Rule One - act like God does not exist

Originally posted by frogstomp
More Paulie doctrine ?,,,, he aint god nor did he ever meet Christ.

If you read the book of Acts you will see where Christ came into his life.

Jesus comes into all people lives loke that, but not in the sense of a bright light.

Originally posted by Coletti
I agree with you if I were trying to prove the existence of God - I do not. And I think ultimately the authority of the Bible is founded on faith. But I have not found any argument that really counters the justification of this faith except by those who presume something that axiomatically invalidate that faith - in fact, it is only by faith that anyone ba ...[text shortened]... the Bible is not God's Word. The final position comes down to this - wherein lies your faith.

Translation: you use a wild card.

Originally posted by RBHILL
If you read the book of Acts you will see where Christ came into his life.

Jesus comes into all people lives loke that, but not in the sense of a bright light.

yeah Christ wrote Acts rignt???

Originally posted by Coletti
I find it interesting that whenever I am debating about any Biblical events and issues - the first rules seems to be - pretend like God does not exist.

Now I can understand this with my opponents. I mean, with God on my side, I have an ...[text shortened]... the following: it gives the Christian theist an unfair advantage?

I don't think you should deny that God exists. I do think you should consider why you always have to retreat to "Goddunnit" in discussions about evolution or the Flood.

Why is it that you don't use "Goddunnit" when you have a natural answer? Say someone asks you how a dam holds back water. You don't say to the person, "Well, there's lots of reasonable explanations, but first why must you insist that God does not exist?"

No, if you are patient and have the knowledge, then you demonstrate how a dam works based upon natural laws. What you have shown is that when some one puts forth a religious argument and tries to pass it off as scientifically supported, then invariably reason unmasks the religous root.

"Goddunnit"? That's all you've got? Well then, go stand back in line with the Raelians, the Mayans, the Muslims, and every other religious group. If we need to we'll decide who's right by lottery.

Originally posted by Coletti
... please explain why you think it is reasonable to first pretend like God does not exist? ...

Actually, it is common for me in my informal discussions with believers to pretend that God does exist, and then to show them why He would not be worthy of their worship, based upon the things that happen in the world. (As far as I can tell, however, I have never much persuaded any of them with such arguments!)

Originally posted by telerion
I don't think you should deny that God exists. I do think you should consider why you always have to retreat to "Goddunnit" in discussions about evolution or the Flood.

Why is it that you don't use "Goddunnit" when you have a natural answer? Say someone asks you how a dam holds back water. You don't say to the person, "Well, there's lots of ...[text shortened]... lims, and every other religious group. If we need to we'll decide who's right by lottery.

I'm not talking about dams, I'm talking about a God who parts seas, and can make the sun stand still. I'm talking about the Bible. Dams can be explained by the the laws of God's creation. God can not.

Originally posted by blindfaith101
I hope the day does not come when you stand in judgement, and all you can say is "Contadictions, what about those Contradictins." And the LORD says, "Contradictions,there were no contradictions, you just used that as an excuse, not to accept The Salvation that I offered."

I know you think that this should be very scary, but the fact is it doesn't bother me in the
slightest.

According to you, God gave me this intellect and rationale. And, according to you, these
are gifts that I should put to use studying His Word. If, through the use of these gifts I
find blatant and irrefutable contradictions -- the ones you deny exist -- and He expected
me to ignore them, then God is an evil being with whom I stand no chance of salvation
because I am not an evil being.

The fact is that it scares you to open your mind to the Truth -- that there are
contradictions in the Bible -- because it means you have to think for yourself. If the Bible
is 100% true, then you can be a robot -- you can follow a bunch of rules and salvation is
assured. But if it's not, then you have to use powers of intellect and discernment in order
figure out what you should do in a given situation.

Looking at how Jesus treated the Pharisees -- a bunch of people with a bunch of obscure and
meaningless rituals and rules -- I think that we can conclude that God wants us to think for
ourselves, not follow a bunch of 2000 year-old rules.

But you are too scared to liberate yourself from your security blanket -- a literal Bible. And,
thus, you live the life of a frightened rabbit, scared to come out of your hole and face the
world. And I pity you and pray that God have mercy on your pathetic soul.

Nemesio

Originally posted by RBHILL
There are no contradictions in the Bible, you are a human that is why you do not understand it, God MUST reveal the truth of it to you to understand it.

Romans 10:17

You are a liar and you know it. I've pointed them out repeatedly and you just stick your head
in the sand and deny it.

Nemesio

Originally posted by Coletti
I'm not talking about dams, I'm talking about a God who parts seas, and can make the sun stand still. I'm talking about the Bible. Dams can be explained by the the laws of God's creation. God can not.

Oh cool a god that can part a reed sea and make the sun do exactly what its doing anyway.

Originally posted by Coletti
I'm not talking about dams, I'm talking about a God who parts seas, and can make the sun stand still. I'm talking about the Bible. Dams can be explained by the the laws of God's creation. God can not.

and thats all you got too, is talk...and no longer will I do anything other than assert science is right . In fact any science hypothesis is more valid than any Creator- based.
If you need a creator to complete an idea on science .. it aint valid science.

Unless you can scientifically PROVE it.

Originally posted by Coletti
I would like you to list those 20 branches of science and then give tell me how the scientists in those branches have become the source of absolute truth..

I never claimed that they were the source of absolute truth.

I am saying that, in order to believe in a literal creation, you have to deny
the independent conclusions of these sciences which all point to an ancient
earth (much, much older than 6000 years).

Palentology -- 1. Dinosaur bones; 2. Fossilized plant matter;
Archeology -- 3. Stone-Age tools; 4. Ancient art on cave walls;
Biology -- 5. Bacteriology (ancient bacteria); 6. Oceanography (sea-floor data); 7. Genetics; 8. Primatology (study of primates);
Physics -- 9. Astronomy (Ancient suns projecting light from billions of lightyears away);
Chemistry -- 10. Radioactive-isotope dating;
Anthropology -- 11. Study of cultures through ancient texts (such as Babylonian myths);
Geology -- 12. Plate technonics; 13. Global magnetic shifts; 14. Stratigraphy (study of earth's layers).

Here's aspects of 14 different sciences that have to be utterly denied in order to believe in a
6000 year-old earth. Independently, they all (to one degree or another) conclude that the earth
MUST be older than 6000 years; some point to data millions of years old, others billions.

Do you care to refute the data in all of these fields in order to support a 'young-earth' literal
reading of Creation?

Nemesio

Originally posted by Coletti
I agree with you if I were trying to prove the existence of God - I do not. And I think ultimately the authority of the Bible is founded on faith. But I have not found any argument that really counters the justification of this faith except by those who presume something that axiomatically invalidate that faith - in fact, it is only by faith that anyone ba ...[text shortened]... the Bible is not God's Word. The final position comes down to this - wherein lies your faith.

Coletti:

more often than not i tend to disagree with you, but i sure do enjoy reading your posts...this one is a gem.

i think you're absolutely right -- the argument could easily be flipped around on the atheist, and ultimately i think his response will be unsatisfactory as well since he has only faith too.

which brings me full circle to my general theory: with so much faith and so little proof, i see my often present skepticisms as healthy. however, i think i'll need to make up my mind eventually.

Originally posted by LemonJello
i think you're absolutely right -- the argument could easily be flipped around on the atheist, and ultimately i think his response will be unsatisfactory as well since he has only faith too.

which brings me full circle to my general theory: with so much faith and so little proof, i see my often present skepticisms as healthy. however, i think i'll need to make up my mind eventually.

The problem with the 'faith in science' = 'faith in the Bible' is that not all beliefs are equally
credible.

Many aspects of science are repeatable and provable. This makes it, at worst, 'very informed
faith.' Very few aspects of the Bible are provable, and fewer yet are repeatable (parting seas,
stoping the sun in the sky, &c). That makes these 'blind faiths.' There is no reason whatsoever
to accept the Christian Bible as more credible than the Koran or the Book of Mormon. All are
equally non-credible (untestable, unprovable). There is a lot of reason to believe in astronomy.

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
The problem with the 'faith in science' = 'faith in the Bible' is that not all beliefs are equally
credible.

Many aspects of science are repeatable and provable. This makes it, at worst, 'very informed
faith.' Very few aspects of the Bible are provable, and fewer yet are repeatable (parting seas,
stoping the sun in the sky, &c). That makes the ...[text shortened]... credible (untestable, unprovable). There is a lot of reason to believe in astronomy.

Nemesio

They wont ever get it Nemesio... they have reified the bible into god.

Originally posted by frogstomp
They wont ever get it Nemesio... they have reified the bible into god.

I don't mean to be critical, but:

You are sucking all the air out of the room, you wet blanket, you. 😉

Nemesio