[quote]Tribulus wrote:
I don’t think you’re a dummy Joe, but I’m unable to say this in a more apparently tactful manner. You are woefully ill and unequipped for these kinds of discussions at present. You are one the most intellectually lazy and undisciplined individuals we’ve had around here for a long time. Which I hasten to add once again, is not the same thing as stupid. I have to believe you ARE capable of better, but are comfortable enough letting other people do your thinking for you.
Ya know what’s one of the great side benefits about being a Christian to me Joe? I not only love you folks, but I like you too. All of you. I mean it. You included. Even the most hateful vitriolic and vicious heathens who call me obscene insulting names. I don’t get angry, I don’t get a knot in my stomach, I don’t even get insulted. Ya know why? Because I KNOW who I am, whose I am and where I’m going. It’s not that you don’t matter to me. Of course you do. You’re my fellow creature bearing the image of my Father, broken though it is in sin. I want you as my brother. If you knew me in real life, you’d believe in miracles my friend because there was a time when I would have taken the money out of your wallet if I saw you dying on the street.
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Tribulus I’ve never seen anyone use so many words to say absolutely nothing.
People present you with good evidence and you deflect it either by completely ignoring it or by going on long rants that don’t actually make any points relevant to the discussion.
[quote]Tribulus wrote:
I don’t think you’re a dummy Joe, but I’m unable to say this in a more apparently tactful manner. You are woefully ill and unequipped for these kinds of discussions at present. You are one the most intellectually lazy and undisciplined individuals we’ve had around here for a long time. Which I hasten to add once again, is not the same thing as stupid. I have to believe you ARE capable of better, but are comfortable enough letting other people do your thinking for you.
Ya know what’s one of the great side benefits about being a Christian to me Joe? I not only love you folks, but I like you too. All of you. I mean it. You included. Even the most hateful vitriolic and vicious heathens who call me obscene insulting names. I don’t get angry, I don’t get a knot in my stomach, I don’t even get insulted. Ya know why? Because I KNOW who I am, whose I am and where I’m going. It’s not that you don’t matter to me. Of course you do. You’re my fellow creature bearing the image of my Father, broken though it is in sin. I want you as my brother. If you knew me in real life, you’d believe in miracles my friend because there was a time when I would have taken the money out of your wallet if I saw you dying on the street.
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Tribulus I’ve never seen anyone use so many words to say absolutely nothing.
People present you with good evidence and you deflect it either by completely ignoring it or by going on long rants that don’t actually make any points relevant to the discussion.
And improving your life isn’t a miracle dummy.
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[quote]OldManJoe wrote:
If God wanted to deliver his message, why did he only deliver it to very few people using text, and then beyond that make it difficult to understand? Why wouldn’t he make it very clear so that there is no question at all?
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This is the whole “Why isn’t God more obvious” argument. I don’t know since I am not God. [/quote]
Ok but what is your opinion on how ridiculous it is for anyone to accept that an all powerful being capable of creating other beings isn’t capable of coming to earth to talk to us and instead just gives some vague book to a few people? Don’t you think that it’s pretty bad communication for an all powerful God?
If there was a company on Earth called God and they had no phone system, no email, no building, no employees, no nothing except an old book that someone found, would you do business with this company? How would you even go about attempting to do business with a company that has no fucking system of communication? HELLO!? ANYBODY THERE?!
No but I’m supposed to dedicate my time and my life to worshiping some asshole who never came to talk to us. Oh but he left this book, see!
And Joe, I’ve never seen anybody use so few words thinking they’re saying everything. Only Christians can do that. "In the beginning God… " The basis for all reality. You’ve given nobody any evidence of anything Joe, except the exceeding sinfulness of man. Even by your own standards of logic and investigation. Where it counts, there is absolutely ZERO evidence that one genetically distinct specie can possibly evolve into another. Not in 1, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. The very existence of genetic language at all SCREAMS in your face a programmer. Matter does NOT posses the ability to give rise to intelligible information autonomously. To believe that it does is a THE supreme leap of blind faith. No so called scientist with 12 PHD’s will ever overcome that. And this isn’t even my preferred method of defending my faith. Without the Christian God you can’t even burp a single meaningful syllable about anything and neither can anyone else. I have typed miles of why in other threads.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
And Joe, I’ve never seen anybody use so few words thinking they’re saying everything. Only Christians can do that. "In the beginning God… " The basis for all reality. You’ve given nobody any evidence of anything Joe, except the exceeding sinfulness of man. Even by your own standards of logic and investigation. Where it counts, there is absolutely ZERO evidence that one genetically distinct specie can possibly evolve into another. Not in 1, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. The very existence of genetic language at all SCREAMS in your face a programmer. Matter does NOT posses the ability to give rise to intelligible information autonomously. To believe that it does is a THE supreme leap of blind faith. No so called scientist with 12 PHD’s will ever overcome that. And this isn’t even my preferred method of defending my faith. Without the Christian God you can’t even burp a single meaningful syllable about anything and neither can anyone else. I have typed miles of why in other threads. [/quote]
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
The very existence of genetic language at all SCREAMS in your face a programmer. [/quote]
And if god programmed us then how come he doesn’t use his powers to prove himself to everyone? Like as in hold weekly meetings with people to discuss adjustments to his code. Or how about any meetings at all? All he has supposedly done is left some crazy book behind. Only weak fools take that as sufficient evidence.
Like I said before, and I’m sure you won’t even address this, you would never believe in a company that has no method of contact so why would you believe in the God of the Christian Bible?
It wasn’t an ad hominem attack, I was simply stating the obvious. An insane person is, by definition, not rational. If you want to maintain the position that the views of an insane person are rational, fine, by all means do so, but it doesn’t strengthen your position at all; quite the contrary.
If you can’t accept the existence of something as is, not even by touching that something or someone, meeting a person in real life, look into their eyes, or talking to the person, then I can only conclude that you don’t know anyone in your life who’s real, not even yourself.
Which is nonsense.
Again, if you want to maintain this position as if it’s true, nobody you care for, nobody you love or have other feelings for is real. Is that really what you want to say here, pat?
No, you just don’t get it. There has to be a “me” that can be fooled in the first place. The fact that I can be fooled must mean I exist.
Does heat from a fire exist? The fact that objects of the mind appear not to exist physically means nothing because objects of the mind can’t exist without the mind. Objects of the mind are merely an extension of the mind. Your dichotomy is unnecessary.
Which is neither here nor there. In each and every one of those 7 billion versions of reality people are subject to gravity, they need to eat, drink and breath air for sustenance and each and every one of those 7 billion people will die.
Continue to deny this and continue to make a fool of yourself.
Ya jist don’t git it Joe. I’m gonna do this just for you. I’m gonna type a few things for at least the 25th time each. Here’s a tip. GOD created YOU. He owns you. And me and everyTHING and everyONE else. He owes you (and me and everyone else) nothing except an eternity of death for crimes against His name and person. The fact that you take one more breath with the possibility of escape is infinitely more than you deserve.
Moreover, His signature is emblazoned in loud blaring neon upon every last particle of this universe. It CANNOT be escaped. There is no such thing as ANYTHING that is NOT conclusive, inescapable, argument ending evidence of His “invisible attributes, <<<>>> his eternal power and divine nature,” (Romans 1:20). It’s not simply that the evidence for the existence of this God is overwhelming. His NONexistence is IMpossible. A man’s blindness does not make him or the universe disappear. The problem is with his eyes, not the universe.
Once you understand who and what this God is? Who and what you are? The nature and heinousness of YOUR sin? AND the reason for the incarnation, sinless life, bloody atoning sacrificial death AND death defeating resurrection of God the Son on this earth 2000 years ago? Sinful God hating scientists proclaiming man from monkeys, whoredom everywhere, disintegrating families, people killing their own unborn children, modern “churches” embracing homosexuality and OldManJoe running from his creator are EXACTLY what you’d expect. Especially when the written revelation of Himself that this God has left us DECLARES that that IS exactly what to expect. As a bonus.
Repent Joe. That means turn. Turn from this pointless rebellion, surrender all that you are and all that you have to the only one who has the authority or ability to show you what’s wrong with you, make it right and teach you why you’re here. He will make you alive in a way you cannot possibly fathom until that life is already yours.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
his eternal power and divine nature," [/quote]
Eternal power yet his only medium for communicating was apparently to leave his shitty old book behind? Oh wow that’s really convincing. How about a visit or at least a phone call? Nope, all we get is shitty old text. Yeah, real reliable, and real “powerful”.
He hasn’t left anything Joe. God the Son has ascended to the right hand of God the Father and God Holy Spirit has been sent to empower the church until God the Son returns. He sustains your existence as well as that of all the vast cosmos or they would vanish. Hebrews 1:1-3
Ya know what power is Joe? Think of everything you know about astro and quantum physics. Particulate energetic matter. The bizarre wave/particle nature of photonic electromagnetic radiation known to us as “light”. The plainly, to us meaningless mind numbing size of just what we know of the universe. Every one of your exalted scientists, if they’re consistent, will agree that in the end Parmenides was right.
You can’t get something from nothing. Unless you’re the God of the bible of course. Then you get all this and everything else except yourself from nothing. By command and it obeys you. THAT is power that will melt your skull just attempting to think about it. I am promising you that you WILL bring Him glory. You’re doing so already. He always gets His way.
Anyways, as to the the premise of the thread title…who says? There are no universal values for the atheist. Evangelicals have been raising children before Dawkins was born.
[quote]Tribulus wrote:
Because I KNOW who I am, whose I am and where I’m going.
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This has always struck me as fascinating. “Whose I am”–not only do you admit that you believe yourself a slave, but you celebrate it openly. You yearn to be a subject so strongly that you are willing to believe the unbelievable so long as it affirms the existence of your master–a master so powerful and so totally in control of you that He can and does condemn you for thought crime.
If it came about that some sort of incontrovertible evidence were presented to support Christian theology beyond any doubt, I would be overcome with despair.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
his eternal power and divine nature," [/quote]
Eternal power yet his only medium for communicating was apparently to leave his shitty old book behind? Oh wow that’s really convincing. How about a visit or at least a phone call? Nope, all we get is shitty old text. Yeah, real reliable, and real “powerful”.
Have fun wasting your life
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll251/emperordiis/napkin-religion-circular-argument-curefaith.jpg[/quote]
Becoming a true believer is a matter of renewal. The old person dies, and the spirit, mind and heart is replaced. The new understanding that comes along differs not in degree from the past held one, but in substance. It is categorically different. God’s existence appears so obvious that notions about leaving behind “evidence” seem laughable and absurd.
Someone who is spiritually blind fumbles in total darkness, it is simply impossible for such a person to understand spiritual matters. Wordly knowledge is not the right toolbox for understanding Divinity. That is not to say that logical thinking cannot lead someone to deduce that there must be a Creator. The fingerprint of God is everywhere. However, that is a different type of understanding than what I’m talking about.
Let me ask you a question. If we are simply one step ahead of chimps and became what we are by adapting to natural conditions in the savanna, then how can you put so much faith in your own logic and understanding of the universe? What makes us categorically different than other animals in that regard? A dog may stumble upon a book of poetry, but it will certainly not be able to understand a single part of its content. Another animal may experience time and space in a way that is radically different than how we perceive it. Yet for some reason, scientists remain confident that what we can see and touch is reality itself. Since materialists do not distinguish between things as they exist in themselves (i would call this metaphysics), and things as we perceive them (i would call this physics), they must assume that our entire apparatus is in total accord with Truth itself. It is a paradox that science assumes that we ourselves are some kind of divine creatures. How and when did this happen? Naturally, the dilemma is resolved if man was created in the image of God, in which case our sense of logic is derived from a higher truth.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Anyways, as to the the premise of the thread title…who says? There are no universal values for the atheist. Evangelicals have been raising children before Dawkins was born.[/quote]
I agree, parents should be able to teach their beliefs to their children children. I don’t think creationism belongs in the classroom, but at home it is the parents’ prerogative.
[quote]OldManJoe wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:He hasn’t left anything Joe.[/quote]I think this is the only thing you’ve said that made much sense.[/quote]We are not communicating here Joe. I’ll take the blame. I meant He has not left. As in “departed”. He sustains everything that is.
[quote]eraserhead wrote:
Naturally, the dilemma is resolved if man was created in the image of God, in which case our sense of logic is derived from a higher truth.
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“We don’t know how something happened so NATURALLY(???) a magical being did it!”
Yeah you could resolve any dilemma if you input a magical being who can DO ANYTHING! Such a primitive way of thinking. And worst of all is that you try and pretend like you’re right by trying to sound smart about it. Congratulations you’re practically a walking disease.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Anyways, as to the the premise of the thread title…who says? There are no universal values for the atheist. Evangelicals have been raising children before Dawkins was born.[/quote]
And now some of those children want to be atheists, hmm. I wonder why? Not entirely serious, but what I have seen good parenting is not dependent of worldview in any way.
I don’t have an understanding of the universe that exceeds [very] basic levels of cosmology, and since 1+1=2 that principle is enough to see me through the day.
It’s believers that compound an already mysterious situation with the existence of something even more mysterious: god.
A god might very well exist, but it won’t do me any good since god is, by definition, unknowable. Accepting ancient texts by goatherders as gospel, well, that’s not going to happen.
[quote]eraserhead wrote:
Naturally, the dilemma is resolved if man was created in the image of God, in which case our sense of logic is derived from a higher truth.
[/quote]
“We don’t know how something happened so NATURALLY(???) a magical being did it!”
Yeah you could resolve any dilemma if you input a magical being who can DO ANYTHING! Such a primitive way of thinking. And worst of all is that you try and pretend like you’re right by trying to sound smart about it. Congratulations you’re practically a walking disease.
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I’m not going to bother with your insult at all. I do not at all believe in a God of gaps, so if it came off that way I’m sorry. You can replace naturally with “of course” if that makes you feel better.
