you cavities.If you're so certain that God is a loving, concerned benefactor, why don't you amble over to the God and Good Parenting thread where the goodness of a God that would allow evil and inequity to persist is discussed.Free will doesn't justify the presence of evil, because there's an infinite number of choices even if you take out the evil ones. So, evil doesn't increase your free will. What it does do is decrease the amount of free will able to be excercised by the victims of evil. If you murder me in a single act of free will, I've just lost the ability to excercise free will forever. You can't make choices when you're dead. Why did your free will choice to murder me outweigh all the free will I would have been able to excerise for the rest of my life? That's hardly fair.Free will doesn't justify God's continued tolerance for evil. Therefore the inescapable conclusion is that God is either amoral (and isn't loving) or is powerless (loving but unable to do anything about it) or both, or simply non-existent. Either way the God you're talking about - loving and all-powerful - demonstratably doesn't exist.

Well, you've just pushed the question back one step. Now the problem isn't the existence of evil, it's the existence of Satan.Why does God allow Satan to exist? Either God allows Satan to persist because God is amoral (and therefore not good) or God is unable to stop him (and therefore not all-powerful.)Again, the conclusion is inescapable: An all-powerful, benevolent God does not exist. God is either amoral, powerless, or altogether non-existent. That means it's up to us to bring justice to the world. If somebody shoots you in the chest, you don't have any choices. You're just going to die. Their choice is going to affect you. There's no way around it. Their choice took away all your choices. If God's thing is that he maximises choice, why does he allow that to happen?

Why wouldn't I? After all, if we're talking about the Christian God, He says that we've got the same ability to determine right from wrong:

quote:

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Genesis 3:22
Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil;

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That's right from God's mouth.Now, if we're talking about some other God, you're right, all bets are off. But apparently that God is content to act in a way that is indistinuishable from no God at all. So who cares? It's not like God's going to do anything. There's no reason to change our behavior or models of the universe to take that God into account.

Right, but the ability to determine right from wrong is not one of those differences. The Bible literally says that we are just like God in our ability to tell right from wrong. That includes the ability to assess the morality of God's actions. It's right there in the Bible; I showed you. Well, they certainly won't be able to if they follow your advice: "God is too complicated! Don't even try to understand him!"If God is so smart, his actions should be so reasonable anybody can understand them. That's what typifies intelligent plans - they make sense. Anything except making accurate predictions about the universe, which is the point of science. If God can just step in and do anything, at any time, it ceases to be a rational universe. I don't particularly care to live in such a topsy-turvy place, and I don't think we do. That means that either God is rational and predictable, or God doesn't exist.

Maybe you're not old enough to know how this works, but in our world - that is, a moral one - if you have the ability and foreknowledge to prevent somebody from coming to harm, you have a responsibility to do so. Even if the harm is self-caused.If it's Peter's cliff, and he owns it, and knows that RoR is going to jump off, and is standing right there and could stop him, Peter has to do so. It's his moral imperative.An all-powerful, all-knowing God is always in a position where he could prevent harm. That he does not do so either means he's amoral, powerless, or non-existent.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-01-2004]

Why, the one that our society chose to adopt. That includes a number of things, such as "the lawgivers are not above the law" and "people have responsibilities to those in their care." Heh, God's going to strike me down for blasphemy? I guess I'm not really afraid of folks that don't exist. You don't believe that it's God's world, or that he's able to watch us all at once, and has the ability to intervene whenever he chooses? Funny, most Christians seem to. How could I have intimate knowledge of a figure that doesn't exist? I'm just saying that there's obvious inconsistencies when you try to reconcile an all-powerful, benevolent deity with the real world that we observed. Again, I don't claim to have any better knowledge of god than anybody else. I'm just saying that if you're going to propose that this world is watched over by an all-powerful, benevolent deity, you have some questions to answer. He's not my god. Why don't you tell me?

Well, the guy that can wear the Beard of Bees is different from me in many ways as well. But neither God nor the Beard of Bees guy is different from me in a way that changes their moral responsibilities. But I think we agree on that. Then it's the moral responsibility of the planner (whose plans affect us all) to at least hint at that reasoning, so as to avoid the apperance of arbitrary judgement.If you're so willing to grant these unknown, mitigating factors, how do you tell the difference between a God who is doing what is best for us and a God who'sjust screwing with us? No. But it does mean there's a moral imperative to explain why it's a good plan. Because things would be unpredictable. Science would be useless. Technology would be impossible. Clearly, though, we live in a rational universe. Yeah, and I know that we'll have to. But the answers are there to be found, which I think is demonstrated by the fact that we keep finding answers.

Then you don't believe in a moral God? Or it doesn't bother you then that you have no way to tell the difference between a moral or immoral God besides faith? Well,we agree on that, at least. Our search for truth gets closer but will probably never arrive. Is God at that truth? Maybe, but I doubt it. I doubt that anything we yet have a word for is at that truth. Sure. I hope my arrogant young atheism is welcome too.

Yeah, my church said the same thing, but:1) They said it was important to go to church, worship, and take part in other rituals
2) They said it was important for Christians to behave differently
3) They asked for money.Do you go to church? Do you worship? Do you take part in ritual activites to glorify God? Do you tithe? Do you feel that God favors certain behaviors over others?If so, I don't know how to tell you this, but you're part of a religion. It's just that simple. Faith and religion are different, sure, but religion is just the things you do because you feel that they're the logical consequences of your faith.

Only since the 50's. And you'll notice that it doesn't say which god. Given that it's printed on money I think you can make a guess about which god Americans really put their trust in. Hint: it's money. What is the requirement that one be above the law to enforce the law? The one doesn't follow from the other. Cops have specific legal procedures to follow. And anyway, they're not really the lawgivers - it was politicians I was referring to. Again, these are surprising positions to hear from a Christian. There's no requirement that you believe the mainstream, but since my argument was to disprove a moral, all-powerful God, and since you believe that God is not all-powerful anyway, what exactly do we disagree on? Simply the rational position that there's no reason to believe in something that there's no evidence for. Well, that would be the essence of the proof by contradiction, yes. Obviously I've shown that the presupposition "God is moral and all-powerful" is erroneous, which was my point. Like I said, he's not my god. I don't give a whit what it says in the Bible. I do give a whit about the God that most Christians refer to, who demonstratably does not exist, and who is not apparently described in the Bible, according to you.

True. What I want to believe has no bearing on what is or is not.On the other hand, there's no evidence that God exists. If you have some, fire away. You'd be the first. Actually refuting God nonsense is the easiest thing in the world. I could do it 50 times before breakfast and still not have finished fixin' the pancakes. You've lost the chance for a life fully lived. Here's something else to think about - if the Muslims are right, we're both going to hell. You falsely presume that there's only two belief systems that could possibly be accurate. That's the problem with Pascal's Wager - you can't use it to rule out any other religions. There doesn't have to be. The fact that there is no evidence for the existence of God is sufficient reason not to believe that God exists. The burden of proof is on he who asserts that a thing exists. Funny, a number of parts of the Bible I'm familiar with have been proven false, such as the Genesis account, the Noaic flood, Jonah in the whale, locusts having four legs, the night sky being a tent with holes in it, and a number of other statements the Bible makes. But that's a topic for the biblical inerrancy board. I suggest you stop by. Then I'm happy you have no problem with gay marriage. I hate it when Christians try to impose their beliefs on other people.Plenty of Christians disagree with you, though. They believe that since God's laws are so great - being of divine invention, after all - everybody should follow them. That's just not American.Seriously, talk about your beliefs all you like. It's America. I don't think your attempt to talk about your beliefs is an attempt to force them on me.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-03-2004]

Not really that unique. Muslims get to their heaven by the grace of Allah. Buddists achieve nirvana because of the grace of the Budda shows the path to enlightenment. ...which you have to choose to accept, making it a work, meaning that it's works that get you into heaven. That your particular religious fantasy may have unique elements doesn't mean that it's true. I could make up an entirely unique religion if I wanted. Would that make it true? Indeed it is. I could provide a list twice as long of luminaries that reject Christianity.Does it prove anything? No, because a proposition is not true or false because of the people that adhere to it. That's called the Argument from Authority, and it is fallacious. Science is not religion. In religion, God chooses who recieves truth. In science, truth is directly accessable to all who care to look. Any person can study to be a scientist. But no degree will make God help you write the next book of the Bible. Science is participatory, religion is revelatory. No. There are no atheist churches. There are no atheist rituals. There are no atheist observances. There are no atheist holy books. I could go on and on, but what "stands to reason" is that the lack of religion is not religion. B cannot equal ~B (that's "not B" if you'renot up on symbolic logic.) Well, I don't care if you believe in it or not. Nobody's asking you to marry another man. What I care about is whether you'll let two gay peopleget married. Yea or nay?[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-03-2004]

No, I asked him about it. One thing I've noticed about a lot of Christians is that they say that they're not here to impose their religion on anybody in general, but when you query them about a specific issue, imposing their own religious view turns out to be exactly what they want to do.Right now gay marriage is sort of the litmus test. It's universally opposed by Bible-believing Christians, so it's a good test to see how well they're willing to play with others. Well, he said that "works", aka "things you do", won't get you into heaven. Only the grace of Christ.But it's not involuntary. You have to choose to come to Christ (free will and all.) Therefore choosing to accept Christ is a "thing you do". Therefore it is the things you do that get you into heaven. In particular it's one thing that you do. Not to mention a not-so-veiled attempt to circumvent the No Establishment clause - hardly very American, no?

No, but I think there's an implication that we'd pretty much all be screwed (stuck on the karma wheel) if the Buddas weren't nice enough to delay their own trip to nirvana in order to help us along the path. That's what I meant by "the grace of Budda". They don't have to help us, but they do.But, maybe I just misunderstand Buddism. I've never really given it a serious look.