Why does my God allow children to die? Is he evil?

[1robin]

However there could of course be a lesser God, one who isn’t the Supreme Being, and in which case the above conclusion wouldn’t apply.

I do not know what this was supposed to show.

No, it isn’t a ‘goal’ but an observed fact. Humans are part of the world, and ‘humans flourishing’ is no more important than the cow or the tree. A cow feels pain and will avoid hazards to stay alive, and by staying alive it may reproduce, and the willow tree that is felled produces new shoots both from its stump and the felled trunk, and is thus rejuvenated and continues to grow and produce more seeds. There is no vanity in instinct and genetic material. Humans may be higher order animals but that term ‘morality’ is simply reducible to survival and continuity.

This is only going to get worse for you. So besides being vain in our conclusion we matter more than cows or goats, we enforce morality based on power. Also in a great many cases morality is no conducive to its adherent’s survival. I guess along with arbitrary survival now morality is defined as brain sophistication. If it was not one of the 300,000 white Christians who died to free a people from slavery would have done so. There exists no worse argument for atheism than morality. It is an issue that shipwrecks its premise.

But you are misunderstanding the principle itself and the logical consequent. Although an eternal or self-existent world are logically possible suppositions there is no contradiction in conceiving the possible non-existence of the world together with everything that occurs within it; and whatever the world is it cannot answer to a Supreme Being that is dependent upon the world and everything that occurs in the world, which includes the principle of causation. So there we have it: a contradiction twice over! There are no labels but just things that are true because they cannot logically be false.

You keep making this argument and I keep trying to see the contradictions but I just can't. Being that I can't see what it is you are saying is probably why this is the only point you have made that still stands. I am afraid that understanding will undo it's status though. I see absolutely nothing contradictive with anything you said unless it is that cause and effect are what produces reality and that would not be how God would act. Is that what you are saying?

I suspect you’ve rushed off a response seemingly without properly understanding what I have written. The argument has nothing to do with scientists’ claims. And this will be the third time I’ve explained that Hume’s empiricism is correct! For if we hold to the principle of causation, as we must with all things in experience, then an effect implies a cause. But, as Hume showed, cause isn’t logically necessary; or in the simplest terms it doesn’t exist beyond the natural world.

1. The universe is a thing.
2. This thing began to exist.
3. It needs a cause or was the first thing ever encountered that didn't and there is no evidence for that.
Hume never said that causation ceased with the natural. That is not even possible for him to know even if true.
It is a simple fact that I my premise agrees with every observation ever made and your does not. I do not claim to know what happened as a fact but simply go with what is observable and "thinkable", the fact that nothing has no causal potentiality, that the statement that something began to exist from nothing is a logical contradiction given what we know, and on logical intuition and inference.
Since Hume's simple statement is wrenched into a unrecognizable form let me give another one from your side indicating the obvious:
The response of atheists to this dilemma has been silence.
Atheist philosopher, Quentin Smith writes,
"The idea that the Big Bang theory allows us to infer that the universe began to exist about 15 billion years ago has attracted the attention of many theists. This theory seemed to confirm or at least lend support to the theological doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Indeed, the suggestion of a divine creation seemed so compelling that the notion that "God created the Big Bang" has taken a hold on popular consciousness and become a staple in the theistic component of 'educated common sense'. By contrast, the response of atheists and agnostics to this development has been comparatively lame."
http://www.risenjesus.com/ex-nihilo-nihil-fit-out-of-nothing-nothing-comes

The claim the universe had a cause is consistent with every other observable fact ever known. The claim that it does not is contradictory to it. There exists no reason to suspend a philosophical principle that has no dependence on nature. The number 1 is still 1 ever if not 1 anything existed.

Every person, theist or skeptic, must agree that if God is the Supreme Being then he cannot fail to exist. That is the plain logical truth of the matter.

Here we go again, so far so good.

And that being the case then God cannot be the author of the world’s existence dependent upon a natural feature of the world that can fail to exist.

That is not coherent IMO.

You can’t accept a self-evident logical truth on the one hand and then deny it on the other because it doesn’t favor your beliefs. And once again you cannot presume to argue from things that have no empirical exception to things that have no known instances, whether they are empirical or metaphysical.

Is this the argument you have been making? I think I at least understand what you are saying finally.
1. If I posit that what is true always is then.
2. I can't argue for something that is not known to exist does in fact do so.
Only if for some reason once an argument is made on some basis that same basis must be used for all argumentation and that is invalid.
That is like saying if we watch some remote island's sea shore on a faraway planet with a telescope and no intelligent life ever comes into the picture. Then later we find "Hume was an idiot" written in the sand we conclude that nature did it and intelligence does not exist. The conditions for the premise are not identical. It is acceptable though not wise to assume no life exists until we encounter an effect for which only intelligence is a candidate. Only if we were dealing with proof claims would your argument be valid.

 

[cottage]

Then give me a single example out of the virtually infinite of test cases available where an effect did not require a cause. Until you can then my claim is consistent with facts without exception and all the linguistic gyrations in your quiver will that any less significant or reasonable.

I’ll explain it again. It is impossible to demonstrate a falsehood in any propositions concerning matters of fact, for if they were demonstrably false a contradiction would follow in each case. We expect every effect to answer to a cause because causation is one of the laws of nature. If I drop a leaden object into a river I would expect it to sink and not fly upwards. And if someone died I would not expect to find the person resurrected three days after with no corruption of the flesh. Both events would be a violation of the laws of nature for we expect conformity in our perceptions, based on past events. And yet to say the leaden object might fly into the air, or the body, dead three days, might stand up and walk, are both intelligible propositions and no more involve a contradiction than to declare that the object must sink or the body must remain dead. Now self-evidently the same cannot be true of the Supreme Being, for otherwise a falsehood is demonstrated and a contradiction is implied, which is precisely what we have in the case of your argument. See it now?

Nope it's all simply wrong. You have basically pulled God out of the Bible by his ears and brushed the entire context away and then re dressed him in a context that you have chosen for a purpose. God can make a relationship with man anytime he wishes. He could create us as automatons which have no choice. That is not his purpose though it's seems that you think so. He wished to create a being with freewill who through love can choose to establish a relationship with him. It is easy to see the stupidity of the former and the worth of the latter. God is also personal meaning he can chose to act. He is not a brute force that must either have always produced all effects it is capable of or never have. He is also not obligated to produce a maximal world in any respect. What you say might apply to some natural force currently unknown of a theoretical concept dreamed up for some reason it most certainly has little to nothing to do with the concept of God in the Bible.

Well in that case what I’m saying to you is that, by the very definition of the term, the God in the Bible cannot be the Supreme Being. It is literally nonsensical to propose that God created beings in order for them to love him, for creating beings for that purpose tells us that God the creator, the All-Sufficient Being, has needs, which of course is self-evidently absurd. It is also blindingly obvious that beings that didn’t previously exist cannot derive a benefit or gain from God’s love and goodness. And the freewill defence proposes God as one who decrees freewill as having a greater moral worth than the alleviation of evil and suffering (The Problem of Evil), which is a further conundrum if God is said to be benevolent. In sum, if God is all-sufficient then there can logically be no argument for his creating anything external to himself for there is nothing that can serve his being since by definition it is already augmented without limit.

I debate as I see fit, it has worked for years. I have become aware of so many arguments by so many people and have so limited time that I must gauge when and where I expand them. If you claim faith is nonsense, then all that is necessary to show the claim is nonsense is to give the names of a sufficient number of experts in certain fields who held faith to prove it. Does not make faith true but does make it intellectually permissible. For this argument and the one above only the names are necessary and BTW every single professional debate with have lists of scholars who agree or disagree with either side. If you want to get beyond the names and into the argument than make claims that it requires their arguments to counter and not simply their names. If I said Newton, Einstein, and Sandage all believe X that is enough in any arena to make X a viable proposition. To make it true or the most logical explanation then that needs their argumentation.

You are still putting words in my mouth! I am not anti-faith and have never “claimed faith is nonsense”. All arguments are ‘intellectually permissible’ as far as I’m concerned providing they are coherent and not ad hominem.

And it is for you, the one who is dropping names, to give the scholars’ arguments! My argument is with you; I can’t debate arguments by proxy.

 

[cottage]

There was no specific argument associated with your original claims and my response. This was a complaint you made about my mentioning scholars in general.

You said you’ve “adopted arguments” from your “brilliant scholars, and for example you’ve mentioned William Craig, Ravi Zacharias, both of whom you hold to be superior to Kant. So let’s have ‘em? You could begin, for example, by explaining how those two names are a "superior to Kant!?

You seem to operate on the assumption that you can redefine a concept out of existence. These concepts: strings, multiverses, abiogenesis are all derived by scientists are discussed in scientific academic setting and used as evidence or counter claims against God by non-theistic scientists and atheists is forums. They are considered viable theories and have no evidence what so ever of any kind. One in fact is contrary to every piece of evidence in existence. Now science is supposed to be the field where empirical concepts and facts are most at home yet these theories are alive and flourishing and meet neither demand. God has mountains of evidence consistent with his reality and yet faith in him is called nonsense. You can't redefine your way into this being a consistent or even reasonable standard. It just isn't, it's an inconsistent standard that defies reason on the basis of preference.

Metaphysical arguments whether multiverses or God may all be what you call viable theories, but they are not subject to experimental reasoning, which is where things are repeatable and confirmed in experience and are therefore considered true in a highly probable sense. When a thing is described as nonsensical or absurd, it is not because of questionable evidence or because it is inconclusive, it is because it is self-contradictory or logically impossible. So to recap for you, there are two tests of the truth. The first is where repeatable experiments find for the same conclusion, and the second is where propositions can only be true or false (ie certitude). But with regard to the first example nothing in experience can ever be true, because inductive reasoning can never be conclusive. And there ends the lesson for today.

 

[cottage]

Let me type slower. Just kidding. If I said X believes Y is true and that since X believes it then Y is true is a fallacy and not what I have been saying.

Actually do you remember asking,

“who is qualified to disagree with Greenleaf and Lord Lyndurst?” To which you added: “Credentials do not get any higher.”

Classic! I really could not have found a better example of a plea to authority.

Incidentally you will have my response to Greenleaf (your post 1023).
(He, too, was no stranger to authority pleas)

Intellectually permissible means sufficiency of grounds for faith. God has more than enough evidence to justify faith. That is the only burden I have.

Once again, you are stating the obvious. The Supreme Being is logically possible. It is “intellectually permissible” to believe literally anything that doesn’t contradict itself. The most fantastic metaphysical arguments are intellectually valid, where their internal truths all in agreement. But you are not justifying faith only to yourself you’ve been making pleas from authority figures, and that is an evidently fallacious manner to in which to debate the issues.

If Given a few dozen Descartes’s it would be the end of the matter as far as intellectual justification for belief is concerned.

On its instantiation alone Descartes is intellectually justified in making his argument. The question is whether his argument justifies the claim.

Of course I know this and that is why I have never used an argument as proof. Why can't YOU get THIS? I must have said this a dozen times in half a dozen ways. The logic is absolute and everyone on Earth including you acts consistent with it.

It isn’t a question of proof! You have been using authority arguments to support what you believe to be the case. And that is fallacious reasoning because while pleas from authority do not stand as proof they assume a correctness or superior quality in the arguments.

This is not so. The case to show something is intellectually permissible is far far easier than showing it isn't.

But all arguments are intellectual permissible unless disqualified by being incoherent or an attack upon the person. And as I said: ‘”those who take the opposite position may also be awarded the same heading of “intellectually permissible.”’ Even arguments subsequently argued to be fallacious or contradictory are still intelligible, or in your words “intellectually permissible.” I’m sorry but it has been clear from the beginning that you are trying to cover an argument from authority by watering it down, while still appealing to authority figures.

Science regards multiverse theory as intellectually permissible yet in no category whatever is the case for it even close to the one for God. There is no case for it yet I will not call it nonsense (no-sense might be better) The Burden of proof for the claim there might have been a predator twice as big as T-REX less demanding than the claim there was not or that the original claim is nonsense. Thousands and thousands of the best scientists in history believing in something is valid reason to conclude that at this time it is anything but nonsense, in fact it makes perfect sense. I will not cover this again.

Yet another argument from authority!

 

[SkepticThinker]

You said something so absurd "science is not based on faith" that I showed you that every belief, fact, and conclusion is based on faith using something as equally absurd but much more conclusive.

Yes, I said that because science is not based on faith, ESPECIALLY in comparison to religious faith.
I don’t have to prove the world didn’t pop into existence 10 seconds ago, and there’s no reason to think it did given that we have a ton of evidence showing that it’s billions of years old. It could have though, because I guess anything’s possible, but all evidence we have says that it didn’t.

If so it is dyeing in the cradle. It has become a joke and people are jumping jump lately. I do not care enough to post proof but will if necessary.

Pardon me for not taking your word for it, given that you aren’t a practicing scientist in the field, I’ll go with them instead.

Your argument was that there is faith involved in this hypothesis (and in all science), when in fact, there isn’t.

My claim and the goal, prove life can come from non-life. No life has ever been produced from non-life. FAIL.

Once again, we don’t prove it, we provide evidence for it.

If the experiments had failed, as you claim, then nothing would have been produced in those labs, and we wouldn’t know that it’s theoretically possible for non-life to produce life. But the opposite occurred. So I’m sorry if you want to keep repeating it until the cows come home, but you are just wrong on this. Just saying over and over that all these experiments failed doesn’t make it so.

And again, no faith is required here, given that this is demonstrable science.

It has never ever been observed yet is constantly claimed to have occurred. What about that is not faith?

IT HAS BEEN OBSERVED. Therefore, no faith required.

I have already admitted that evolution is a fact (or at least natural selection is) the Bible said that thousands of years ago, and there exists nothing to contend about its existence. I think what you are talking about is that I said macro-evolution is faith based and it is. No one ever has seen a species evolve into another one. It is believed they did based on evidence (not proof) the same as God.

Macroevolution is basically indistinguishable from microevolution (despite claims by yourself and other creationists) and most certainly is not faith-based in any sense of the word. Macroevolution follows from microevolution (same thing, just more time) and in fact, speciation has been observed. You don’t live under a rock, do you?

I’m glad you accept the science of evolution though (or most of it, I guess). That’s something. I suspect the reason you don’t accept macroevolution has to do with the Bible’s descriptions of kinds (whatever that is)? Please correct me if I am wrong.

Science doesn’t prove things, it provides evidence for them. Once enough evidence has been amassed it becomes accepted as the likely explanation (i.e. fact).

I imagine macro evolution is possible but since species have mating barriers it is not that simple. This is not a meaningful issue either way to the Bible. I used it to show yet one more of the millions of scientific "facts" that are believed not proven.

Species have mating barriers? If you’re referring to reproductive isolation, what you’re talking about is a barrier that contributes to speciation. And if you’re not, then I’m not sure what you’re talking about.

Macroevolution IS evolution and it is demonstrable. So again, no faith required.

No it is you that miss it. Oscillating universe have infinitely less evidence that God yet are viewed as intellectually permissible even though the Bord Guth Velankin theorem almost rules them out, and I have no problem with it just allow the much more evidenced faith the same right.

Where is all this evidence for god you keep talking about?

In order for your faith argument to work here, you’d have to show that scientists believe it without any evidence. So go for it. As far as I can tell, it’s not a generally accepted hypothesis at this point.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Which is the exact definition of faith or at least reasonable faith and exactly what you deny for faith. Either quit relying on faith within a discipline that demands fact derived conclusions or allow faith to exist in both realms since it already does in science anyway and many times to a vastly greater level than theology.

That’s not a definition of faith I’ve ever seen. You mean when you talk about faith you’re referring to testable, empirical, demonstrable, verifiable, repeatable, concordant across many fields of research, evidence? That doesn’t fit any definition of faith I’m aware of.

And I’m sorry but I can’t help but find the bolded part pretty funny. You can’t be serious.

Never would have been necessary if science did not demand that faith be evaluated by a standard it does not have and that science actually does but ignores. I am not equating, they are quite literally the exact same things many times.

No, they really aren’t the same thing at all.

Can you demonstrate the existence of the god you believe in using empirical, falsifiable, repeatable evidence? If not, then I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t think you do either.

In no category is multiverse theory equal to the concept of God yet one is taught in school as a possible explanation and the other held out at gun point in order apparently to make enough room to pass out condoms, bullets for school shootings, and drug related gang activity. However there should have already been enough room with all the drop outs and failing students despite the fact we spend more on education per person than anyone on Earth by far, and under no circumstances admit the mistake. Yippy secular progress.

So you believe your religion should be taught in schools? Why should yours get special preference over any other? And I suspect that if say, the Muslims wanted to teach their religion in public schools, you just might have a problem with that. Although I could be wrong. How about wiccans?

I’m not aware of any school that hands out condoms willy nilly, or bullets either. And I hate to tell you this but it appears that at least one of the reasons your public schools are failing you is because they fail to properly teach science and the scientific method. Do you know how many American adults I’ve come across that have no idea how science works, or what the scientific method is? More than I ever imagined there could be, or should be. I hate to tell you this too, but among the schools around the world whose children perform best in math, science and reading, many are countries that are arguably far more secular than the US. Yippee secular progress indeed.

I have about had my fill of arguing about arguments instead of discussing the actual issues.

Okay. What do you think the actual issues are?

 

[SkepticThinker]

What I claimed was absolutely inescapable whether intended or not, but was never the point. I do not let the ignorant statements of others offend me very often. My primary complaint against your statement is that it is absolutely unjustified, it also just happens to be insulting, if allowed to be. My main disappointment with rhetoric like this is that it gives me good reason to conclude that I am once again arguing against a preference and/or an emotion. What the Bible calls the spirit of this age or man's wisdom.

Are you trying to say that your belief in god is not based on preference and/or emotion? How did you come to start believing in god again?

It tells me no evidence no matter how solid will be actually considered and no argument so undeniable that it won't be anyway.I have for many years understood very well that dismissal of faith has precious little to do with any facts but rather the condition of the heart and comments like this confirm this and saddens me a bit. I know this very well because I did this very thing for 27 years.

Lack of evidence is the reason I don't believe in your god. So, you're just wrong.

The heart pumps blood. So what do you mean, exactly?

 

[1robin]

I’ll explain it again. It is impossible to demonstrate a falsehood in any propositions concerning matters of fact, for if they were demonstrably false a contradiction would follow in each case. We expect every effect to answer to a cause because causation is one of the laws of nature. If I drop a leaden object into a river I would expect it to sink and not fly upwards. And if someone died I would not expect to find the person resurrected three days after with no corruption of the flesh. Both events would be a violation of the laws of nature for we expect conformity in our perceptions, based on past events. And yet to say the leaden object might fly into the air, or the body, dead three days, might stand up and walk, are both intelligible propositions and no more involve a contradiction than to declare that the object must sink or the body must remain dead. Now self-evidently the same cannot be true of the Supreme Being, for otherwise a falsehood is demonstrated and a contradiction is implied, which is precisely what we have in the case of your argument. See it now?

Nope. I must have seen hundreds of hours of debate from philosophers alone concerning God and never have I heard even a version of this argument used before. Sounds intelligent but contrived but until it makes sense I can't say. Let's say God exists. What is contradictory about his existence? Why is his existence more problematic then an aliens for instance? I am relieved many times to claim an argument is beyond my scope and refer a person to someone else but that requires I first can get some idea of what and why they are claiming what they are, and so far this one eludes me.

Well in that case what I’m saying to you is that, by the very definition of the term, the God in the Bible cannot be the Supreme Being. It is literally nonsensical to propose that God created beings in order for them to love him, for creating beings for that purpose tells us that God the creator, the All-Sufficient Being, has needs, which of course is self-evidently absurd.

To enjoy the existence of a thing is not to need or be less than whole without the thing.

It is also blindingly obvious that beings that didn’t previously exist cannot derive a benefit or gain from God’s love and goodness.

What?

And the freewill defense proposes God as one who decrees freewill as having a greater moral worth than the alleviation of evil and suffering (The Problem of Evil), which is a further conundrum if God is said to be benevolent. In sum, if God is all-sufficient then there can logically be no argument for his creating anything external to himself for there is nothing that can serve his being since by definition it is already augmented without limit.

Ok, now you’re dealing with an issue that I not only am familiar with but makes sense to me. The problem of evil is easily shown false by actual existing facts. When 911 occurred Church attendance rose sharply. If God wishes love freely given then freewill is a necessity. Freewill makes rebellion a necessary possibility. Rebellion makes suffering an inevitability. The apprehension of a supposed moral realm of action and consequence of both good and bad produces more faith than one with less. It would only be a problem if someone who never rebelled suffered for the rebellion of another without being compensated by a being of perfect justice.
I think you are confusing a pleasure with a need concerning what a supreme being may do. I might derive pleasure from drawing but derive no sense of loss from not being able to do so and given the way I draw it is no wonder. For example I might like owning a new puppy but am not currently deficient without one in any real way.

You are still putting words in my mouth! I am not anti-faith and have never “claimed faith is nonsense”.

This is getting a little tiresome. For the third and final time. Your statement was this

"To posit a personal God who cares about us is nonsense".

If an idea is nonsense then faith in it is necessarily nonsense as well and you and I both know that is what your statement says. If you wish to back out of that now by any means necessary then do not mention it again and neither will I.

All arguments are ‘intellectually permissible’ as far as I’m concerned providing they are coherent and not ad hominem.

Now that was incoherent. All x's are Ok as long as they are certain Xs and you are the judge of that. You have skipped actual authority and simply appointed yourself as such. There is not enough Latin available to illustrate how incorrect that is.

And it is for you, the one who is dropping names, to give the scholars’ arguments! My argument is with you; I can’t debate arguments by proxy.

That is false. Let's say that Newton, Einstein, Sandage, and Hubble said the Big Bang was true.
1. If the question is "Is the Big Bang a true fact" then yes you need the arguments and probably a lot more.
2. If the question is "Is the posting of the Big Bang nonsense you do not need their arguments given their impeccable credentials.
In fact an expert witness in a life and death case is not even usually asked anything beyond his opinion. Again why is what is valid for life and death issues not valid for God? And why do people try and think simple things into intellectual oblivion.

 

[1robin]

You said you’ve “adopted arguments” from your “brilliant scholars, and for example you’ve mentioned William Craig, Ravi Zacharias, both of whom you hold to be superior to Kant. So let’s have ‘em? You could begin, for example, by explaining how those two names are a "superior to Kant!?

I never said or meant anything about absolute value, I said I consider them as such. I also do not remember mentioning Kant in a comparison but may have. I will do better than requested. Here is a link to Ravi's audio comments on Kant, Neitze, etc.. If you have never heard him it will be rewarding even if you disagree. If you do so I will venture more effort in this respect. It has 4 short parts.

Metaphysical arguments whether multiverses or God may all be what you call viable theories, but they are not subject to experimental reasoning, which is where things are repeatable and confirmed in experience and are therefore considered true in a highly probable sense.

That is not true, given revelation. If I say I am from God and in exactly 50 years the statue of Liberty will catch on fire started by a cow named Nebuchadnezzar. If it happened it adds to the probability of my premise, if it does not it detracts. It may be a little hard to assign it a specific value but when this happens over a thousand additional times many of which are more improbable and detailed then claiming it makes no contribution to the probability God is true is pure desperation.

When a thing is described as nonsensical or absurd, it is not because of questionable evidence or because it is inconclusive, it is because it is self-contradictory or logically impossible. So to recap for you, there are two tests of the truth. The first is where repeatable experiments find for the same conclusion, and the second is where propositions can only be true or false (ie certitude). But with regard to the first example nothing in experience can ever be true, because inductive reasoning can never be conclusive. And there ends the lesson for today.

Give me a link to a video or audio debate where a professional philosopher debates another on both sides of this God is contradictory concept. I have never heard one and do not see the truth of it in your statements, though that may be my fault.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That is not true, given revelation. If I say I am from God and in exactly 50 years the statue of Liberty will catch on fire started by a cow named Nebuchadnezzar. If it happened it adds to the probability of my premise, if it does not it detracts. It may be a little hard to assign it a specific value but when this happens over a thousand additional times many of which are more improbable and detailed then claiming it makes no contribution to the probability God is true is pure desperation.

That wouldn't necessarily prove you're from god though. It would only show that you might have some kind of telepathic powers or something (at most). It's a huge leap to go from that to the personal god you believe in (it's the same problem William Lane Craig always runs into).

What if I said, "I am from the invisible pink fairy" and was able to predict future events. Would that necessarily mean that I'm actually from the invisible pink fairy?

 

[1robin]

Actually do you remember asking,

“who is qualified to disagree with Greenleaf and Lord Lyndurst?” To which you added: “Credentials do not get any higher.”

Yes, can you answer it? It is a question not a proof statement. I did not say and therefor the Gospels are true. I could have said therefore the Gospels claims are not nonsense. I am getting very weary of arguing about argumentation. This discussion is circling the drain of irrelevance.

Classic! I really could not have found a better example of a plea to authority.

I can. Greenleaf said X so X is a fact. An actuall appeal to authority that is also actually invalid, and that took all of 4 seconds.

Incidentally you will have my response to Greenleaf (your post 1023).
(He, too, was no stranger to authority pleas)

Why should I value your conclusions above his? How many law schools did you co-found or how many textbooks on evidence and testimony did you write? If you were in a jury and the question was could a .45 go through a wall and kill someone and two ballistics experts and three forensic coroners all answer with yes alone would you jump up and yell appeal to authority?

Once again, you are stating the obvious. The Supreme Being is logically possible. It is “intellectually permissible” to believe literally anything that doesn’t contradict itself. The most fantastic metaphysical arguments are intellectually valid, where their internal truths all in agreement. But you are not justifying faith only to yourself you’ve been making pleas from authority figures, and that is an evidently fallacious manner to in which to debate the issues.

Intellectual permissibility which has no objective criteria. It is a relative value. I will define it since I use it, to mean that sufficient evidence or reasonable arguments exist to convince greater than 25% of a random rational audience composed of 1 million plus sample size. If you agree to my standards then this petty semantically circus can finally end if not then offer a counter value.

On its instantiation alone Descartes is intellectually justified in making his argument. The question is whether his argument justifies the claim.

By what formula is this objectively determined? Given your statement then on what basis do you declare anything posited by the Bible nonsense?

It isn’t a question of proof! You have been using authority arguments to support what you believe to be the case. And that is fallacious reasoning because while pleas from authority do not stand as proof they assume a correctness or superior quality in the arguments.

I do not assume faith is intellectually sufficiently justified I proclaim it using the authority of people who are more than almost all others qualified to determine. This exact same procedure is used in every field of study on earth yet for some magical reason is out of bounds concerning God. I have had it with this over-technical, inconsistent, double standard, hyperbolic semantics. You are obscuring simple procedures and competent argumentation used in courtrooms in ever nation every day and class rooms in every college in every nation. What is the goal of this hyper-obscuration? In fact I am currently burned out. The wall won't give and my head hurts. You would make one heck of an ambulance chaser.

 

[cottage]

This is only going to get worse for you. So besides being vain in our conclusion we matter more than cows or goats, we enforce morality based on power. Also in a great many cases morality is no conducive to its adherent’s survival. I guess along with arbitrary survival now morality is defined as brain sophistication.

There is nothing in that reply that gives an argument against what I’ve said, but much that is in agreement. I agree with your comment on ‘brain sophistication’ and of course I agree with the fact of human vanity, which applies to god believers and sceptics alike. There is no thought or action that we have that is not selfish, even when we award ourselves the moral title.

1. The universe is a thing.

2. This thing began to exist.
3. It needs a cause or was the first thing ever encountered that didn't and there is no evidence for that.
Hume never said that causation ceased with the natural. That is not even possible for him to know even if true.

Hume said there is no logical argument that the world must exist – at all! Therefore it certainly cannot be said that cause is necessary beyond the empirical world. The non-existence of every matter of fact can be conceived without contradiction or other absurdity; Hume’s example: That the sun shall not rise in the morning implies no more a contradiction than it will rise.” So whether it is the rising of the sun or the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, the world can be conceived to not exist, which means the world’s existence cannot be explained by reference to further causes, since causality must exist outside the physical world in order for a Creator to bring the world into existence. Thus causal arguments to God immediately become impossible, for while the world may not exist the same cannot be said of the Supreme Being without contradiction.

Since Hume's simple statement is wrenched into a unrecognizable form let me give another one from your side indicating the obvious:

The response of atheists to this dilemma has been silence.
Atheist philosopher, Quentin Smith writes,
"The idea that the Big Bang theory allows us to infer that the universe began to exist about 15 billion years ago has attracted the attention of many theists. This theory seemed to confirm or at least lend support to the theological doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Indeed, the suggestion of a divine creation seemed so compelling that the notion that "God created the Big Bang" has taken a hold on popular consciousness and become a staple in the theistic component of 'educated common sense'. By contrast, the response of atheists and agnostics to this development has been comparatively lame."

Indeed, I could not agree more! In fact I would say entirely lame rather than “comparatively lame’.
However, my argument stands, causation is a contingent concept and God necessarily is not. If God caused the BBE then he too must be contingent, which is a contradiction.

The claim the universe had a cause is consistent with every other observable fact ever known. The claim that it does not is contradictory to it. There exists no reason to suspend a philosophical principle that has no dependence on nature. The number 1 is still 1 ever if not 1 anything existed.

The Cosmological Argument conflates the principle of cause and effect with creation. Nothing in the world is created, not objects, not thoughts, not life itself, not anything; we merely apply, adapt or respond to what is already there. The synthesis isn’t the introduction of something from nothing but a change or variation in existing things. Even our most fantastic imaginings, for example, are not created from nothing but compounded from general experience. And since nothing is ever observed to be created ex-nihilo, then the analogy that insists that the world was created must false. The world is all that exists, and the laws of thought as with the laws of causation are mind-dependent, and the world in its entirety can cease to exist (no contradiction), but God can no more fail to exist than we can deny our place in the contingent world (contradiction).

That is not coherent IMO.

Okay. But in what respect?

1. If I posit that what is true always is then.
2. I can't argue for something that is not known to exist does in fact do so.
Only if for some reason once an argument is made on some basis that same basis must be used for all argumentation and that is invalid.
That is like saying if we watch some remote island's sea shore on a faraway planet with a telescope and no intelligent life ever comes into the picture. Then later we find "Hume was an idiot" written in the sand we conclude that nature did it and intelligence does not exist. The conditions for the premise are not identical. It is acceptable though not wise to assume no life exists until we encounter an effect for which only intelligence is a candidate. Only if we were dealing with proof claims would your argument be valid.

Let me put it this way for you, in very simple terms: you’ve described how empirical truths, such as the law of causation, have no known exceptions and you affirm that it is those principles that enable our understanding of what might be. But then in order to defend your doctrinal beliefs you jump ship at the limits of experience and declare for a metaphysical entity that has no traceable connection from your empirical premise. You can only make inferences from and to possible experience (from the particular to the general). And yet your argument is an attempt to argue deductively (from the general to the particular) when not only is it the case that inferences from a general proposition (all things are in want of a cause) can never be conclusive, but there is the evident contradiction where the supposed Supreme cause is, by your own reasoning, contingent upon an inconclusive principle.

 

[1robin]

That wouldn't necessarily prove you're from god though. It would only show that you might have some kind of telepathic powers or something (at most).

Do you actually mean that you will in order to preserve your worldview which apparently is important enough to justify considering anything at all as more likely than God. Telepathy is a conclusion without a premise. There is no source to present events that have no happened to a mind previous to them. It is also not what the persons in the Bible claimed was the source of their visions and it was not telepathically consistent reasons things happened. Babylon was not destroyed because telepathy was mad at it. Christ was not predicted for telepathic reasons. Telepathy is a word not even a coherent concept but I guess anything is preferable to a concept that comes with accountability. The evidence for preference in your argumentation just keeps piling up.

It's a huge leap to go from that to the personal god you believe in (it's the same problem William Lane Craig always runs into).

No it isn't, if I predict as the Bible does 350 facts about Christ that are meaningless without my God and his specific purposes and it happens telepathy is about the bottom rung of the ladder and God is in isolated rarified air at the very top. As for many things in reality God is by far the best explanation available for the effect and will not under any circumstances be even allowed as a possibility by most non-theist, anything else is just fine (absurd or not) but not God.

What if I said, "I am from the invisible pink fairy" and was able to predict future events. Would that necessarily mean that I'm actually from the invisible pink fairy?

If you wrote down 2000 plus of these predictions and they came true and they were consistent and perfectly applicable within a book that contained 750,000 words indicating the purpose and methods of the great pink fairy I would certainly consider it. Why is changing the name of a meaningless concept from telepathy to pink fairies perfectly valid in the former and ridiculous in the latter?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Do you actually mean that you will in order to preserve your worldview which apparently is important enough to justify considering anything at all as more likely than God.

No. I’m saying that evidence of telepathic powers isn’t evidence of god. It’s evidence that someone has telepathic powers.

Telepathy is a conclusion without a premise. There is no source to present events that have no happened to a mind previous to them.

I don’t know what your second sentence is supposed to mean, but why do you assume that evidence for telepathic powers is evidence of god? And taking it even further, how is it evidence of your god? Claiming, as you did below that the people in the Bible thought the source of their visions (dreams?) was god doesn’t cut it for reasons I give below.

It is also not what the persons in the Bible claimed was the source of their visions and it was not telepathically consistent reasons things happened. Babylon was not destroyed because telepathy was mad at it. Christ was not predicted for telepathic reasons. Telepathy is a word not even a coherent concept but I guess anything is preferable to a concept that comes with accountability. The evidence for preference in your argumentation just keeps piling up.

So? People can say whatever they want. I can say I believe my intelligence comes from invisible pixies, but that doesn’t make it so. Some schizophrenic people believe the thoughts in their head are being broadcast over the radio, but believing it doesn’t make it so.

If someone were to present some kind of evidence that they were in fact, telepathic, we could actually study and test that person’s claims and attempt to determine the source of the supposed powers, which would actually be quite interesting. I don’t know why we’d just assume the source of the powers was your god and end it there. Why would telepathic powers have to come from (your) god? (Well I know why you would assume it, but why should anyone else? I mean, it actually appears that the evidence for preference in argumentation is coming from your side.)


And excuse me, but my worldview comes with accountability. I am accountable to the other humans that inhabit this earth along with me. These are actual people I can see and interact with.

No it isn't, …

Sure it is. How does one automatically follow from the other?

… if I predict as the Bible does 350 facts about Christ that are meaningless without my God and his specific purposes and it happens telepathy is about the bottom rung of the ladder and God is in isolated rarified air at the very top. As for many things in reality God is by far the best explanation available for the effect and will not under any circumstances be even allowed as a possibility by most non-theist, anything else is just fine (absurd or not) but not God.

First of all, what are these 350 facts you keep going on about?

Secondly, I don’t know what all these evidences for god are that you keep talking about, even though I’ve asked you repeatedly to name some of them. See, the reason I don’t just assume your god is behind everything is because I can see no good evidence in the first place, that “he” even exists at all. That’s why I don’t leap to the same assumptions you do. I don’t think that imagining that the source of telepathic powers could come from something other than the Christian god is absurd at all. You think it is because you assume “he” exists in the first place. People used to think the only possible source of lightning could come from a god as well, and we know how that turned out.

If you wrote down 2000 plus of these predictions and they came true and they were consistent and perfectly applicable within a book that contained 750,000 words indicating the purpose and methods of the great pink fairy I would certainly consider it. Why is changing the name of a meaningless concept from telepathy to pink fairies perfectly valid in the former and ridiculous in the latter?

There are not 2000 predictions in the Bible that ever came true, nevermind being consistently and perfectly applicable … etc.

I insert pink fairies instead of god to show that you can insert any person, place or thing into the sentence and still be making the same claim. A claim to which the source cannot be detected.

 

[1robin]

No. I’m saying that evidence of telepathic powers isn’t evidence of god. It’s evidence that someone has telepathic powers.

So telepathic powers were mad at Babylon and destroyed it. It is not the four telepathic horsemen in revelations. This is an example of the thing that drives me nuts with the non-theists. You will literally accept as valid (or potentially valid) anything: evidence, no evidence, logical, irrational, well accepted, on the fringe, consistent with natural law, or in contradiction with natural with apparently the single exception of God. Why in the world is epilepsy, telepathy, multiverses, and abiogenesis etc....no matter how ridiculous a preference to faith? The Biblical prophecies have no context within telepathy) which is a term used as a place holder for no one knows what happened anyway). In what way is telepathy a BETTER explanation of anything that God. This extreme bias is bewildering.

I don’t know what your second sentence is supposed to mean, but why do you assume that evidence for telepathic powers is evidence of god?

Why do you assume telepathic powers is even a thing. Telepathy did not write 750,000 of the most influential words ever recorded. Telepathy does not have 2 billion adherents, telepathy is little more than a word. In what category is it a better explanation for anything?

And taking it even further, how is it evidence of your god? Claiming, as you did below that the people in the Bible thought the source of their visions (dreams?) was god doesn’t cut it for reasons I give below.

Let's say 20 people predicted that X would happen and it did. I said how did you know and they said aliens arrived from X and told them. My first instinct would not be epilepsy, telepathy, or a magic eight ball. I do not believe in aliens yet I would not consider any other explanation better without sufficient evidence. I do not mind skepticism or the consideration of all possibilities, I do however claim that instant adoption of alternative explanations over the ones given by the people who had the experience no matter how bad an obvious result of bias and preference.

So? People can say whatever they want. I can say I believe my intelligence comes from invisible pixies, but that doesn’t make it so. Some schizophrenic people believe the thoughts in their head are being broadcast over the radio, but believing it doesn’t make it so.

That is exactly why I never said it is a proven fact. I said given what we have God is the best and perhaps the only known candidate for certain claims many times and certainly for prophecy.

If someone were to present some kind of evidence that they were in fact, telepathic, we could actually study and test that person’s claims and attempt to determine the source of the supposed powers, which would actually be quite interesting.

They have and it was. It however in the case of Biblical or theological prophecy is by far a worse explanation than God. Yet you have inverted the situation and chosen the worst explanation because it is convenient. Telepathy does nothing to explain the death of Jezebel for crimes against God, as well with TYRE, or the 350 for Christ alone. Does Telepathy explain why he will be called Emanuel and save mankind? The 2000 plus prophecies in the Bible make no sense without the context of revelation. Again let me ask in what category is telepathy a BETTER explanation for prophecy than God, even God's I do not believe exist. I do not believe in Allah and would deny him even if he did exist yet even he is a better explanation for theological (context) prophecy which is the subject than telepathy. I am for running all the telepathy experiments possible but currently it IS IN NO WAY a better explanation for prophecy. I guess convenience equates to validity in your world.
I don’t know why we’d just assume the source of the powers was your god and end it there. Why would telepathic powers have to come from (your) god? (Well I know why you would assume it, but why should anyone else? I mean, it actually appears that the evidence for preference in argumentation is coming from your side.)

And excuse me, but my worldview comes with accountability. I am accountable to the other humans that inhabit this earth along with me. These are actual people I can see and interact with.

Even if true, which is impossible to demonstrate beyond an assumed responsibility it last for a cosmic blink of time and pales in relative insignificance to accountability given God.

Sure it is. How does one automatically follow from the other?

I can only repeat. No it isn't, if I predict as the Bible does 350 facts about Christ that are meaningless without my God and his specific purposes and it happens telepathy is about the bottom rung of the ladder and God is in isolated rarified air at the very top. As for many things in reality God is by far the best explanation available for the effect and will not under any circumstances be even allowed as a possibility by most non-theist, anything else is just fine (absurd or not) but not God.

First of all, what are these 350 facts you keep going on about?

http://www.bibleprobe.com/365messianicprophecies.htm
Let's say telepathy is a proven fact instead of a word. Why would you think it has anything to do with the statements at that site?
BTW please define the mechanics of telepathy even if theoretical.

Secondly, I don’t know what all these evidences for god are that you keep talking about, even though I’ve asked you repeatedly to name some of them. See, the reason I don’t just assume your god is behind everything is because I can see no good evidence in the first place, that “he” even exists at all.

No you ASSUME he can't possible exist and view everything through that lens. Anything, even more fantastic (if even possible) and ambiguous things are posited as explanations by your for events that God is by far the best explanation for no reason at all (much less a sufficient one). I can't even evaluate the reasons because I see none.

That’s why I don’t leap to the same assumptions you do. I don’t think that imagining that the source of telepathic powers could come from something other than the Christian god is absurd at all.

That is not what you are doing. You are eliminating God from the list of possibilities even though he is at the top in most cases and then selecting any other thing no matter how far down the list as a substitute. I do not assume God exists. I have experienced him. I spent 27 years assuming he did not exist, hoping he didn't, and hating him even if he did until I was overwhelmed by evidence so strong I gave it up. I then was given subjective proof but proof none the less, but even without that God would still be at the top of the list to explain Biblical prophecy and countless other concepts with anyone not hostile to the very idea of God.

You think it is because you assume “he” exists in the first place. People used to think the only possible source of lightning could come from a god as well, and we know how that turned out.

I would respond if true.

There are not 2000 predictions in the Bible that ever came true, never mind being consistently and perfectly applicable … etc.

There is about a 1 in a million chance you would know this even if true. Since you either have assumed this or claim to know it then the burden is yours. Are you the one that claimed Tyre had never cease to exist? If so it is a hopeless request.

I insert pink fairies instead of god to show that you can insert any person, place or thing into the sentence and still be making the same claim. A claim to which the source cannot be detected.

Produce the most influential book ever written by pink fairies and we can discuss it. When 1/3 of the human population believes to have experienced pink fairies then we can discuss it. When the most influential being in history is claimed to be a pink fairy then we can discuss it. When you produce people willing to die for their faith in fairies then we can discuss it. Because you prefer to equate God to pink fairies does not make them equal or the comparison meaningful or profitable.

 

[SkepticThinker]

So telepathic powers were mad at Babylon and destroyed it. It is not the four telepathic horsemen in revelations.

No. The Hittites and the Assyrians destroyed Babylon.

This is an example of the thing that drives me nuts with the non-theists. You will literally accept as valid (or potentially valid) anything: evidence, no evidence, logical, irrational, well accepted, on the fringe, consistent with natural law, or in contradiction with natural with apparently the single exception of God. Why in the world is epilepsy, telepathy, multiverses, and abiogenesis etc....no matter how ridiculous a preference to faith? The Biblical prophecies have no context within telepathy) which is a term used as a place holder for no one knows what happened anyway). In what way is telepathy a BETTER explanation of anything that God. This extreme bias is bewildering.

No, I literally will not. I will accept as valid something that which makes the most reasonable sense, and/or that which is well evidenced, or failing that, I may just have to say I don’t know. I don’t see any descriptive value in simply determining that some god must have done it, end of story. Telepathy would fall into the “I don’t know” category, hence why I said that if we found a person that appeared to display telepathic powers, we would have to do a lot of investigating before coming to any conclusions since we don’t have any hard evidence for the existence of telepathic powers at all. We both agree that it’s an unknown.

Epilepsy is a medical condition with known causes (and treatments), so I’m not sure why you included it in your list of absurd ideas. And on a side note, if someone had observed an epileptic person having a seizure and concluded that god is the cause, we wouldn’t have any medical treatment for it, and people who have epilepsy (a friend of mine being one of those people) would continue to needlessly suffer.

Why do you assume telepathic powers is even a thing. Telepathy did not write 750,000 of the most influential words ever recorded. Telepathy does not have 2 billion adherents, telepathy is little more than a word. In what category is it a better explanation for anything?

I don’t assume telepathic powers is even a thing. I was pointing out that if it appeared that someone was able to predict the future or communicate with other minds or something, it may be evidence for telepathy, or there could be some other cause which is yet unknown. The point being that we don’t just instantly jump to “god did it, case closed,” instead we investigate and figure out what is going on there. And even if we could say that the likely explanation appears to be that telepathy actually exists, we still can’t leap to the “god did it” conclusion because one doesn’t necessarily follow from the other.

Humans wrote the Bible, not telepathy. Humans destroyed Babylon, not telepathy. Who cares how many adherents Christianity has? That doesn’t make it true. And I hate to tell you but those 2 billion people don’t believe everything you believe, given that there are hundreds of different versions of Christianity.

Let's say 20 people predicted that X would happen and it did. I said how did you know and they said aliens arrived from X and told them. My first instinct would not be epilepsy, telepathy, or a magic eight ball. I do not believe in aliens yet I would not consider any other explanation better without sufficient evidence. I do not mind skepticism or the consideration of all possibilities, I do however claim that instant adoption of alternative explanations over the ones given by the people who had the experience no matter how bad an obvious result of bias and preference.

I guess that’s why we’re so different. I wouldn’t believe aliens told them about it since there is no evidence for the existence of aliens and therefore we have no experience to draw on where we could conclude that aliens had a hand in it. My response would be, let’s investigate this thing and see if we can find out how these people were able to do this. Now, if they could show me an alien spacecraft or something, I might be more inclined to accept their story. Without that, I see no reason to accept that aliens told them anything. You do for some reason.

Thousands (if not millions) of people already claim to have been abducted by aliens, do you believe that is the case?

This is a tiny bit off on a tangent, but I think it pertains to what we’re talking about. Every now and then, I’ll have a little nap in the afternoon on the weekend. There have been occasions where I’ve thought I was awake, but I couldn’t move my body, and then suddenly I feel like I’m falling or spinning very fast or vibrating, and there is a very loud whooshing noise and I see what appear to be spinning lights swirling around. Sometimes I also feel like there is a presence in the room, though it’s undefinable. And sometimes, I even feel like I’m outside by body trying to crawl back inside it. Then suddenly it all stops and I can move again, and I’m in my bed and I’m fine. Given these experiences, I can understand how someone could believe that they had been abducted by aliens or that demons or something had been in their room, had they experienced something similar. The spinning lights kind of seem like something you might see on a UFO, it feels like there’s a presence in the room (Alien? Demon? Ghost?), you can’t move, etc. Turns out though, there is a much more simple explanation for all this and it’s known as sleep paralysis. When we are in REM sleep, our bodies produce neurotransmitters that paralyze our major muscles, which keeps us from acting out our dreams. When we wake up before the REM cycle has finished, our body hasn’t yet had a chance to catch up (i.e. our mind is awake while our body is not), hence we still can’t move or speak, which is obviously frightening to us because we don’t know what is going on. We know from sleep studies that activity increases in the temporal lobe during sleep paralysis which can cause auditory hallucinations (the whooshing noise I heard in my ears) and the visual cortex is also active which accounts for the visual hallucinations I experienced (the feeling that something or someone else was in the room with me). We know all this from identifying the experience/issue and investigating possible causes. We don’t learn anything from it if we just assume it’s aliens abducting us or ghosts haunting us and leaving it at that.

This is one of the reasons why I don’t take people’s word for it when they tell me they’ve been abducted by aliens or that they’ve seen a ghost. They may be telling the truth, in their opinion, but it necessarily address what is actually going on.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That is exactly why I never said it is a proven fact. I said given what we have God is the best and perhaps the only known candidate for certain claims many times and certainly for prophecy.

I think I just demonstrated that god, aliens, ghosts, etc. aren’t necessarily the best explanations for such things.

Can you please explain why god would be the only known candidate for supposed telepathic or predictive powers?

They have and it was.

Someone has produced evidence for the existence of telepathic powers? Who?

It however in the case of Biblical or theological prophecy is by far a worse explanation than God. Yet you have inverted the situation and chosen the worst explanation because it is convenient.

I haven’t concluded anything. What I said was that someone having some kind of predictive powers is only evidence that they are somehow able to predict things, but that it isn’t evidence for your god. I still don’t see how it is and you’ve said nothing to convince me that it would be. How do you get from one to the other?

A whole bunch of Muslims think their holy books are filled with all kinds of prophecies too, which is the same thing you claim about the Bible. So why do you not believe that Allah exists?

Telepathy does nothing to explain the death of Jezebel for crimes against God, as well with TYRE, or the 350 for Christ alone. Does Telepathy explain why he will be called Emanuel and save mankind? The 2000 plus prophecies in the Bible make no sense without the context of revelation.

Jezebel’s death was caused by human actions. As was the overpowering of Tyre by various foreign invaders. Anyone can write it down and declare that these things were prophesized by people speaking to god or acting on his behalf. And I have to say, your Tyre example doesn’t convince me given that the prophecy states it will be destroyed and never rebuilt when a) it was never destroyed, merely conquered, and b) there still exists, in virtually the same location, a place called Tyre.

Again let me ask in what category is telepathy a BETTER explanation for prophecy than God, even God's I do not believe exist. I do not believe in Allah and would deny him even if he did exist yet even he is a better explanation for theological (context) prophecy which is the subject than telepathy. I am for running all the telepathy experiments possible but currently it IS IN NO WAY a better explanation for prophecy. I guess convenience equates to validity in your world.

And again what I said was, that prophetic or telepathic power isn’t necessarily evidence for god. It is merely evidence that someone can have prophetic or telepathic powers. I’m not even asserting that telepathic powers exist in the first place (and actually I don’t think they do). You’re the one stating that it must come from god and I’m wondering how you leap to that conclusion? I’m guessing it’s because you already believe in god.

Even if true, which is impossible to demonstrate beyond an assumed responsibility it last for a cosmic blink of time and pales in relative insignificance to accountability given God.

It’s not impossible to demonstrate that I’m accountable to other human beings. We all inhabit the same planet, why wouldn’t I be accountable to others? I am directly responsible for the way I treat other people in this life here on earth, regardless of how long it lasts. Why would it matter how long life is? It exists regardless of the time span involved. And furthermore, I have no reason to believe that any life exists beyond this one.

I can only repeat. No it isn't, if I predict as the Bible does 350 facts about Christ that are meaningless without my God and his specific purposes and it happens telepathy is about the bottom rung of the ladder and God is in isolated rarified air at the very top. As for many things in reality God is by far the best explanation available for the effect and will not under any circumstances be even allowed as a possibility by most non-theist, anything else is just fine (absurd or not) but not God.

Like I said, I don’t assume your god exists in the first place because I don’t see any good evidence that he/she/it actually does. So I have no reason to assume your god is responsible for anything. I don’t see how someone being able to predict the future (which I doubt is even possible) necessarily means that it must have come from some kind of divine revelation and that there can be no other possible explanations for it. I might as well just assume god makes lightning and not bother investigating where lightning actually comes from.

I am willing and able to believe in your god, any god, or no god, given good evidence for any of them. If there is good evidence for something, I would have no choice but to accept it. In fact, I used to believe in some version of the Christian god, until I realized I had no good reason to believe in “him” at all and many reasons not to. So my mind can be changed.

http://www.bibleprobe.com/365messianicprophecies.htm
Let's say telepathy is a proven fact instead of a word. Why would you think it has anything to do with the statements at that site?

Maybe I&#8217;m using the wrong word here. Maybe clairvoyant, psychic or precognitive are more accurate. I&#8217;m talking about the supposed ability to predict future events (which I think and hope I&#8217;ve made clear despite probably using the wrong word for it). That would definitely address the supposed prophecies listed on that site. (And I will put enmity</SPAN>
between you and the woman, and between your offspring[a] and hers; he will crush[b] your head, and you will strike his heel&#8221; is considered a prophecy?)

I hope that clears things up. Sorry about that.

BTW please define the mechanics of telepathy even if theoretical.

I have no idea what the mechanisms would be, hence the reason I said it would require investigation.

No you ASSUME he can't possible exist and view everything through that lens. Anything, even more fantastic (if even possible) and ambiguous things are posited as explanations by your for events that God is by far the best explanation for no reason at all (much less a sufficient one). I can't even evaluate the reasons because I see none.

Because I see no good evidence, and therefore no good reason to assume your god does exist and therefore I have no reason to attribute anything to &#8220;him&#8221; whereas you seem to want to attribute everything to &#8220;him.&#8221;

I haven&#8217;t posited anything more fantastic than what the evidence would indicate. If someone could provide evidence that they were able to see the future, it would only indicate that they may be able to see the future, and nothing more. It doesn&#8217;t follow that god revealed the future too them, even if it says so in a book.


The examples you have given me from the Bible, which you think are startlingly well detailed and described don&#8217;t cut it for me since the details don&#8217;t match reality (at least given what you&#8217;re presented to me). I could be persuaded if I found it remarkable at all, but so far, I&#8217;m not blown away.


I posit natural explanations for many reasons, including the fact that most things humans have attributed to gods throughout our history have turned out, upon further investigation, to have natural causes and explanations behind them. Also, naturalistic explanations are things that are verifiable and demonstrable. I&#8217;m a stickler for that.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That is not what you are doing. You are eliminating God from the list of possibilities even though he is at the top in most cases and then selecting any other thing no matter how far down the list as a substitute. I do not assume God exists. I have experienced him. I spent 27 years assuming he did not exist, hoping he didn't, and hating him even if he did until I was overwhelmed by evidence so strong I gave it up. I then was given subjective proof but proof none the less, but even without that God would still be at the top of the list to explain Biblical prophecy and countless other concepts with anyone not hostile to the very idea of God.

I&#8217;m not eliminating god. I&#8217;m wondering why you leap to the conclusion that god is in fact involved when I don&#8217;t see how one follows from the other. All I&#8217;m saying is, if someone could show that they&#8217;re able to predict future events, we should investigate the claims and try to figure out their source, whatever that may be.


Would evidence of ghosts prove the existence of god to you? Does your god explain prophecies found in the Qu&#8217;ran? Does your god explain the supposed Nostradamus prophecies? Lots of people have claimed to be able to predict the future.

I would respond if true.

You believe god exists, therefore you attribute it to god. You&#8217;ve done this numerous times with numerous things. It`s probably the reason you don`t attribute these things to Allah.

Do you not think it`s true that people used to think gods were responsible for lightning? Or were you merely objecting to the first part of the statement?

There is about a 1 in a million chance you would know this even if true. Since you either have assumed this or claim to know it then the burden is yours.

The ones you`ve provided have hardly been convincing.

Are you the one that claimed Tyre had never cease to exist? If so it is a hopeless request.

Yeah, because it STILL EXISTS and was never completely destroyed (even you admit this without realizing when you tell me that part of the city ended up at the bottom of the ocean), while the main part of the city continued to exist throughout history, and exists to this day. I can refer you to Christian apologetics websites that refute your claim that Tyre was completely destroyed and never rebuilt, if you`d like.

Produce the most influential book ever written by pink fairies and we can discuss it. When 1/3 of the human population believes to have experienced pink fairies then we can discuss it. When the most influential being in history is claimed to be a pink fairy then we can discuss it. When you produce people willing to die for their faith in fairies then we can discuss it. Because you prefer to equate God to pink fairies does not make them equal or the comparison meaningful or profitable.

Five thousand years ago no one believed in the god you believe in. So what does that mean to you?

Millions of people believe in alien abduction, so what does that mean to you?

More than a billion Muslims believe Allah is the one true god and are willing and able to die for the faith they have in that belief. So what does that mean to you?


I say god and pink fairies hold the same explanatory power. That being none.

 

[1robin]

No. The Hittites and the Assyrians destroyed Babylon.

I am out of time sorry. This was technically correct and my mistake. Yes they destroyed Babylon but they did not predict it nor did they compel it's desolation for all these years. The Bible said the greatest city of the time (maybe the best fortified city of any time) would cease to be settlement of any significance. It is. The last time settlement was attempted was by Sadam insane right before we destroyed his army and any efforts he was making to build up Babylon. Did telepathy cause that to happen to fulfill the Bible?

No, I literally will not. I will accept as valid something that which makes the most reasonable sense, and/or that which is well evidenced, or failing that, I may just have to say I don’t know. I don’t see any descriptive value in simply determining that some god must have done it, end of story. Telepathy would fall into the “I don’t know” category, hence why I said that if we found a person that appeared to display telepathic powers, we would have to do a lot of investigating before coming to any conclusions since we don’t have any hard evidence for the existence of telepathic powers at all. We both agree that it’s an unknown.

Yep but I alone allow God to be one of the unknowns and am therefor consistent. Also he is the most fitting to the facts of the issue of any unknown available.

 

[sunni56]

People will always complain. If God kills Hitler as a child, why would He kill an innocent child? If Hitler grows up and kills many people, why couldn't have God killed him before?