Challenge for Theists (How you can convert me to your religion)

[SugarOcean]

See my previous post: If your god truly is real? It would not only want to prove it exists, but it would know exactly what a skeptic needs to be convincing.

The fact that your god 100% refuses to even make the attempt? Proves either your god is maliciously evil, or doesn't care or simply doesn't exist.

Which is it?

None of the above. Your conjurations are from the mind that is blocked to re-cognizing your own reality.
All that exists is proof of the creator of all that is. Even you.
That you are skeptical of that source while alive in this world is your proof that you do not exist.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

The ego is endless.

Why should God prove itself to us?
Why should God care what we believe about it?
What would God gain by our presuming it's existence?

On the other hand, what would we gain by believing in God's existence?

That depends on the kind of God we choose to believe in.

If this "god" of yours will be deciding the outcome of any alleged "after death experience", and also sets the rules?

Then it behooves this god to prove it is not only real, but to explain the rules without ambiguity.

To do otherwise? Is to be forever labeled "evil".

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

None of the above. Your conjurations are from the mind that is blocked to re-cognizing your own reality.
All that exists is proof of the creator of all that is. Even you.
That you are skeptical of that source while alive in this world is your proof that you do not exist.

That's not how it works: "none of the above" is you, ignoring the reality of the possible conditions.

Your New Age Word Salad does not excuse the responsibility of an Ultimate Creator to show it exists -- if there are Consequences for not recognizing it.

If there are no consequences? Then it matters not in the least, and this "creator" may as well not exist in the first place.

A something that refuses to show it's real, may as well not be real.

 

[Road Warrior]

...The Challenge: Pray to your God for a proof/disproof of the conjecture. Post the proof/disproof here. If your god gives you a valid proof/disproof, I will believe in your god and convert to your religion.

You're overlooking Deists who believe prayer is only a great form of meditation. How does that prove you are right about one of the great questions of our species?

 

[PureX]

If this "god" of yours will be deciding the outcome of any alleged "after death experience", and also sets the rules?

Then it behooves this god to prove it is not only real, but to explain the rules without ambiguity.

Why? If this God is that powerful, it could and would presumably do whatever it chooses. It would not be "behooved" by anything or anyone.

To do otherwise? Is to be forever labeled "evil".

Good and evil are relative perspectives. A "God" (defined as the source, sustenance, and purpose of all that exists) would be both or either, depending on the perspective of the observer.

To a lief, the fall of the year must be a hellish time, as it and all it's friends and relatives are dying and falling to the ground to rot away, into oblivion. But from our perspective, it's just part of the seasonal cycle of plant-life. Those dead lief carcasses will become ingested into the soil and provide the nutrients that feed the very trees that will bring forth the next generation of lief-life.

"Good" and "evil" depend on who's experiencing them for their definitions. "God", by definition, would transcend all that.

 

[SugarOcean]

That's not how it works: "none of the above" is you, ignoring the reality of the possible conditions.

Your New Age Word Salad does not excuse the responsibility of an Ultimate Creator to show it exists -- if there are Consequences for not recognizing it.

If there are no consequences? Then it matters not in the least, and this "creator" may as well not exist in the first place.

A something that refuses to show it's real, may as well not be real.

Thank you. You demonstrated precisely what was posited in my post. You are unconscious. The good news is there's a spark inside you that seeks the light or you wouldn't in your own convoluted fashion seek it with the OP.
Your being is as God wills.
No one can change any thing about that. No one can debate you, cajole you, or should argue with you. You are what you are. Created as such. Blind as a rock. Deaf as a post. Oblivious to proof. Even in the mirror.

You have my deepest sympathies for your future journey. All the way to the grave.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

That looks basically right, except you won't get 1,2, or 4 by that method.

Right, since it's a method of generating all possible terms that could precede 4 and therefore lead to 1. So I guess I should've said the set of positive integers minus the set of 4,2,1. In any case, if someone can prove that the set generated in that method is the set of positive integers other than 4,2,1, the conjecture is proven. Of course, that probably doesn't make it any easier.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

You're overlooking Deists who believe prayer is only a great form of meditation. How does that prove you are right about one of the great questions of our species?

I'm agnostic, not trying to be proven right since I make no assertions about God(s)

 

[Road Warrior]

I'm agnostic, not trying to be proven right since I make no assertions about God(s)

Are you denying people's right to believe as they wish without evidence or do you believe as I do that they can believe anything they like as long as they don't try to force more to believe as they do?

What do you think of the militant atheists who constantly ridicule those who believe in a God or some other spiritual belief? Do you treat them the same as a Bible-thumper or Hare Krishna? Or do you give them a pass?

 

[Darkforbid]

This is considered beyond current mathematics! The last attempt at proof was a 32 page pdf (found flawed)

Are you asking God for totally new form of math?

 

[sun rise]

Since god demands worship or he will torture you forever? It's rather "his" responsibility to prove "he" exists.

To do otherwise is either maliciously evil, doesn't care at all, or doesn't exist.

Absolutely not even a little bit loving.

Infinite hell is the view of only some Christians. Why choose the most extreme view?

See, for example. C. S. Lewis "The Great Divorce"

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Why? If this God is that powerful, it could and would presumably do whatever it chooses. It would not be "behooved" by anything or anyone.
Good and evil are relative perspectives. A "God" (defined as the source, sustenance, and purpose of all that exists) would be both or either, depending on the perspective of the observer.

To a lief, the fall of the year must be a hellish time, as it and all it's friends and relatives are dying and falling to the ground to rot away, into oblivion. But from our perspective, it's just part of the seasonal cycle of plant-life. Those dead lief carcasses will become ingested into the soil and provide the nutrients that feed the very trees that will bring forth the next generation of lief-life.

"Good" and "evil" depend on who's experiencing them for their definitions. "God", by definition, would transcend all that.

Word Salad does not excuse the god-- if such even exists in the first place.

You failed to refute my argument.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Thank you. You demonstrated precisely what was posited in my post. You are unconscious. The good news is there's a spark inside you that seeks the light or you wouldn't in your own convoluted fashion seek it with the OP.
Your being is as God wills.
No one can change any thing about that. No one can debate you, cajole you, or should argue with you. You are what you are. Created as such. Blind as a rock. Deaf as a post. Oblivious to proof. Even in the mirror.

You have my deepest sympathies for your future journey. All the way to the grave.

Word Salad. does not refute my point:

IF your god exists? And IF the consequences for failing to stroke it's massive ego, is torture?

THEN your god is pure EVIL.

This isn't complicated. IF your god was, in fact, GOD?

IT WOULD KNOW WHAT IS NEEDED TO GET PAST ALL THE "DEAFNESS".

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Infinite hell is the view of only some Christians. Why choose the most extreme view?

See, for example. C. S. Lewis "The Great Divorce"

"choose?" No-- I simply go by what the bible says, including Jesus.

It says pretty clearly: Worship god like a slave obeys his master, or be tortured forever in a custom-created torture-pit.

As for C.S. Lewis? Back when I was a Genuine Christian™ I read about anything he wrote, including his horrid attempt to write Science Fiction (one of the worst trilogies in all of literature).

I have since concluded that Lewis was suffering from a massive ego, and was a wee bit insane. But attempting to apologize for the pure evil that is the bible's god (as it's described) would turn anyone crazy. I kind of pity Lewis. Had he been born in a different age? He'd likely not have suffered the brainwashing he received as a child, and perhaps would have merely been a sane philosopher, instead of an insane bible-apologizer.

 

[Quintessence]

Someone is going to have to explain to me what the blazes the OP is talking about and how it has anything even remotely to do with the process of deification and the acceptance of the gods.

 

[PureX]

Word Salad does not excuse the god-- if such even exists in the first place.

You failed to refute my argument.

"Word salad" is a term people use then they are confronted with an idea that they can't/won't understand. Just because you don't understand something does not mean that it's nonsense, however. It just means that you don't understand it. It's your ego that won't allow that it is understandable even though you may not be able to understand it. You should get control of that ego, as it will blind you every time you encounter something new, otherwise.

 

[Erebus]

I prayed to my gods but all that happened was I got soggy in the rain.


Sometimes being a nature worshipper sucks.

 

[sealchan]

It seems that this iterative algorithm is one that "finds" a certain series of numbers, which is the series of all numbers that can be expressed as 2 to the power of n. Once it finds a number in that series the algorithm iterates until it reaches 1 by the condition for even numbers. Then it stays in a cycle of 1 4 2 1...

The way it finds that series is to make all odd numbers even and larger is a minimal but non-trivial way. It is, in effect, a random number generator that repeats until it lands on the 2 to the power of n series.

I think that the trick might be to show that for this algorithm that the iterations never fall into a repeating loop other than the one which ends as above.

I will give it some more thought...

One metaphor I think may apply is that the cycle that the iterative algorithm is "a sifting process that always passes everything through given a finite sufficient number of shakes". Since the filtered material can pass through the sifter it eventually will. Reaching 1 is the metaphoric equivalent of all the material falling through the filter.

For each positive integer n a shake (n*3+1) either leads to 1 or another odd number.

I also looked at using 5n+1 instead of 3n+1. There is a nice cycle that starts at 13. On the other hand, starting at 7 seems to go infinite.

This all reminds me of when I played with iterative equation for the Mandelbrot set.

 

[sealchan]

It is *possible* that there is also some number where the resulting sequence is unbounded. So, while it sometimes goes up and sometimes goes down, the overall pattern is to go up infinitely.

One thing I also realized is that the series of numbers produced by the algorithm "pour into each other" so that if one series reached the same number as another series, the two series would be identical thereafter.

Also no series repeats itself until it "reaches the bottom" is apparently also true if the conjecture is true. This reminds me of the Galton board although in that case their is the common fact that a ball that reaches the same position as another ball may have a very different path forward. For the Galton board there is more than one factor that determines the "outcome of the algorithm".

 

[sealchan]

The Collatz conjecture is a conjecture in mathematics that concerns a sequence defined as follows: start with any positive integer n. Then each term is obtained from the previous term as follows: if the previous term is even, the next term is one half the previous term. If the previous term is odd, the next term is 3 times the previous term plus 1. The conjecture is that no matter what value of n, the sequence will always reach 1.

The Challenge: Pray to your God for a proof/disproof of the conjecture. Post the proof/disproof here. If your god gives you a valid proof/disproof, I will believe in your god and convert to your religion.

I got caught up in trying to understand the challenge...but it seems to me that even if I were to play the lottery, I could find or imagine God assisting me should I win.

What sort of claim would you accept of God having helped? Also wouldn't the challenge of predicting the future consistently be another or better one?

Meanwhile I will keep trying...