Post: #376

^Abraham was exceptionally faithful for agreeing to slaughter his son.

What does that make the being who demands the slaughtering? How dishonest it is to say that sacrificing your son is an act of faith! Christians and the Lord your god are vehemently anti-abortion. How will you spin that?

Post: #377

(04-16-2016 10:21 AM)sylo Wrote:  ^Abraham was exceptionally faithful for agreeing to slaughter his son.

What does that make the being who demands the slaughtering? How dishonest it is to say that sacrificing your son is an act of faith! Christians and the Lord your god are vehemently anti-abortion. How will you spin that?

Abraham was exceptionally faithful because:

1) He believed God's promise to grant him innumerable descendents through his son Isaac.
2) When God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, he knew that 1) would be impossible unless God raised Isaac from the dead.

Abraham wasn't faithful because he was excited about sacrificing his son. He was faithful because he believed in God's earlier promise to such a degree that even the death of Isaac would not stand in the way of God's plan.

Post: #378

(04-16-2016 11:17 AM)scorpion Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 10:21 AM)sylo Wrote:  ^Abraham was exceptionally faithful for agreeing to slaughter his son.

What does that make the being who demands the slaughtering? How dishonest it is to say that sacrificing your son is an act of faith! Christians and the Lord your god are vehemently anti-abortion. How will you spin that?

Abraham was exceptionally faithful because:

1) He believed God's promise to grant him innumerable descendents through his son Isaac.
2) When God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, he knew that 1) would be impossible unless God raised Isaac from the dead.

Abraham wasn't faithful because he was excited about sacrificing his son. He was faithful because he believed in God's earlier promise to such a degree that even the death of Isaac would not stand in the way of God's plan.

You have purposely left out the disclaimer "According to me..."

Post: #379

(04-15-2016 09:09 PM)Atheistani Wrote:  I never asked for proof of God so that is not relevant. By the way, the existence of Santa Clause, Unicorns and Flying Pigs are also unfalsifiable. Just saying.

Anyway, why cant you or Truth teller have a go at

Quote:If God asked you to torture an innocent child, would you do it?

I want to know your answers. Dont say, "God would never do that" because "God" already commanded Abraham to slaughter his own son. This type of what-if is perfectly legitimate in debate.

Also, if a person today dreams or "hears" God tell him to slaughter his son, and he does so, would you consider that moral or immoral behaviour?

I just want to know how far you can stretch the whole "God is the definition of Truth and Goodness" mantra.

That is all.

I don't subscribe to Divine Command Theory, so it's not an issue for me.

Post: #380

You mean to say that the act would be immoral regardless of whether it is commanded by God. So you say God can be immoral?

Post: #381

(04-16-2016 10:21 AM)sylo Wrote:  ^Abraham was exceptionally faithful for agreeing to slaughter his son.

What does that make the being who demands the slaughtering? How dishonest it is to say that sacrificing your son is an act of faith! Christians and the Lord your god are vehemently anti-abortion. How will you spin that?

First thing: Where is the moral standard to which you base your judgement on?

Is it simply "According to me..."?

(04-16-2016 11:36 AM)sylo Wrote:  You have purposely left out the disclaimer "According to me..."

If your scale of evil to good is simply based on yourself then you can place "Slaughtering your son" at the bad end, I will place it at the good end, we can call it a day and agree to disagree. However you talk about the matter in a way that implies you believe slaughtering your son is not just wrong because you say so, but because it is wrong.

So again, what is the moral standard to which you base your judgement on?


Second, if a painter spends months on a self portrait which turns out the be the greatest, highest valued painting ever, is it immoral for him to take a marker and scribble a mustache on it? Or put the whole painting through a shredder?

No, because it's his painting. He can do what he likes. Is it immoral for someone else to do that? Yes because it's not their painting.

"Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s."

This is why suicide was once so shunned, because it is akin to putting someone else's painting through a shredder.

The other interesting thing about the Abraham parable is his sons non objection to being bound and put on an alter. Abraham was an old man, and his son could have easily ran when they go to the alter, there was no animal to sacrifice and his father started binding him. The whole story is a parallel for the sacrifice of Jesus.

Post: #382

(04-16-2016 06:39 PM)Sooth Wrote:  The other interesting thing about the Abraham parable is his sons non objection to being bound and put on an alter. Abraham was an old man, and his son could have easily ran when they go to the alter, there was no animal to sacrifice and his father started binding him. The whole story is a parallel for the sacrifice of Jesus.

That is true, his son was to willing lie down. However when prophet Abraham brought down the knife god replaced his son with a lamb.
Just like jesus was replaced before they could kill him.

Post: #383

Do I believe in "God"? As in a force that controls our lives, and sends us to Heaven or Hell and all that good stuff? No.

Post: #384

(04-14-2016 03:50 PM)sylo Wrote:  Lets extrapolate this example. If I said "Come to my house and cook dinner. Or, I will slaughter both your daughters, then rape your son." If I was an all powerful being, and you knew this, is there really a choice? Of course you would cook dinner to save your family. You are choosing to cook to avoid punishment. I can not understand how anyone can consider this freewill.

I think you got it backwards.
Let me put it to you simply.....Is anyone forcing you not to believe and or obey gods commands?

Post: #385

Do I believe in "God"?

After being catholic for most of my life and obtaining a minor in theology, i can say: No I don't. In any god (assuming you are talking about the Christian God) since humanity has invented thousands of them. Anyhow, I can't be sure that he doesn't exist. That would require faith as well. I can't prove there is no god, as I can't prove there are no unicorns. But I think its highly inlikely that one exists. This position is called "agnostic atheist"

Post: #386

(04-16-2016 10:21 AM)sylo Wrote:  ^Abraham was exceptionally faithful for agreeing to slaughter his son.

What does that make the being who demands the slaughtering? How dishonest it is to say that sacrificing your son is an act of faith! Christians and the Lord your god are vehemently anti-abortion. How will you spin that?

Actually, God didn't demand the actual slaughter of Isaac, only that Abraham be willing. It was a test of faith.

The whole of the New Testament can be reduced to Love God most of all, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Seeing as how Abraham was the start of the whole thing, he is held to a much higher standard than the rest of us. Does it not make sense that that you would test the leaders and patriarchs on an entirely different level than the common man?

God had to know that Abraham wouldn't put human attachments before his responsibility to his creator in forging the foundations of a new faith for all the world.

Kind of like when your boss puts too much money in the cash register to see if you will turn it in or take it home, but on a cosmic level.

Post: #387

I’m a believer in god. When debating the existence of god the questions that often comes up is why there is evil and injustices in the world. I theorize there are two reasons for this. First god gave man free will to choose between good and evil unfortunately some choose the evil way life. Secondly if god created a perfect world than none of would grow as human beings. Humans are shaped by struggle by not intervening god wants is to grow and become stronger. Additionally when you look at the sky and see how perfectly arranged each star is I don't know how you can question the existence of god.

Post: #388

I believe in a God as creator, but I don't really believe in an afterlife. The afterlife part is what seems far fetched to me.

I can't look at an elderly Alzheimer's patient who doesn't even know their own name, but somehow God is going to demand retribution for when they masturbated 60 years ago?

Post: #389

(05-07-2016 09:56 PM)TheWhiteWolf Wrote:  Additionally when you look at the sky and see how perfectly arranged each star is I don't know how you can question the existence of god.

How do you define "perfectly arranged"? If you're talking about star formations, they are man-made constructs in order to identify parts of the sky. You could literally trace any number of objects when given thousands of dots.

And what about the stars outside our galaxy, inside the billions of other galaxies? Did he perfectly place them too?

This is an incredible stretch at Intelligent Design.

Post: #390

(05-07-2016 10:46 PM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  I believe in a God as creator, but I don't really believe in an afterlife. The afterlife part is what seems far fetched to me.

I can't look at an elderly Alzheimer's patient who doesn't even know their own name, but somehow God is going to demand retribution for when they masturbated 60 years ago?

I'm quite sure that you have a problem with a particular sect that has bad teachings.

That has nothing to do with God, rather, man.

Post: #391

(05-07-2016 11:46 PM)AntiMediocrity Wrote:  How do you define "perfectly arranged"? If you're talking about star formations, they are man-made constructs in order to identify parts of the sky. You could literally trace any number of objects when given thousands of dots.

And what about the stars outside our galaxy, inside the billions of other galaxies? Did he perfectly place them too?

This is an incredible stretch at Intelligent Design.

Exactly. Cosmos is anything but perfect, it's just a violent melting point where everything is random, it's a force serving no-one but itself.

Post: #392

I was watching tour de france today, and they had the camera panning over some old french town with a church in the middle.

It struck me how piss weak religion debates are. Here this church is, in the center of it all, obviously important to this culture in some way, but still clearly a human product. But in the debate you basically have two tired old sides: the atheists who can see no futher than "clearly this is nonsense", and the religious who can't see beyond their religion.

The atheists won't accept that this cultural institution clearly has some fundamental purpose. The religious won't see beyond their religion -- that there is an ultimate purpose to their religion, not from it. Thus this debate never seems to move.

I think the real question is this: what is the role and purpose of structural lying in society, is it right or wrong and why, and where is the balance? I think the fundamental reason this question isn't being answered is that no one can stand back from their lies or their defense from the lies and see what the truth is zoomed back further. It's to ask for dispassionate observation from those passionate by social necessity.

Post: #393

Phoenix, the atheists (and probably rightly so) in general attack stupid, typically literalist religions.

Very thoughtful people exist that realize that, as previously mentioned, there is no incompatibility between faith and reason and there never has been.

Science asks certain questions and answers some of them. It by definition cannot answer all the questions of human life, nor is it meant to!

When scientific humanism acts as though it can (address meaning, purpose, love, truth, beauty etc) --- it can't --- it just becomes another religion.

The ultimate irony of all.

Post: #394

Yes, I do. I'm a Christian again. God is described in the Bible as being patriarchal, makes sense, no?

Post: #395

I didn't before, but I'm gradually warming up to the idea.

Post: #396

Interesting though experiment for all you mono-theists out there...

Imagine (I wonder if you can) that you were born in a different time and place. for example, in Sweden in 1200AD, or a pacific island, the New Guinea highlands etc.

There is a 100% chance that you would totally and utterly (with the same faith and fervor you have in your existing god now) worship a completely different god and belief system (Norse, Pagan or pick any of the thousands of gods humans have invented since the dawn of time)

You must come to the devastating realization that your whole faith and belief is based on a random dice throw of the time and place you were born....

This fact makes it very hard for me to understand how a rational, intelligent person could claim to worship the one true god....

Post: #397

(06-04-2016 01:58 AM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  Interesting though experiment for all you mono-theists out there...

You must come to the devastating realization that your whole faith and belief is based on a random dice throw of the time and place you were born....

This fact makes it very hard for me to understand how a rational, intelligent person could claim to worship the one true god....

Post: #398

(06-04-2016 01:58 AM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  Interesting though experiment for all you mono-theists out there...

Imagine (I wonder if you can) that you were born in a different time and place. for example, in Sweden in 1200AD, or a pacific island, the New Guinea highlands etc.

There is a 100% chance that you would totally and utterly (with the same faith and fervor you have in your existing god now) worship a completely different god and belief system (Norse, Pagan or pick any of the thousands of gods humans have invented since the dawn of time)

You must come to the devastating realization that your whole faith and belief is based on a random dice throw of the time and place you were born....

This fact makes it very hard for me to understand how a rational, intelligent person could claim to worship the one true god....

You obviously haven't thought this through, nor do you realize how many presumptions you've made there, most of which are false.

I'll just start with this:

There are many people that believe different things than that which "they were [supposed to be] raised". (And by the way, you've met thousands already in your life)

That one statement just negated your whole post.

Post: #399

It is beyond human understanding I think.

I have thought about it before, and thought that, it seems strange to me that if there's a god, and it created humans with a mind that is naturally skeptical of anything that can't be quantified or wholly understood, and then expect humans to accept the existence of something that is neither of those 2, it seems a system set to fail by design.

Also I think, no matter how any person tries to conceive the idea of a godit would be erroneous, because it is impossible to accurately understand such a spirit being through the human prism. Consider the immense power necessary to create stars, planets, solar systems and galaxies. Also to create and control subatomic particles and combine them into various substances and energies, not to mention create sentient living organisms. I don't mind admitting I cannot imagine the nature of such a spirit creature.

Post: #400

I can start with the Book of Jonah. Not a troll and am guy that likes the women as much as the next guy.