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Michael Penn
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Posted: 21 May 2019 at 7:48am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Tomorrow my 85 year old father needs eye surgery. Pretty sure he's convinced the eye doesn't prove much!

In any event...
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 21 May 2019 at 8:16am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

I still say the simplest disproof of an omnipotent deity is the existence of more than one book of worship. If God intended the Torah to be His word, then every single other book of worship is wrong - deliberately misguiding His worshipers - which means he might be having a good laugh. But not particularly loving or caring.
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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 21 May 2019 at 8:30am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

 Michael Penn wrote:
Tomorrow my 85 year old father needs eye surgery. Pretty sure he's convinced the eye doesn't prove much!


Ditto the Brain. Several years ago I was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's. In my version of God's magnificently designed structure, the Dopamine creating cells are dying off for no apparent reason. A single, relatively minor, chemical fault can gradually destroy a huge range of my vital functions. "Intelligent design" my aunt fanny!

I wondered for some time what the purpose of this was, then it struck me: God is testing me! I didn't have the heart to tell him that as an Atheist I'm kinda predestined to fail a test of faith...

Anyway, through fervent prayer, and by opening my heart to Jesus Christ and His glory and renouncing my Atheistic ways, I'm still quite active and normal.

Sorry, I mean through the efforts of rational scientists who have devised chemicals to offset this faulty mechanism - and in no way, shape, or form due to any superstitious mumbo-jumbo or attempted bargaining with a vindictive higher power - I'm still quite active and normal :)

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Byron Graham
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Posted: 21 May 2019 at 9:02am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

 Koroush Ghazi wrote:
...where living beings are born with massive deformities through no fault of their own...

I was finally driven off the fence of agnosticism and into atheism when my own daughter was born without an esophagus. Fuck that guy!
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Eric Ladd
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Posted: 21 May 2019 at 9:22am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Hearing that "God" is no longer omniscient in an effort to reconcile the logical arguments against the existence of a divine being is hilarious. Is there any interpretation of the good book that is correct? Or should we periodically expect a new way to view the bible and the big G based on the latest scientific argument or evidence?
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John Byrne
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Posted: 21 May 2019 at 9:49am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

What amazes me is people who are led deeper into the quagmire of religion by personal tragedies. Overly cynical on my part, perhaps, but I see there a kind of hubris—an excessive embracing of the idea that “we are all part of God’s plan.”
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Mark Haslett
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Posted: 21 May 2019 at 10:47am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

JB: —an excessive embracing of the idea that “we are all part of God’s plan.”

**

What's the alternative? "Some of this is part of God's plan, and the rest is the
part that God fumbled?"
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Eric Ladd
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Posted: 21 May 2019 at 11:10am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Acknowledging that a god is less powerful than originally presented would seem to pose a few issues for the believers, but what would Christianity be without a few more interpretations and sects? I might be able to get behind teachings of Ricky Bobby and the Crusades of the Talladega Knights.
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 21 May 2019 at 11:28am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

The hypocrisy that bothers me the worst is "Praise God and Lord Jesus that he was with us for so long even with cancer before the Lord called him home."

Who gave him cancer in the first place? How much intolerable agony did he suffer before he was called home? And Who DIDN'T just cure it? The God of Mercy and Love?
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Byron Graham
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Posted: 21 May 2019 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

I just remembered a contradiction I observed at work yesterday. There is a co-worker that is openly gay, and he arrived with his cell phone in hand playing a podcast of a religious nature. I thought to myself, have you even read what the Bible says about homosexuality?

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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 21 May 2019 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

 Eric Sofer wrote:
Who gave him cancer in the first place? How much intolerable agony did he suffer before he was called home? And Who DIDN'T just cure it? The God of Mercy and Love?


Too easy. God is a bit like Donald Trump, everything bad that happens is somebody else's fault or was like that when he got there or is due to Satan (Hillary); the good stuff is through His intervention.

Also, keep in mind that God presents us with these challenges because he's testing us. Nevermind that an omniscient, omnipotent being doesn't need to "test" you to see whether you're good or bad, nor does he seem to put an end to the test when even the non-omniscient can see that the candidate has clearly failed (e.g., I think by around 1941 Hitler had soundly failed his "test").

What's even more concerning is that the test is largely to simply determine if you "have faith". So basically, He supposedly plays this game whereby the ultimate aim is simply to see if you believe in Him and are loyal to Him and his son, despite a lack of conclusive evidence, or even clear guidance from His book. That's it, that's apparently our purpose on this planet... to suffer for the alleged sins of our forefathers, and to eventually come around to believing in something which a rational mind should reject as superstition, before He lets us enjoy some peace and quiet.

Or we can accept that the Universe is largely random, any goodness comes from us and our own efforts, and there isn't an angry, invisible, insecure, king in the sky who is playing illogical games with our lives to boost His ego.

Edited by Koroush Ghazi on 21 May 2019 at 6:43pm
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