Does God exist? (6 Viewers)

[Iron]

How does HELL existing constitute love?


.

Hell is merely the absence of God's love

And -
fkinglol @ Abbott. Rudd has no right to lobby the pope for anything, since his heathen wife made his stray from the right path

 

[SylviaB]

Hell is merely the absence of God's love

...and yet I've talked to Catholics who say it's the old school style fire and brimstone eternal torture etc etc type of situation

You guys really need to like, have a meeting or something, compare your notes and get on the same page.

 

[Uncle]

[youtube]yrZk0C91mfg[/youtube]

brraaaave agent pubeit attacks the church of scientology

 

[Iron]

...and yet I've talked to Catholics who say it's the old school style fire and brimstone eternal torture etc etc type of situation

You guys really need to like, have a meeting or something, compare your notes and get on the same page.

I never said it wasnt torture? This pain is the very definition of divorce from God, but it is not strictly inflicted by God; indeed, he calls all His children, through his son, to come back to Him. As a Church, we pray that all will again walk with their maker; we lead our lives in love so that others and ourselves may glimpse the true joys intended for us all

 

[SylviaB]

If my maker so strongly wishes to have me walk with him, maybe he could ask me to, perhaps?

 

[Iron]

He kind of became man for this purpose.
Read up, Sylvester!

 

[SylviaB]

He kind of became man for this purpose.

Allegedly.

 

[Iron]

Mate, if you wont believe the power of that truth, then it would make no difference whether He appeared to you or not. Youd put it down to an extravagant I.T. prank, or some temporary psychological dysfunction. Many, including the disciples, were still skeptical even after witnessing His miracles. Christ does not perform to us like a dancing monkey; he values our freedom immensly

 

[SylviaB]

Mate, if you wont believe the power of that truth,

What proof do you have it's true?
The second and third hand accounts of a bunch of bronze age men? Men who believed the world was flat and that disease was god's way of punishing sinners? Accounts that have since been edited and mistranslated an innumerable number of times?

then it would make no difference whether He appeared to you or not.

It would make ALL the difference in the world if he visited me himself.

You CANNOT claim that 2000 years of what is basically hear-say is the same as A VISIT FROM YAHWEH HIMSELF.

Many, including the disciples, were still skeptical even after witnessing His miracles.

You're doing it AGAIN. You're basing that on the bible.

What makes you think the bible is a valid historical document?

Christ does not perform to us like a dancing monkey; he values our freedom immensly

Except the freedom not believe in him.

And don't tell me that he gives us that freedom, because it isn't a freedom if we get punished for it.

 

[SylviaB]

And what makes Christians holy texts valid, but not that of other faiths?

I mean, have you studied the holy Hindu texts?

If so, why are they not valid compared to the bible?

If not, then you have no right to claim that the bible's right and the Hindu texts aren't.

 

[Iron]

Away with your relativism! -There are two different religions! .:There is no religion! Oh nooooez! I'm so logical!

The historical proof behind the bible is as solid as anything can be which is, idk, 5000yrs old. I dont want to get into an amature historian slinging match over this. It's far to complex for bos.

But essentially m8, ur not open to the Truth, that's cool, but listen, ur swine and there's no use me wasting my pearls on u m8. I'm doing it coz I want to

 

[SylviaB]

Away with your relativism! -There are two different religions! .:There is no religion! Oh nooooez! I'm so logical!

I didn't say there was no religion you imbecile.

I noted that you do not apply the same standards of inquiry to the faith that you were raised in as you do to other faiths.

The historical proof behind the bible is as solid as anything can be which is, idk, 5000yrs old. I dont want to get into an amature historian slinging match over this. It's far to complex for bos.

If it's SOOO solid, sceptics like myself would be Christian. Because that's what we're all about. PROOF.
And if it's so complex, link me to a fucking website or something, gosh.
And not a religious site ffs.

But essentially m8, ur not open to the Truth,

I was a christian UNTIL I WAS FOURTEEN. That's over a decade spent believing in god. I actually wanted god to exist, it's just that there was a lack of evidence to sustain my faith.
You cannot claim I am not open to the truth.

that's cool, but listen, ur swine and there's no use me wasting my pearls on u m8. I'm doing it coz I want to

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

You always do this.

1. Iron makes a dogmatic religious claim.

2. Poster challenges Iron on the lack of proof provided.

3. Iron replies with further dogmatism; makes presuppositional argument which states that his views are automatically "The truth", despite still not including proof for this.

4. Poster makes a long thought out reply to Iron's post, replying in detail to Iron's arguments, and challenges him further for some proof.

5. (Where we are now LOL) At this stage, Iron chucks what can only be described as a hissy fit. He ignores the poster's response, and claims that because the poster's opinion is different to his, that the poster doesn't agree with Iron because he doesn't want to and that he is not "open to the truth".

Iron then claims that simply because the poster's world view is different to his, the poster is thus a lower class of human than him (when the contrary is true because the poster does not believe in things blindly).
He notes that replying to the poster is just such a waste of time, and that he is actually doing a favour by replying to him, and claims that he is under no obligation to do so, so the poster should consider himself privileged.

Any attempt to reply to this post of Iron's will be meet with similar, automatic, dogmatic dismissal, so one really should not bother.

 

[Iron]

Ur weird. I replied to your post before dismissing it and any hope for your salvation through this medium.

Rest of your post is as irrational and emotional as always. The historical truth of the biblical texts is something different to the ultimate truth which they speak of, which, pressumably, can never be proven in any satisfactory way. It is something that an individual must come to internally and under his own freedom. There can be no structure that men can establish which will make other men automatically good. The nature of our freedom is that each individual is someone to be loved and respected and convinced of the Truth from scratch. We cant import any goodness upon people

 

[SylviaB]

Rest of your post is as irrational and emotional as always.

hahaha, pot kettle black.

The historical truth of the biblical texts is something different to the ultimate truth which they speak of, which, pressumably, can never be proven in any satisfactory way.

Then why am I expected by god to believe in him if it, as you actually claim, cannot be proven satisfactorily.

It is something that an individual must come to internally and under his own freedom.

Until someone starts showing me proof, I will never "come to it". IF god wishes to punish me for this, not for not wanting to believe but rather, not being able to believe, then how good is he, really.

There can be no structure that men can establish which will make other men automatically good.

I object to you acting as though believing in god is synonymous with automatically "being good".

[qoute]
The nature of our freedom is that each individual is someone to be loved and respected and convinced of the Truth from scratch.[/quote]

I believe in loving and respecting people. And I welcome you to try to convince me of what you believe to be the truth.

I ask ONLY that you do so by means other than simply asserting that it is necessarily the truth.

 

[DavidBenGurion]

Until someone starts showing me proof, I will never "come to it". IF god wishes to punish me for this, not for not wanting to believe but rather, not being able to believe, then how good is he, really.

God has endowed you with the tools to believe, and it has been your conscious choice to reject these tools in the name of skepticism. You place greater value on the tools that God gifted to you, over God himself. He gave you good, and you took without payback, and thus you've no place in his most glorious afterlife.

 

[Iron]

Dude, most of my sentences within a paragraph actually relate to eachother. You cant keep isolating a random one and criticising it, while ignoring the answer given in the next sentence, yeah?

The best I can do is love and respect you lol. The mystery of our faith is chiefly an internal and inherent relationship with God. Only you can choose to recover that knowledge and joy

 

[SylviaB]

Dude, most of my sentences within a paragraph actually relate to eachother. You cant keep isolating a random one and criticising it, while ignoring the answer given in the next sentence, yeah?

I was going to claim that you should actually be doing that, but meh.

The best I can do is love and respect you lol.

Fine Iron, I love you.

The mystery of our faith is chiefly an internal and inherent relationship with God. Only you can choose to recover that knowledge and joy

Ah there's my problem.

You talk about choosing.

What we perceive to be the truth should be about choice as little as possible.


And furthermore, unless someone showed me proof or something along those lines, I really don't see it as possible for me to believe in god.

It's like you trying to force yourself into believing that the tooth fairy exists.


And no, before you say it, I'm not comparing your beloved god to the tooth fairy : /

 

[SurferNerd]

What do you people make of claims of strong atheism?

This proposition, which earlier highlighted requires positive knowledge, seems to be only possible if an objective morality can be derived without God- ie as in David Kelly's "The Logical Structure of Objectivism" and the work of Ayn Rand etc

I know these positions themselves are arguable, however if we can establish moral truths on reason, then particular arguments (especially in George Smith's "The Case Against God") are highly persuasive:

The argument from noncognitivism

Argument of materialist apologetics

" " Fact of Choice

" " Moral Autonomy

" " Scale

The common cosmological argument

certain teleological arguments

You can read more here: StrongAtheism.net - Atheology

 

[DavidBenGurion]

go back to phil1011

 

[BradCube]

Hey Sylvester,

I'm interested to know what type of problems exactly you are referring to when mentioning, mistranslation and the unreliability of the bible. As far as I am aware, our current translations are very close to the original manuscripts. There will of course, always be slight differences when translating from one language to another, but usually the general meaning is still conveyed accurately.

If you're looking at engaging with natural proofs for Gods existence, I would love to recommend a couple of books. Not knowing where you're at academically, the two I'll suggest are on a different levels.

Reasonable Faith (3rd Ed) will serve as a good introduction to some of the arguments for Gods existence and includes counter arguments and then counter-counter arguments. The book is aimed at university undergraduates and so should be digestible for anyone with enough determination to get through it. It's also aimed at educating pastors on current issues, so keep this in mind for some of the dialogue found within. I think it would be good food for thought regardless of whether you have disagreements with some of the content (for which you will). Shoot me a PM if you're interested in this one and I'll buy you a copy and mail it to you . Actually thinking about that, I'll extend that offer to anyone - would be good to have something for us all to read through in promoting discussions/arguments/disagreements etc.

The second one I mentioned a while back and is on a higher level academically. It is the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. It examines various arguments for the existence of God, and it is probably the best resource available to find all of these arguments fleshed out and detailed in one volume. I am slowly working my way through the different versions of the Leibnizian cosmological argument. Unfortunately this one I couldn't afford to shout due to the expense but if you are keen, I would highly recommend it (even when looking at it from an atheistic worldview).