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Darren Taylor
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2004
Location: Scotland
Posts: 5994
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| Posted: 20 May 2019 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | 1
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I'm a non- believer. Probably best to state that up front. I find prayer to be a contradiction. If you have faith then prayer has to be useless ("I have faith this will work out") having faith expose your belief to the will of god...in particular when, it doesn't work out, has to be the ultimate expression of said faith.
Saying God answered a prayer seems a little undermining also. The implication being that your prayer altered what might have been to this new state of what is. It defines the answered prayer as little admissions of flaws in his original plan.
If you've ever played the board game Mousetrap, then once the trap is sprung, like gods perfect plan the outcome is predetermined, a foregone conclusion. Does the marble pray to not reach the basket. Maybe the cage has faith the mouse will escape the trap, admonishing it from any wrong doing or blame.
If a god existed we wouldn't recognise any interference from them as it would seemlessly blend in with our narrative. A burning bush and a plague of locust smacks way too much of human penmanship.
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Koroush Ghazi
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 October 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 1649
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| Posted: 20 May 2019 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | 2
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I had my doubts, but I'm convinced that God actually designed this complex Universe.
Now, can any essay (or JBF member) explain why a perfect God, in His infinite wisdom, deliberately designed such a vicious Universe full of ceaseless suffering? Where animals literally have to tear each other apart alive for sustenance; where some parents eat their own young; where living beings are born with massive deformities through no fault of their own - some surviving only a few hours or minutes after birth; where there are organisms whose entire existence is predicated on the slowly, painful of other organisms?
Seems to me that now that we've proven God exists (Amen!), it's a fairly straightforward matter to prove that He is exceedingly cruel and should be fought every step of the way.
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Shaun Barry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 December 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 6833
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| Posted: 20 May 2019 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | 3
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Time to break out my all-time favorite George Carlin anti-religion chestnut!
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Rich Johnston
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 February 2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 23
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| Posted: 20 May 2019 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | 4
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>Noah and Jesus stand as rather damning evidence that God didn’t get it right the first time—or the second. Odd, for a perfect, infallible being.
If the Book Of Genesis is to be read in any form of representing the past of humanity, it shows a people that 'ate from the Tree of knowledge' - or rather that gained free will. Omniscience was devolved down, God is no longer omniscient, as free will means that all bets are off. Anything can happen now... all future prophecies are just best guesses.
Noah and Jesus are course corrections.
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Bill Mimbu
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 April 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 7359
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| Posted: 20 May 2019 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | 5
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I thought Monty Python proved that God only exists by two falls to a submission...
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 20 May 2019 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | 6
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Bill wins the thread!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 20 May 2019 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | 7
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Seems to me that now that we've proven God exists (Amen!), it's a fairly straightforward matter to prove that He is exceedingly cruel and should be fought every step of the way.••• In the words of Lewis Black, God is a prick.
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Koroush Ghazi
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 October 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 1649
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| Posted: 21 May 2019 at 2:56am | IP Logged | 8
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Rich Johnston wrote:
| Omniscience was devolved down, God is no longer omniscient, as free will means that all bets are off. |
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Nope, He's still got it. New Testament:
"If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything." - 1 John 3:20
"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." - Hebrews 4:13
Like Santa, He knows who's naughty and who's nice, but He just prefers to play games - by His own design. He could have designed a world where people were "tested" (whatever that means) without massive suffering for the innocent. He didn't.
Man loves, God kills.
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Ted Pugliese
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 December 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 7979
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| Posted: 21 May 2019 at 5:48am | IP Logged | 9
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"notes that they are fine tuned to support our
existence"
Before I even got to the end of John's first post, my
mind offered the same response...
"It is we who are fine tuned to the world, not the other
way ‘round."
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 21 May 2019 at 6:08am | IP Logged | 10
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I'm saying that "to be fair" - you went to a Christian website, and found an essay that says that they believe in God. It would be like going into an Apple store and asking the guy which computer is best. He's probably going to say Apple. ••• Again, your “to be fair” makes no sense in context—unless you’re suggesting no one should be disputed on their own turf?
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12441
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| Posted: 21 May 2019 at 6:48am | IP Logged | 11
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Perhaps the gentleman meant you were "unfairly" shooting fish in a barrel..? Still doesn't make sense.
If a person posits that gods are provable, that assertion is open to question as based on actual evidence or merely a postulate.
Note: said person does not have to be Christian per se. One could ignore the Christian elements in the link JB posted and merely address in a non-denominational manner arguments such as that the complexity of a given human organ bespeaks of a Divine Creator. Strictly speaking, one might be a deist without any religion if he is convinced from natural reality that a God (or gods) must exist. And the conviction of deism is not immune from critique.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 21 May 2019 at 6:59am | IP Logged | 12
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Invoking various human body parts—the eye in particular—as “proof” of the existence of a “creator” avoids (deliberately) how inefficient our corporeal forms really are. Ask anyone who’s ever suffered thru a bout of kidney stones (present!) if s/he thinks that system is well designed. Ask a woman who has given birth if she thinks there’s no better way to put those parts together. Think about back pain, and ask if it was a good idea to give humans and horses the same skeletons without any serious modifications to accommodate a vertical posture. And then there are the babies born without brains, or with their spines outside their bodies.
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