Does God exist? (13 Viewers)

[dan964]

typically changes train of though halfway through
C = category of things we can study in science. which is only a small subset of the total n in B, where n is an event.
Science cannot study 'n' that exist outside of B.

where B is the set of all events explainable by laws of nature.

Regardless of how you look at it, the real question I am concerned with in responding, is whether ~B exists. Because if it does, why should its size matter?

 

[SammyT123]

1. You have a round-the-bush way of saying exactly what I think you are trying to say. You are implying not arguing.

Unfortunately the way you construct the hypothesis is flawed. You are dealing with two different categories of events:
- one is meta-physical
- one are natural events.

The scientific method by its very design only is able to investigate the latter.
So your hypothesis is flawed, it cannot include/consider miracles as part of it.

tldr; don't apply laws of physics to metaphysics
I'll let everyone else reading make their own judgements about this lmao

However the fundamental conclusion is also flawed.
P1: Scientific method is the only way we study/prove things (postulate)
P2: Most things happen according to laws of nature. (undisputed fact)
C1: Miracles probably didn't happen or we shouldn't believe in them (to account for the unclarity on what you are actually trying to acheive)

P1 is presumptious, it presumes that all there is, is the laws of nature, which is the result; or uses the implausibility fallacy

No debate here
Imho, empirical evidence or what you call "the scientific method" is an excellent way to look at hypothesis
If I am being presumptious, give me a more applicable method to test hypothesis in the 'metaphysical' scope

For instance, your example isn't great because it introduces factors, such as risk of death/consequence, which in the miracles/laws of nature logic of reasoning doesn't have.

My example is fine. Probability is well accounted for in nature and logic.
Fruit X causes 99.999999999999% of people to die
Fruit X causes 0.00000000001% of people to gain superpowers
My advice: How about we forget the 0.0000001% of accounts and just not eat the fruit

Lets use a more neutral example:
Lets suppose for some $\varepsilon >0$ cases, in a total population of $N$ where $N$ is massive, there exists a disease with two symptoms.
For 99.999999% of people, they have the symptom of X
For the remaining 0.000001% of people, they have the symptom of Y.
Now of course your hypothesis for a finite small sample of N, would favour symptom X.
But now let me demonstrate the inherit problem. What actually is your sample size? If N is sufficiently small, then yes you are going to have problems.
But what if N tends to infinity? When we consider the number of events since the inception of the universe, it would some really really large unimaginable number. And there lies the problem. The methology appears to be problematic.

Nice try
http://lesswrong.com/lw/p3x/argument_from_infinity/

Why are you even using infinity? The number is in the trillions, but that is not very unimaginable at all?
Secondly, let me assume you are correct. Somehow we can use your terrible approxmiation that the number of observable deaths approaches infinity , and this ofc will cause problems with the sample size.

And that is where you stop
SammyTs hypothesis become problematic if we use infinity is the best you can do
You cannot then say "therefore a ressurection may have occured because things behave oddly when the sample size approches infinity

We have two categories:
A - meta physical
B - physical
C - subset of physical $C \subset B$

Sigh

I am going to create my own laws, calling it "Bullphysical"
You cannot apply science to it
In fact, nothing exists in this world that is applicable
My statement: In my bullphysical sphere, Sam is actually a god who can resurrect at will


If you are going to say, dont apply empircal evidence/science to this so called metaphysical scope, then there is no debate. We simply agree to disagree

====
(On your side note: actually you wouldn't. If you had the undiluted power to, you would use it for yourself. Why do you think the issue of poverty exists in the first place?
Because of humanity. But tangent of course.

This has got to be the worst reasoning I have ever encountered in this entire thread

Sam : If I had the power to , I would end poverty
Dan: No you wouldn't
Sam: ????
Dan: Poverty exists because of humanity! You would just use the powers on yourself!

Sorry mate. I know if I had unlimited power I would help people. So would many, many others.
Many people donate to charity and do plenty of other good things, and there are plenty of very, very powerful people who do great things for the world.

I think I know myself better than you do

P2 is the faulty premise.
How do you prove that something is needless? Ignorance about purpose or assertion that there is a purpose, is a poor justification, to claim "needless".

Needless: (of something undesirable) not necessary because avoidable.
took 0.2 seconds to googl

How do you define cruel?

Took another few seconds of googling
Cruel = Behaviour which causes physical or mental harm to another, whether intentionally or not.
stop trying to play word games

Both of these are unscientific questions, these are subjective opinions. If you don't believe that God exists, obviously you will think that everything he does, that isn't what you would/wouldn't do is needless.

Most people would agree that sending a dog to its death because it is ‘unclean’ (not actually dirty, it’s just that someone has a grudge on it) is cruel

I however, am going to assume you are a robot. Let us use the definitions of the words mentioned above 

P3: Just to throw a question, in your ethics/line of reasoning.
Are pigs > humans?

Nice try again
This is not what I am saying
I hate to resort to such crude examples, but you just won’t get it

Lets assume that humans > dogs
Does this mean I can go ahead and slaughter dogs because I have a grudge against them? (I.e Jews thinking pigs are unclean)

But widening the context to see the underlying issue
Q: Why does God allow evil/suffering if he is able to stop it?
C2: If he doesn't stop it and he allows it, he must be cruel.

Exactly 

I summaryse P3 & C1 with C2, and I reject C2. (that is the link between P3 to C1 needs further justification)
And this is where I think your side note, actually sheds some light.
We approach God, with a list of demands and expectations:

No. We ASSUME that god is kind and will help us. Probably a false assumption because he does not help us. Think about it like this. There are millions of devoted, faithful Christians whose prayers will not be answered by god today.

Also, I think it is perfectly fine to request a bit of food when you are starving to death from an all-powerful all loving god who created a world with the suffering you feel in the first place

Q Line of reasoning
We expect God to work in X manner (miracles/dreams, speak to us directly, heal sick people, fix poverty - all in the one mega-category) for instance.
Or if I were God (I would do this, this and this).
And so when he doesn't operate in that way, we conclude he doesn't exist, or that he must be a jerk or not a very powerful God.

Correct

1. Why is God under any obligation to do anything extraordinary for his humans/animals?

He is not. But if He can stop being a dick and end the brutal suffering felt by some , that would be nice
Not too much to ask for, considering he is all powerful and can do this with 0 effort!

2. What do you think the purpose of the miracles (I would include both sides of the 'demon-possessed man & the pigs story) is to demonstrate?
Why do you think he allowed it?

You know what would be nice?
If he stopped performing such useless miracles and started helping the billions in need
After all, that’s what an all loving and caring person would do, right?

"For this experiment, we need to find a deserving person who has had both of his legs amputated.”
Now create a prayer circle like the one created for Jeanna Giese. The job of this prayer circle is simple: pray to God to restore the amputated legs of this deserving person. I do not mean to pray for a team of renowned surgeons to somehow graft the legs of a cadaver onto the soldier, nor for a team of renowned scientists to craft mechanical legs for him. Pray that God spontaneously and miraculously restores the soldier's legs overnight.

Lmao what
Invite me over to one of these circles, I wanna grab some video footage of magically restoring legs

If possible, get millions of people all over the planet to join the prayer circle and pray their most fervent prayers. Get millions of people praying in unison for a single miracle for this one deserving amputee. Then stand back and watch.

This is exactly my point. He can help children suffering right now, but for some sick reason he wants to let them suffer until they form a massive prayer circle or do some other fancy stuff. (And may still not help them, because as you said, god does not answer every prayer)

I mean, I am not the nicest person out there but if I were a god I really would not expect this shit. Just heal the poor guy :/
It’s also odd that conveniently no such miracles have occurred on camera , It would be pretty cool seeing a guy magically regrow his legs in the middle of a prayer circle

What is going to happen? Jesus clearly says that if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. He does not say it once -- he says it many times in many ways in the Bible."

Really? Ima ask my mate, who is a devout Christian and a very very nice person to go and pray for a lambo asap
I’ll let you know when he gets it

So I have highlighted in red, what I think is the fundamental problem with the line of reasoning. Several issues:
1. Does God answer every prayer with yes? No, but they assume yes.
2. Does God work in miracles? Most of the time he actually doesn't; when there is a miracle it serves a particular purpose.

How do you always miss the point completely , it amazes me
1. Does god answer the prayers of the millions of starving, faithful people in the world?
Nup
Also, I would assume that god could just magically help everyone in poverty with a click of the fingers, but instead he will let all of them suffer for some sick reason

2. Yet Christians seem to focus on the miracles A LOT, which is why it is being discussed. Heck, most of their beliefs stem from the miracle of resurrection.

To address the rationalizations used:

Not sure what you are referring to from this point, and almost all of these are just “I reject it”
“Rationalization is faulty” , “out of context”

Some more food for thought
Why are some christians so opposed to homosexuality? Are you? (Now, this is true for a lot of religions, but I picked christianity just because the thread is focused that way)

Also, I can use all the proof you have stated, but replace Jesus with Buddha
Can you give me an example which can only be applied for the chrisitan god?

 

[dan964]

Addressing each section of reply in turn.

1. Science doesn't study the miraculous. It never has.

2. I don't dispute the scientific method as being a good way of looking at evidence. What I am suggesting is the scope of the scientific method is limited.
You are making a hypothesis to try to claim the miracles do not occur or that we shouldn't believe them because science. (Again isn't clear what exactly your hypothesis is acheiving but I disgress). You yourself, said you aren't trying to make a truth claim, so lets continue.

3. Your example is loaded, because you read into your example, that it is unfavourable to hold the %

let me phrase your example the other way to highlight the problem:
99.999998% of cases, eating said fruit will NOT kill you.
0.000002% of cases, eating said fruit will kill you.
Still would you eat it? It is still possible to die from eating the fruit.

Does that make the issue I have with your example clearer?

Either example (positive/negative variant) displays an inherit bias in its composition, but together reveals that it is a matter of confidence (ergo faith) that usually informs decisions. We put faith in the fact that. This reveals that you are presuming that the holding the two events to be true are contradictory, which was my original observation.

In a large enough sample size (N doesn't have to be infinite), you are correct there are going to be problems, and that is my point.
Which is why you need to answer? What sample size is sufficient large for you to base the decision of whether to eat the fruit in your example or not? Your basis for choice, seems to be dependence on probability and confidence. Do you consider only a small handful of cases?

In this kind of case study/scenario, that is miracles and non-miracles, because the norm is expected, we expect the norm, Christians expect the norm, miracles are exceptions not the pattern, even with the way that God works. No one is disputing that, the question is whether abberations to the norm are possible, that is a claim that is only possible to even consider, if we remove the assumption that science is the only means to explain and it explains everything.

But it is not a case of in a larger sample, a miracle would be considered, but what are making your judgements on?

To assert the 0.000002% is there requires accounts of such. Obviously these accounts need to be tested, as it is eyewitness testimony.
There would need to be some way to verify that.

But here is the problem, we have to use tools, that cover that. If we use the standard version of the scientific method, with the assumption, all things can be explained by laws of nature, then of course we are going to look for a natural explanation for the supposed occurence or dismiss the account as bogus.


Lets give a practical example, lets say I have a particular set of cards, some large (but not infinite number)



You are going to ignore single bits of evidence and so clearly I am asking how many events do you need to consider. And then what matters, (and you will probs disagree), is the existence rather than the o

But to what ends? You appear to presume that those accept miracles, reject the natural laws of physics. No we don't (AIG might), we hold that those are the normal patterns, that is by definition a miracle is something outside of the pattern. No one is disputing laws of physics here, but naturalism (everything that happens can be attributed solely to natural causes only).
You are going to ignore single bits of evidence and so clearly I am asking how many events do you need to consider. And then what matters, (and you will probs disagree), is the existence rather than the occurance.

And that is the contention.

...

 

[dan964]

This has got to be the worst reasoning I have ever encountered in this entire thread

Sam : If I had the power to , I would end poverty
Dan: No you wouldn't
Sam: ????
Dan: Poverty exists because of humanity! You would just use the powers on yourself!

Sorry mate. I know if I had unlimited power I would help people. So would many, many others.
Many people donate to charity and do plenty of other good things, and there are plenty of very, very powerful people who do great things for the world.

I think I know myself better than you do

Slight misrepresentation. Its a very hypothetical for any human to be entrusted with ultimate power.

In the same way we can see examples of world leaders, we can also examples of world leaders committing great evils.

Is there not a fundamental problem often with power & corruption? You may well know yourself, but you are not a position of ultimate power.

...

 

[dan964]

Took another few seconds of googling
Cruel = Behaviour which causes physical or mental harm to another, whether intentionally or not.
stop trying to play word games

No need to be nasty. Simply checking where you are coming from. Often a good thing to do.
I can google. But understand this, people of different worldviews mean different things by different worlds, and I thought it was sensible to double check

 

[dan964]

D:

Q Line of reasoning
We expect God to work in X manner (miracles/dreams, speak to us directly, heal sick people, fix poverty - all in the one mega-category) for instance.
Or if I were God (I would do this, this and this).
And so when he doesn't operate in that way, we conclude he doesn't exist, or that he must be a jerk or not a very powerful God.

S:

Correct

And so the problem is in the expectations. Your very definition of whether God is a jerk or not, is depending on whether he meets your expectations iin your timing.
So God is subservient to the whims of a human?

Also, I think it is perfectly fine to request a bit of food when you are starving to death from an all-powerful all loving god who created a world with the suffering you feel in the first place

And who do you think ultimately allows for the crops to grow and rain over the land?
Do you really think God is to blame for the suffering in the world, yet you do not even believe in God? That does not make sense.

Lmao what
Invite me over to one of these circles, I wanna grab some video footage of magically restoring legs

If possible, get millions of people all over the planet to join the prayer circle and pray their most fervent prayers. Get millions of people praying in unison for a single miracle for this one deserving amputee. Then stand back and watch.

This is exactly my point. He can help children suffering right now, but for some sick reason he wants to let them suffer until they form a massive prayer circle or do some other fancy stuff. (And may still not help them, because as you said, god does not answer every prayer)

I mean, I am not the nicest person out there but if I were a god I really would not expect this shit. Just heal the poor guy :/
It’s also odd that conveniently no such miracles have occurred on camera , It would be pretty cool seeing a guy magically regrow his legs in the middle of a prayer circle

What is going to happen? Jesus clearly says that if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. He does not say it once -- he says it many times in many ways in the Bible."

Really? Ima ask my mate, who is a devout Christian and a very very nice person to go and pray for a lambo asap
I’ll let you know when he gets it

Umm, you attacked the strawman. I quoted from an atheistic website who presents a very inaccurate broad-brush of Christians.

I then also rejected most of the counter-arguments attributed by said site to Christians that is what I was referring to. I wasn't solely addressing you.

1. Does god answer the prayers of the millions of starving, faithful people in the world?

No, in what sense?
Yes, in what sense?

Answer those.

Also, I would assume that god could just magically help everyone in poverty with a click of the fingers, but instead he will let all of them suffer for some sick reason

Why doesn't he?

2. Yet Christians seem to focus on the miracles A LOT, which is why it is being discussed. Heck, most of their beliefs stem from the miracle of resurrection.

Some fringe Christians. Please don't generalise.

...

 

[dan964]

(1) Jesus told a parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had many good things, and Lazarus was impoverished and had many sores.
Now they both died, and Lazarus was taken to heaven, where Abraham was, and the rich man to Hades. The rich man was in torment and so he said to Abraham,
please I wish a cup of water to cool my tongue. But Abraham replied in your life you received your good things while Lazarus received suffering, besides there has been a great chasm fixed. Then the rich man, please send someone back to warn my brothers.

Jesus told this and other things like it, to teach that is difficult for a rich man to depend on God and be saved from final judgement. He also teaches that those who are faithful in depending on God and giving up all to follow Christ, will receive in this life spiritual blessings of family, spiritual sustinence and eternal life.

(2) God's plan was ultimately to send Jesus, to die on a cross and rise again; so that we could actually be friends with God.
There is a sense which this plan was both accomplished then and there, but also is still being accomplished.
The fact that God allows for the killing of his son, indeed appears to be the most unjust thing. What do you think about that?

(3) Miracles in the Bible weren't just random acts of kindness by God, or party-tricks (God just showing off), they were signs (even the demon-possessed man & pigs instance) were signs, to show, there were designed to point forward to the character of God, but especially the ones in the New Testament, to the character of Christ.
Also the miracles were very specific, related and linked to prophecies about, in this pattern: when X happens, then situation Y has begun.

Christians who focus only on the miracles of today (except resurrection), miss the point, of what Jesus was doing in his teachings. The authority of Jesus was demonstrated in his teachings more than his miracle. His miracles were to point towards what was happening, in fulfillment of prophecy.

(4)The lack of notion of justice: If God were to do as you wished, heal all people and heal poverty, then the end of the world indeed would have come; and the time for all to give an account is then or as Christians call it "J-day or judgement day". There is a small thing called justice.

God's way is to test people in this life, to see whether they will seek him and find him even despite all the other trials and distractions; whether they will persevere. Or whether they will curse God instead. Prayers are not always answered yes nor find their answer in material/physical ways; but there is a sense in which you cannot expect anything from God.

Jesus taught that a farmer sows seed, and then the enemy comes and sows thorns, they grow up together. The time for the harvest has come. The wheat are gathered into the barn, and the weeds thrown into the fire. He taught this, to show that there will come a day when God will fix the world, by doing away with evil/suffering and all that. But how, by judgement, the righteous are saved and the wicked (everyone else) are thrown in the blazing furnace.

The harvest is soon, but not yet. There is still time for people to chat/discuss and turn and listen to God. When we get to that final day, we cannot complain they he hasn't give us all (as a humanity unit) enough time.

So how do you propose that God clean up the world, while still being just punishing those who do wrong and evil people?

(numbered so that you address them with ease)

 

[dan964]

Some more food for thought
Why are some christians so opposed to homosexuality? Are you? (Now, this is true for a lot of religions, but I picked christianity just because the thread is focused that way)

It would happen to be somewhere in here:
http://community.boredofstudies.org...politics/366861/same-sex-marriage-debate.html
which I can see that you have commented on.

Considering today's political debate, I really don't feel the need to state more than what I have already said above in that thread.

Also, I can use all the proof you have stated, but replace Jesus with Buddha

Depends what you are proving/asking. Ultimately I wouldn't know Buddhism to a great depth but...

(1) No, firstly New Testament is far more preserved than Buddhist texts. We have greater confidence that there weren't changes made.

(2) Technically Buddha was venerated as divine afterwards but he never implied in his teachings was define. In fact Buddhism in its earliest form, was atheistic in a sense. While Jesus specifically does.

That and the "God" that both Hindus. and some Buddhist believe in, is very different to the God of Christianity which is different again to the God of Islam.
different in nature, different in the way they operate, different in character, different in terms of how their existence affects people's iives.

(3) Jesus' resurrection account is fair poignant. It has, depending on how the evidence is viewed, can have significant historical grounding.

(4) Events of Jesus attested to in non-Christian sources.

Ultimately, and this thread serves as evidence, is rationalism only gets us so far in "proving God".

 

[SammyT123]

Addressing each section of reply in turn.

1. Science doesn't study the miraculous. It never has.

Just finished watching a segment on doctors studying a new unseen disease found in a man in Taiwan . Want a link?

Bold statement with no evidence. Are you sure "science doesn't study" the miraculous? I can give you a long list of examples of you wish, ranging from agriculture to genetics

2. I don't dispute the scientific method as being a good way of looking at evidence. What I am suggesting is the scope of the scientific method is limited.

You are making a hypothesis to try to claim the miracles do not occur or that we shouldn't believe them because science. (Again isn't clear what exactly your hypothesis is acheiving but I disgress). You yourself, said you aren't trying to make a truth claim, so lets continue.

I'll spell it out
Null hypothesis: Jesus Christ ressurected from the dead

Provide evidence for your claims. Tell me clearly what proof you have to make the bold statement that the scientific method is limited.

3. Your example is loaded, because you read into your example, that it is unfavourable to hold the %

let me phrase your example the other way to highlight the problem:
99.999998% of cases, eating said fruit will NOT kill you.
0.000002% of cases, eating said fruit will kill you.
Still would you eat it? It is still possible to die from eating the fruit.

Does that make the issue I have with your example clearer?

Either example (positive/negative variant) displays an inherit bias in its composition, but together reveals that it is a matter of confidence (ergo faith) that usually informs decisions. We put faith in the fact that. This reveals that you are presuming that the holding the two events to be true are contradictory, which was my original observation.

Sure thing. Let's use a neutral example

According to accounts ,
99.9999999999% of times, the light turns blue
0.00000000001% of times , the light turns red

Need way more zeroes but you get the point
I'd say it's safer to assume that the very, very small number of accounts (relatively speaking) are incorrect

At the very least, we would need better evidence

In a large enough sample size (N doesn't have to be infinite), you are correct there are going to be problems, and that is my point.
Which is why you need to answer? What sample size is sufficient large for you to base the decision of whether to eat the fruit in your example or not? Your basis for choice, seems to be dependence on probability and confidence. Do you consider only a small handful of cases?

There will be problems at a extremely large sample sizes. Yet you cannot argue this against my point. Read here
http://lesswrong.com/lw/p3x/argument_from_infinity/

We have a very sufficient sample size for all alpha levels - look into beginners study design
https://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm

Yes, I am taking into account probability and confidence. You cannot perform hypothesis testing otherwise

No, I am open to considering any case you present me

In this kind of case study/scenario, that is miracles and non-miracles, because the norm is expected, we expect the norm, Christians expect the norm, miracles are exceptions not the pattern, even with the way that God works.

We can perform the study by switching the null and alternate hypothesis, the end result is the same. The study does not 'expect' anything

No one is disputing that, the question is whether abberations to the norm are possible, that is a claim that is only possible to even consider, if we remove the assumption that science is the only means to explain and it explains everything.

Sure thing, if you don't want a scientific explanation then provide me another one?

By the way, Sai baba has a lot more witness accounts of miracles than the bible, do you think he is a god too?

But it is not a case of in a larger sample, a miracle would be considered, but what are making your judgements on?

I cannot comprehend this sentence. I am making my judgements on data from the bible against recorded deaths without ressurections

To assert the 0.000002% is there requires accounts of such. Obviously these accounts need to be tested, as it is eyewitness testimony.
There would need to be some way to verify that.

correct . We need to verify these accounts of miracles

But here is the problem, we have to use tools, that cover that. If we use the standard version of the scientific method, with the assumption, all things can be explained by laws of nature, then of course we are going to look for a natural explanation for the supposed occurence or dismiss the account as bogus.

You don't like to apply the scientific method in this context, I get it

For the sake of argument, I will concede that the scientific method is limited in its scope and cannot study the so called metaphysical (I hate to do this, and I'm sure you can tell haha)

Give me another method or objective test, let's see how that goes

Lets give a practical example, lets say I have a particular set of cards, some large (but not infinite number)
You are going to ignore single bits of evidence and so clearly I am asking how many events do you need to consider. And then what matters, (and you will probs disagree), is the existence rather than the o

Genuinely do not understand what you are saying. You have a set of cards ... what am I ignoring again?

But to what ends? You appear to presume that those accept miracles, reject the natural laws of physics. No we don't (AIG might), we hold that those are the normal patterns, that is by definition a miracle is something outside of the pattern. No one is disputing laws of physics here, but naturalism (everything that happens can be attributed solely to natural causes only).

Explain to me how someone can suffer the brutal injuries Jesus did, die, come back to life and heal a few days later
Whilst staying consistent with he laws of physics

You are going to ignore single bits of evidence and so clearly I am asking how many events do you need to consider. And then what matters, (and you will probs disagree), is the existence rather than the occurance.
And that is the contention.
...

I am not ignoring the accounts in the bible. I included them as part of my test. See above.


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[SammyT123]

Slight misrepresentation. Its a very hypothetical for any human to be entrusted with ultimate power.

In the same way we can see examples of world leaders, we can also examples of world leaders committing great evils.

Is there not a fundamental problem often with power & corruption? You may well know yourself, but you are not a position of ultimate power.

...

'World leaders commit great evils, so Sam when you gain ultimate power you will use it all for your own benefit'

Sure

'World leaders often do great deeds, so I think, at least one person in the world would use ultimate power to help others'

Let me pull you back to my point
God could help those in poverty right now, and could've for hundreds of years, but he didn't

I think it's safe to assume that if god is loving, he wouldn't let his children suffer so much


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[SammyT123]

D:
S:

And so the problem is in the expectations. Your very definition of whether God is a jerk or not, is depending on whether he meets your expectations iin your timing.
So God is subservient to the whims of a human?

Silly me for expecting an all loving God to maybe help starving dying children for a few centuries

My expectations are wild! Sorry god

And who do you think ultimately allows for the crops to grow and rain over the land?
Do you really think God is to blame for the suffering in the world, yet you do not even believe in God? That does not make sense.

I'm assuming you think god allows crops to grow
It'd be nice if he let some more grow for those in poverty.

Holy cow............
This entire time, out of my many ,many posts you did not understand that I am accepting god exists for the sake of argument?

I'll make it clear

No I do not believe he exists

I will assume he exists to argue some of your points about the nature of god

It's pretty sad you just realised that.

Umm, you attacked the strawman. I quoted from an atheistic website who presents a very inaccurate broad-brush of Christians.
I then also rejected most of the counter-arguments attributed by said site to Christians that is what I was referring to. I wasn't solely addressing you.

Cool.

Tbh I would disagree too,but I was a little confused why you started attacking random points that I did not make all of the sudden

I was even more confused because you didn't actually provide any real reasons for most of them, just said 'i reject it' or 'out of context' , but I digress . I don't care about that website lol

No, in what sense?
Yes, in what sense?
Answer those.
Why doesn't he?
...

1. Does god answer the prayers of the millions of starving, faithful people in the world?

No. They ask him specifically for food and basic necessities. They have not got them.

Also, I would assume that god could just magically help everyone in poverty with a click of the fingers, but instead he will let all of them suffer for some sick reason

No idea why he doesn't

Some fringe Christians. Please don't generalise

But you yourself said that " the Christian faith stands on that one "

And you went into a very lengthy explanation on the miracle of resurrection

Not generalising, just quoting you


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[SammyT123]

(1) Jesus told a parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had many good things, and Lazarus was impoverished and had many sores.
Now they both died, and Lazarus was taken to heaven, where Abraham was, and the rich man to Hades. The rich man was in torment and so he said to Abraham,
please I wish a cup of water to cool my tongue. But Abraham replied in your life you received your good things while Lazarus received suffering, besides there has been a great chasm fixed. Then the rich man, please send someone back to warn my brothers.

Jesus told this and other things like it, to teach that is difficult for a rich man to depend on God and be saved from final judgement. He also teaches that those who are faithful in depending on God and giving up all to follow Christ, will receive in this life spiritual blessings of family, spiritual sustinence and eternal life.

No idea what you are trying to argue here. Existence of God? The need for God to torture those who don't follow him?

(2) God's plan was ultimately to send Jesus, to die on a cross and rise again; so that we could actually be friends with God.
There is a sense which this plan was both accomplished then and there, but also is still being accomplished.
The fact that God allows for the killing of his son, indeed appears to be the most unjust thing. What do you think about that?

I'm sure I can make friends with you, without having you sent to death
I'm sure there are other ways to do things, especially if, you know..

You are an all powerful god :/

Oh and yes, I still think it's unjust that person A suffers for the crimes of person B, when person A has not done anything wrong .

(3) Miracles in the Bible weren't just random acts of kindness by God, or party-tricks (God just showing off), they were signs (even the demon-possessed man & pigs instance) were signs, to show, there were designed to point forward to the character of God, but especially the ones in the New Testament, to the character of Christ.
Also the miracles were very specific, related and linked to prophecies about, in this pattern: when X happens, then situation Y has begun.

Miracles have a purpose , such as to point forward to the character of god

Sadly God won't perform a miracle with me to point me towards his character.

Christians who focus on the miracles today, miss the point, of what Jesus. The authority of Jesus was demonstrated in his teachings more than his miracle. His miracles were to point towards what was happening, in fulfillment of prophecy.

I consider the resurrection a miracle, as do you
Almost all Christians do focus on that one
Just to quote you : "the Christian faith stands on that one"

(4)The lack of notion of justice: If God were to do as you wished, heal all people and heal poverty, then the end of the world indeed would have come; and the time for all to give an account is then or as Christians call it "J-day or judgement day". There is a small thing called justice.

I see nothing wrong with healing all poverty and not ending the world at the same time

Like is it really that hard to remove poverty without some judgement day end of the world scenario lol

God's way is to test people in this life, to see whether they will seek him and find him even despite all the other trials and distractions; whether they will persevere. Or whether they will curse God instead. Prayers are not always answered yes nor find their answer in material/physical ways; but there is a sense in which you cannot expect anything from God.

Which is fine. But the thing is, millions seek him, love him, and pray
And then die of poor conditions and starvation

Is there a reason honest and good prayers aren't answered? Seems pretty cruel to ignore them, especially if it's for some food.

Jesus taught that a farmer sows seed, and then the enemy comes and sows thorns, they grow up together. The time for the harvest has come. The wheat are gathered into the barn, and the weeds thrown into the fire. He taught this, to show that there will come a day when God will fix the world, by doing away with evil/suffering and all that. But how, by judgement, the righteous are saved and the wicked (everyone else) are thrown in the blazing furnace.

One day he will, just hasn't for centuries where good people have suffered and died. Does God not care about them?

Secondly, 'Wicked' who are thrown into the blazing furnace are only like that because God created a 'broken world', he created sin and the bias against god we all have at birth (according to you). This is so horrid.

The harvest is soon, but not yet. There is still time for people to chat/discuss and turn and listen to God. When we get to that final day, we cannot complain they he hasn't give us all (as a humanity unit)...

Sadly, it doesn't make any sense when we discuss individuals. Those suffering and dying from poverty, who love God and are devout Christians

Feelsbad, god won't help millions starving to death because 'humanity as a unit' needs more time to chat

Shitty reasoning

So how do you propose that God clean up the world, while still being just punishing those who do wrong and evil people?

Instead of "cleaning up" the entire world in a massacre

Punish individuals who do wrong

Help those who do good

God clearly isn't too bright if he couldn't think of that one lmao

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[dan964]

Just finished watching a segment on doctors studying a new unseen disease found in a man in Taiwan . Want a link?
Bold statement with no evidence. Are you sure "science doesn't study" the miraculous? I can give you a long list of examples of you wish, ranging from agriculture to genetics

By miracle I am referring to abberations of the laws of nature. Maybe you are meaning something different here.

I'll spell it out
Null hypothesis: Jesus Christ ressurected from the dead
Provide evidence for your claims. Tell me clearly what proof you have to make the bold statement that the scientific method is limited.

The scientific method works on the assumption that there are predictable pattern and order to the universe. It is a form of inductive reasoning.
Deductive reasoning is also used in some fields, such as in the law court.

Sure thing. Let's use a neutral example

According to accounts ,
99.9999999999% of times, the light turns blue
0.00000000001% of times , the light turns red

Need way more zeroes but you get the point

I'd say it's safer to assume that the very, very small number of accounts (relatively speaking) are incorrect

That is a fallacy, low probability does not imply impossibility.
It is only an assumption made based on whether we can take confidence in the data that suggests only one or a few exception to the case.

At the very least, we would need better evidence

The interesting question is how would we get to these percentages?

There will be problems at a extremely large sample sizes. Yet you cannot argue this against my point. Read here
http://lesswrong.com/lw/p3x/argument_from_infinity/

Of course, that link shows why there will be issues. What is a sufficient large/small sample size to draw conclusions on?
That is really what I am asking. Is there a small enough set to avoid the argument to infinity problems, to probably make conclusions?

Lets say hypothetically there were 0 miracles, then the percentage in your example should be 0.
Lets say hypothetically there was e miracles where e is some small integer greater than 0.
How many events are required in consideration to get the percentages/results in question.

Clearly a too small sample size will have issues.
How do you determine the sample size?

We have a very sufficient sample size for all alpha levels - look into beginners study design
https://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm

Yes, I am taking into account probability and confidence. You cannot perform hypothesis testing otherwise

Thought so.

No, I am open to considering any case you present me

fair enough. I'll get back to you on that.

We can perform the study by switching the null and alternate hypothesis, the end result is the same. The study does not 'expect' anything

.

Sure thing, if you don't want a scientific explanation then provide me another one?

Unfortunately this whole study, isn't going to be inductive.
We start with a premise, and then we set out to prove/disprove it by evidence. That is deductive reasoning, we already have the end goal in mind.
This is how people reason.

By the way, Sai baba has a lot more witness accounts of miracles than the bible, do you think he is a god too?

I think it was posted on the first page of this forum, that "miracles" may not necessary have their original in God.
Interesting Jesus is viewed in a negative way as a practicer of sorcery by the Jewish Talmud for instance.
Much scholarship has been done on that.

I cannot comprehend this sentence. I am making my judgements on data from the bible against recorded deaths without ressurections

You do realise that is a pretty large sample.

No Christian disputes the fact that most people do not rise again from the dead. But if it happened today, it would explode, but people would still be in disbelief. The question is did it really happen in this one instance about 2000 years ago. In that case we have to assess the material from people who claimed to have saw the events.

Some suggest various different criteria on studying a historical text, and working out the truth value. Some use the criteria of embarrassment for instance, applying various methods to sources.

correct . We need to verify these accounts of miracles

You don't like to apply the scientific method in this context, I get it

For the sake of argument, I will concede that the scientific method is limited in its scope and cannot study the so called metaphysical (I hate to do this, and I'm sure you can tell haha).
Give me another method or objective test, let's see how that goes

I wouldn't call it the scientific method in a lot of fields and also this whole question extends beyond science.

"Objective". Scientific method is far from "objective". That is the problem. Your fundamental assumption is everything can be explained by the methodology of the scientific method.

Well firstly, there is inductive reasoning which the scientific method, historical source criticism, works with evidence to draw conclusions. Now we scrutinize their conclusions with known standards, but how do we determine these standards?? With science, it is probably fairly straightforward, generally we say anything against the laws of nature is impossible/not considered, but in this study, that would be concluding the results or neglecting data before the analysis has been conducted.

Then there is deductive reasoning, where we start with a premise e.g. "Does God Exist?" "Yes/No" and then proceed to present evidence.
For instance in a court of law, the premise is "innocent until proven guilty". The problem is our original premise needs to be established as true.

The problem with the study, is miracles generally are events that do not repeat themselves in a predictable fashion, this means that the regular assumptions lying behind the scientific method cannot hold, if we are to consider the claims of miracles, without jumping to the dismissal of them.

Genuinely do not understand what you are saying. You have a set of cards ... what am I ignoring again?

Explain to me how someone can suffer the brutal injuries Jesus did, die, come back to life and heal a few days later
Whilst staying consistent with he laws of physics

What do you think?
Why does every event have to be in line with the laws of physics?

I am not ignoring the accounts in the bible. I included them as part of my test. See above.

ok sure.

 

[dan964]

'World leaders commit great evils, so Sam when you gain ultimate power you will use it all for your own benefit'

Sure

'World leaders often do great deeds, so I think, at least one person in the world would use ultimate power to help others'

Let me pull you back to my point
God could help those in poverty right now, and could've for hundreds of years, but he didn't

I think it's safe to assume that if god is loving, he wouldn't let his children suffer so much


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And where do you get those conclusions from?

 

[dan964]

Silly me for expecting an all loving God to maybe help starving dying children for a few centuries
My expectations are wild! Sorry god

I'm assuming you think god allows crops to grow
It'd be nice if he let some more grow for those in poverty.

Holy cow............
This entire time, out of my many ,many posts you did not understand that I am accepting god exists for the sake of argument?

You still argue from a position that God does not exist. Same reason, even I argued from your position

I'll make it clear

No I do not believe he exists

see above.

I will assume he exists to argue some of your points about the nature of god
It's pretty sad you just realised that.

Again, I knew you assumed that. I am simply stating that you are arguing still with a premise to disprove God, as if blemishes on his character somehow means he doesn't exist.

I was even more confused because you didn't actually provide any real reasons for most of them, just said 'i reject it' or 'out of context' , but I digress . I don't care about that website lol

I don't need to, most of them were strawmans, or arguments I wouldn't use. those are my reasons. you can dispute that, but they weren't addressed to you, interesting to see how you responded to that though.

1. Does god answer the prayers of the millions of starving, faithful people in the world?
No. They ask him specifically for food and basic necessities. They have not got them.

Quote, source? In the case of the devout, how would you know they haven't received something more lasting than these things?

Also, I would assume that god could just magically help everyone in poverty with a click of the fingers, but instead he will let all of them suffer for some sick reason

No idea why he doesn't

Hang on didn't you just say it was for some sick reason. Where is the rational in that? (rhetorical)
I will address this when I reply to your other post in a sec.

But you yourself said that " the Christian faith stands on that one "

I am focusing on the resurrection, as a specific miracle.
You are taking the original post you were responding to, out of context. The site I was quoting was making the assumption, that miraculous answers to prayer happen all the time, I was merely making a statement that Christians, like myself, do not focus so much/concerned on whether miracles as in healings occur today.

And you went into a very lengthy explanation on the miracle of resurrection

Again that was several posts before.

Not generalising, just quoting you

Out of context quoting.

...

 

[dan964]

No idea what you are trying to argue here. Existence of God? The need for God to torture those who don't follow him?

Always assuming an argument. I was simply describing what Jesus taught and how he would have answered why some in this world suffer in poverty. there is much more that Jesus taught on the subject, but I thought to start with that.

I'm sure I can make friends with you, without having you sent to death
I'm sure there are other ways to do things, especially if, you know..

Yeah probably because I haven't done anything serious against you, maybe annoyed you at most. Our offence against God, is worse than treason.

You are an all powerful god :/

No I am not.

Oh and yes, I still think it's unjust that person A suffers for the crimes of person B, when person A has not done anything wrong .

how else do you propose to pay off debt. If someone comes and says, hey I will help you pray off that debt, and goes ahead and pays it all off.
Is that unjust? No, that person was willing.

Miracles have a purpose , such as to point forward to the character of god
Sadly God won't perform a miracle with me to point me towards his character.

Maybe you need to actually revisit the ones he has already done in Jesus, and weigh the material up to see whether it is true or not e.g.

I consider the resurrection a miracle, as do you
Almost all Christians do focus on that one
Just to quote you : "the Christian faith stands on that one"

again see last reply. it is "the" miracle. The post in question was addressing a caricature. So your reply is taking my words out of context.

I see nothing wrong with healing all poverty and not ending the world at the same time

then you do understand. the world is under a curse, the curse of sin, that is why there are problems.
when the curse of sin is finally and fully broken. that can only happen at the end of the world (as we know it).

If God was to do as you say, click his fingers, well he did that once - it was called the flood, and only 8 people survived.

Like is it really that hard to remove poverty without some judgement day end of the world scenario lol

This is no 'lol' matter. The reality is we have different perceptions of the world we live in.

Which is fine. But the thing is, millions seek him, love him, and pray
And then die of poor conditions and starvation

... knowing the hope of the resurrection. We all will die, but those who seek him and listen to his Word, will find him, and spend eternity with him.

Is there a reason honest and good prayers aren't answered? Seems pretty cruel to ignore them, especially if it's for some food.

He listens, but the answer may not be what you are looking for.

One day he will, just hasn't for centuries where good people have suffered and died. Does God not care about them?

"Good people"? Again we disagree on that.

Secondly, 'Wicked' who are thrown into the blazing furnace are only like that because God created a 'broken world', he created sin and the bias against god we all have at birth (according to you). This is so horrid.

God did not create a broken world nor did he create sin. the bias, you could describe as being born under a curse.

Sadly, it doesn't make any sense when we discuss individuals. Those suffering and dying from poverty, who love God and are devout Christians

if suffering only a third-world problem, is poverty the only problem. pretty sure suffering is universal. God is fairly consistent in that regards.

From your view, why do you think there is poverty in the world?

Feelsbad, god won't help millions starving to death because 'humanity as a unit' needs more time to chat

Word choice could be better. Think of it as God spreading the warning for impending disaster before it hits. Those who are wise will take shelter in him, and those are aren't won't.

Instead of "cleaning up" the entire world in a massacre
(1) Punish individuals who do wrong
(2) Help those who do good
God clearly isn't too bright if he couldn't think of that one lmao

Except for one fundamental problem. Who decides who does wrong, and who does good? By whose standard?
I am pretty sure God accounted for that one

Everyone but 1 is in category (1).
Only 1 person, Jesus, is actually in category (2)

Jesus then comes up, and says for those who acknowledge/accept him, that his good deeds would be attributed also to your account. (the blessings). And he takes upon your debt, and pays for it.

He comes and frees people under the curse, and under slavery, buying them back for God.

 

[SammyT123]

By miracle I am referring to abberations of the laws of nature. Maybe you are meaning something different here.
The scientific method works on the assumption that there are predictable pattern and order to the universe. It is a form of inductive reasoning.
Deductive reasoning is also used in some fields, such as in the law court.

Thanks for the info.
My reasoning did not assume anything. See below

That is a fallacy, low probability does not imply impossibility.
It is only an assumption made based on whether we can take confidence in the data that suggests only one or a few exception to the case.

I did not imply impossibilty. I'm going to start numbering these, because you make an accusation and then ignore it when questioned. False accusation (FA1)
Only one statement can be true

1 - Jesus broke the laws of nature and came back to life
2- Jesus did not break the laws of nature

The data supports 2.
Sure, 1 is possible in the hypothesis test if you think the laws of nature are wrong for this one instance (They are called the universal laws of nature for a reason)

But for any given alpha level, the data greatly supports 2

The interesting question is how would we get to these percentages?

Find the number of accounts which report deaths that do not result in a ressurection (probably billions)
Find the number of accounts in the bible
Add them together and this will be the denominator. Basic maths

Of course, that link shows why there will be issues. What is a sufficient large/small sample size to draw conclusions on?
That is really what I am asking. Is there a small enough set to avoid the argument to infinity problems, to probably make conclusions?

Yes . a few billion accounts cannot be approximated with infinity

Lets say hypothetically there were 0 miracles, then the percentage in your example should be 0.
Lets say hypothetically there was e miracles where e is some small integer greater than 0.
How many events are required in consideration to get the percentages/results in question.

I can take into account all events :/
This is a hypothesis test. I am not "trying to get" anything
Just checking which hypothesis is affirmed by the model. (Not saying that your position is impossible, just saying that there is FAR FAR more evidence to support my position -> Number of accounts of death vs ressurection)

Clearly a too small sample size will have issues.
How do you determine the sample size?
Thought so.

http://spectrum.troy.edu/renckly/images/propor.gif

Unfortunately this whole study, isn't going to be inductive.
We start with a premise, and then we set out to prove/disprove it by evidence. That is deductive reasoning, we already have the end goal in mind.
This is how people reason.

Premise: It is more likely that Jesus did not break the laws of nature
Evidence: Hypothesis test for proportions as mentioned above
Conclusion: The evidence greatly supports the motion

I think it was posted on the first page of this forum, that "miracles" may not necessary have their original in God.
Interesting Jesus is viewed in a negative way as a practicer of sorcery by the Jewish Talmud for instance.
Much scholarship has been done on that.

As I said, Sai baba has a lot more witness accounts of miracles than the bible. Accounts of him bringing the dead back to life.
Why do you not accept him as god? Why Jesus?

You do realise that is a pretty large sample.
No Christian disputes the fact that most people do not rise again from the dead. But if it happened today, it would explode, but people would still be in disbelief. The question is did it really happen in this one instance about 2000 years ago. In that case we have to assess the material from people who claimed to have saw the events.

How large is the sample of accounts that say Jesus came back from the dead?
Is it larger than the accounts of Sai Baba? No. Yet for some reason you will not accept him as a god, only Jesus
Is it larger then the accounts of people dying normally?

I wouldn't call it the scientific method in a lot of fields and also this whole question extends beyond science.
"Objective". Scientific method is far from "objective". That is the problem. Your fundamental assumption is everything can be explained by the methodology of the scientific method.

I do not beleive in the metaphysical.
What is your methodolgy, which can be applied in this scope, where science cannot?
You keep dodging that question.

Well firstly, there is inductive reasoning which the scientific method, historical source criticism, works with evidence to draw conclusions. Now we scrutinize their conclusions with known standards, but how do we determine these standards?? With science, it is probably fairly straightforward, generally we say anything against the laws of nature is impossible/not considered, but in this study, that would be concluding the results or neglecting data before the analysis has been conducted.

Wrong
I did not assume anything in the above test. Premise, evidence and conclusion.

Then there is deductive reasoning, where we start with a premise e.g. "Does God Exist?" "Yes/No" and then proceed to present evidence.
For instance in a court of law, the premise is "innocent until proven guilty". The problem is our original premise needs to be established as true.

Again, you are wrong
In a criminal case, you can assume innocent until proven guilty for wildly different reasons which are irrelevant here.
In a civil case, we look at the balance of probabilites
Does the evidence favour the plaintiff or the defendant? Here, clearly there is far more evidence that ressurections do not happen.
This does not prove they are impossible, but often we can never prove who is right/wrong, we must weigh out the evidence and decide on a conclusion.

The problem with the study, is miracles generally are events that do not repeat themselves in a predictable fashion, this means that the regular assumptions lying behind the scientific method cannot hold, if we are to consider the claims of miracles, without jumping to the dismissal of them.

no assumptions were made

Genuinely do not understand what you are saying. You have a set of cards ... what am I ignoring again?
Um, I said this. Not sure why you repeated me.

What do you think?
Why does every event have to be in line with the laws of physics?

So let me get this straight
Personally, you beleive that the laws of physics are not universal?

ok sure.

Another false accusation (FA2)

And where do you get those conclusions from?

I think it's safe to assume that if god is caring, he wouldn't let his children suffer for centuries with plague, starvation, rape, toture and murder.
Just a thought

You still argue from a position that God does not exist. Same reason, even I argued from your position

Why do you say that it makes no sense for me to discuss the characterstics of god? I will assume god exists for the sake of argument, is there something wrong with that?

Why do you have to blatantly misquote me?
Sam: No I do not believe he exists. I will assume he exists to argue some of your points about the nature of god
Yet you only quoted the first sentence in Italics.

Pure dishonesty. FA3

Again, I knew you assumed that. I am simply stating that you are arguing still with a premise to disprove God, as if blemishes on his character somehow means he doesn't exist.

No. For that argument, I am disussing his character, not trying to disprove he exists.
Can you not gather this without me telling you?

I don't need to, most of them were strawmans, or arguments I wouldn't use. those are my reasons. you can dispute that, but they weren't addressed to you, interesting to see how you responded to that though.

Just odd behaviour
You go to a random athiest website.
You then 'attack' the arguments on it by repeating 'i reject it' or 'out of context'
I then mention that (1) these aren't arguments and (2) I don't care about the website

You get defensive and say "I dont have to give arguments"

I am really confused as to why you brought up a random website, said "i reject it" to it's claims and then say "I don't have to argue the points?"
Does this have anything to do with my arguments?

Quote, source? In the case of the devout, how would you know they haven't received something more lasting than these things?

I am focusing on the resurrection, as a specific miracle.
You are taking the original post you were responding to, out of context. The site I was quoting was making the assumption, that miraculous answers to prayer happen all the time, I was merely making a statement that Christians, like myself, do not focus so much/concerned on whether miracles as in healings occur today.

This makes perfect sense, but I stated that I do not care about arguments random websites. I will state it again. Stop trying to attack the website and address my posts instead.

Out of context quoting.
...

Yep, that was my fault. I thought you were referring to any miracles, such as resurreciton
Did not know you were attacking some random argument on the website. Hopefully you understand my confusion
Makes sense tho , different kinds of miracles

Always assuming an argument. I was simply describing what Jesus taught and how he would have answered why some in this world suffer in poverty. there is much more that Jesus taught on the subject, but I thought to start with that.

Can you answer it in as little words, and as clearly as possible. I legit don't see how that answered anything at all.
Why has god let his children suffer rape, torture, murder starvation etc and die for centuries?

Yeah probably because I haven't done anything serious against you, maybe annoyed you at most. Our offence against God, is worse than treason.

What is my 1.Y.O cousins offence towards god?
What is the offence I have commited? If God wants us to accept him, he can show himself magnificently in the heavens.
He doesn't tho

More blatant lies. Why do you resort to deliberate misquoting?
Sam: I'm sure there are other ways to do things, especially if, you know.... You are an all powerful god :/
Yet you only quoted the part in italics and responded by saying

No I am not.

FA4 (more like a deliberate

how else do you propose to pay off debt. If someone comes and says, hey I will help you pray off that debt, and goes ahead and pays it all off.
Is that unjust? No, that person was willing.

I said : Oh and yes, I still think it's unjust that person A suffers for the crimes of person B, when person A has not done anything wrong .
The example you gave is terrible.
Original question:
Why does a newborn have to be punished (e.g. with a terrible disease), because the general population, as you say, have 'broken the world'

Oh and yes, I still think it's unjust that person A suffers for the crimes of person B, when person A has not done anything wrong .
Maybe you need to actually revisit the ones he has already done in Jesus, and weigh the material up to see whether it is true or not e.g.
again see last reply. it is "the" miracle. The post in question was addressing a caricature. So your reply is taking my words out of context.

See above, did not know you were attacking a random claim not made by me
It is just your nuance
I will try again
--> God can perform another miracle for me today. In fact, god can do a lot of very simple things to point me towards him. Instead, he elects not to. Why?

then you do understand. the world is under a curse, the curse of sin, that is why there are problems.
when the curse of sin is finally and fully broken. that can only happen at the end of the world (as we know it).

Babies suffer at birth because "the world is broken under the curse of sin"
The baby itself did not sin (No crime commited)
Other humans did commit sin (Broke the world)
Yet the baby has to pay for the crimes commited by other human beings

Oh and yes, I still think it's unjust that person A suffers for the crimes of person B, when person A has not done anything wrong .

My point exactly

If God was to do as you say, click his fingers, well he did that once - it was called the flood, and only 8 people survived.

I see nothing wrong with healing all poverty without massacring everyone in the proccess.

This is no 'lol' matter. The reality is we have different perceptions of the world we live in.

Then answer the question?
Why can't god remove poverty without some judgement day massacre/ end of the world scenario

... knowing the hope of the resurrection. We all will die, but those who seek him and listen to his Word, will find him, and spend eternity with him.

Why does god put them through the suffering in the first place?
Instead of
1) Suffer from rape, torture, poverty etc..
2) Die
3) Ressurect and live eternity happily with god

Lets have only natural deaths from (2) and (3) for the good christians out there

He listens, but the answer may not be what you are looking for.

So he listens to the thousands of prayers by children starving do death, yet does not give them a bit of food
What is his answer?

"Good people"? Again we disagree on that.

I am sure there are countless good people in the world who have suffered and died
Just reading about one of them now!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi

God did not create a broken world nor did he create sin. the bias, you could describe as being born under a curse.

Um, God did create world where humans want to sin. Why not create a world where Humans want to sin less?
Also, why did he curse us so that from birth we reject him and then suffer for it?

if suffering only a third-world problem, is poverty the only problem. pretty sure suffering is universal. God is fairly consistent in that regards.

FA5. I did not claim suffering is only a third world problem. Nor did I claim suffering was not universal. I was using the example of poverty. I could have used a more first world example of depression, but my point still holds

You said
The harvest is soon, but not yet. There is still time for people to chat/discuss and turn and listen to God. When we get to that final day, we cannot complain they he hasn't give us all (as a humanity unit)...

And I responded by saying
Sadly, it doesn't make any sense when we discuss individuals. Those suffering and dying from poverty, who love God and are devout Christians
Feelsbad, god won't help millions starving to death because 'humanity as a unit' needs more time to chat

Word choice could be better. Think of it as God spreading the warning for impending disaster before it hits. Those who are wise will take shelter in him, and those are aren't won't.

So God is spreading the warning by letting millions starve do death? Can you be more clear?

As I said
Instead of "cleaning up" the entire world in a massacre
(1) Punish individuals who do wrong
(2) Help those who do good
God clearly isn't too bright if he couldn't think of that one lmao

Except for one fundamental problem. Who decides who does wrong, and who does good? By whose standard?

Sigh.

Dan: God will decide everyones fate on judgement day
Sam: Millions and millions have died already from suffering and torture. Can't he just decide a bit earlier?

P.S: If god will decide if you go to heaven or hell,

Everyone but 1 is in category (1).
Only 1 person, Jesus, is actually in category (2)

Oh. I thought there are plenty of good people who go to heaven :/
Ouch. That is rough

Jesus then comes up, and says for those who acknowledge/accept him, that his good deeds would be attributed also to your account.

Sadly, Jesus does not come up and say that to my face
If he did, I would consider it

What happens to all the muslims in the world who have done enourmous good deads and are very kindhearted people? Their deeds aren't "attrinuted to their accounts" ? Simple because they did not acknowledge him?

I will also be creating a seperate thread with all the things that were ignored. I beleive it is better if we reply in one large post, rather than split it up into 20 posts addressing different points. Up to you tho, I just think it is a bit easier to follow

 

[dan964]

Thanks for the info.
My reasoning did not assume anything. See below


I did not imply impossibilty. I'm going to start numbering these, because you make an accusation and then ignore it when questioned. False accusation (FA1)
Only one statement can be true

1 - Jesus broke the laws of nature and came back to life
2- Jesus did not break the laws of nature

The data supports 2.
Sure, 1 is possible in the hypothesis test if you think the laws of nature are wrong for this one instance (They are called the universal laws of nature for a reason)

But for any given alpha level, the data greatly supports 2


Find the number of accounts which report deaths that do not result in a ressurection (probably billions)
Find the number of accounts in the bible
Add them together and this will be the denominator. Basic maths


Yes . a few billion accounts cannot be approximated with infinity


I can take into account all events :/
This is a hypothesis test. I am not "trying to get" anything
Just checking which hypothesis is affirmed by the model. (Not saying that your position is impossible, just saying that there is FAR FAR more evidence to support my position -> Number of accounts of death vs ressurection)


http://spectrum.troy.edu/renckly/images/propor.gif



Premise: It is more likely that Jesus did not break the laws of nature
Evidence: Hypothesis test for proportions as mentioned above
Conclusion: The evidence greatly supports the motion


As I said, Sai baba has a lot more witness accounts of miracles than the bible. Accounts of him bringing the dead back to life.
Why do you not accept him as god? Why Jesus?


How large is the sample of accounts that say Jesus came back from the dead?
Is it larger than the accounts of Sai Baba? No. Yet for some reason you will not accept him as a god, only Jesus
Is it larger then the accounts of people dying normally?


I do not beleive in the metaphysical.
What is your methodolgy, which can be applied in this scope, where science cannot?
You keep dodging that question.


Wrong
I did not assume anything in the above test. Premise, evidence and conclusion.


Again, you are wrong
In a criminal case, you can assume innocent until proven guilty for wildly different reasons which are irrelevant here.
In a civil case, we look at the balance of probabilites
Does the evidence favour the plaintiff or the defendant? Here, clearly there is far more evidence that ressurections do not happen.
This does not prove they are impossible, but often we can never prove who is right/wrong, we must weigh out the evidence and decide on a conclusion.


no assumptions were made

Genuinely do not understand what you are saying. You have a set of cards ... what am I ignoring again?
Um, I said this. Not sure why you repeated me.


So let me get this straight
Personally, you beleive that the laws of physics are not universal?



Another false accusation (FA2)



I think it's safe to assume that if god is caring, he wouldn't let his children suffer for centuries with plague, starvation, rape, toture and murder.
Just a thought


Why do you say that it makes no sense for me to discuss the characterstics of god? I will assume god exists for the sake of argument, is there something wrong with that?

Why do you have to blatantly misquote me?
Sam: No I do not believe he exists. I will assume he exists to argue some of your points about the nature of god
Yet you only quoted the first sentence in Italics.

Pure dishonesty. FA3


No. For that argument, I am disussing his character, not trying to disprove he exists.
Can you not gather this without me telling you?


Just odd behaviour
You go to a random athiest website.
You then 'attack' the arguments on it by repeating 'i reject it' or 'out of context'
I then mention that (1) these aren't arguments and (2) I don't care about the website

You get defensive and say "I dont have to give arguments"

I am really confused as to why you brought up a random website, said "i reject it" to it's claims and then say "I don't have to argue the points?"
Does this have anything to do with my arguments?






This makes perfect sense, but I stated that I do not care about arguments random websites. I will state it again. Stop trying to attack the website and address my posts instead.





Yep, that was my fault. I thought you were referring to any miracles, such as resurreciton
Did not know you were attacking some random argument on the website. Hopefully you understand my confusion
Makes sense tho , different kinds of miracles



Can you answer it in as little words, and as clearly as possible. I legit don't see how that answered anything at all.
Why has god let his children suffer rape, torture, murder starvation etc and die for centuries?


What is my 1.Y.O cousins offence towards god?
What is the offence I have commited? If God wants us to accept him, he can show himself magnificently in the heavens.
He doesn't tho

More blatant lies. Why do you resort to deliberate misquoting?
Sam: I'm sure there are other ways to do things, especially if, you know.... You are an all powerful god :/
Yet you only quoted the part in italics and responded by saying




FA4 (more like a deliberate



I said : Oh and yes, I still think it's unjust that person A suffers for the crimes of person B, when person A has not done anything wrong .
The example you gave is terrible.
Original question:
Why does a newborn have to be punished (e.g. with a terrible disease), because the general population, as you say, have 'broken the world'


See above, did not know you were attacking a random claim not made by me
It is just your nuance
I will try again
--> God can perform another miracle for me today. In fact, god can do a lot of very simple things to point me towards him. Instead, he elects not to. Why?


Babies suffer at birth because "the world is broken under the curse of sin"
The baby itself did not sin (No crime commited)
Other humans did commit sin (Broke the world)
Yet the baby has to pay for the crimes commited by other human beings


My point exactly


I see nothing wrong with healing all poverty without massacring everyone in the proccess.


Then answer the question?
Why can't god remove poverty without some judgement day massacre/ end of the world scenario



Why does god put them through the suffering in the first place?
Instead of
1) Suffer from rape, torture, poverty etc..
2) Die
3) Ressurect and live eternity happily with god

Lets have only natural deaths from (2) and (3) for the good christians out there


So he listens to the thousands of prayers by children starving do death, yet does not give them a bit of food
What is his answer?


I am sure there are countless good people in the world who have suffered and died
Just reading about one of them now!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi


Um, God did create world where humans want to sin. Why not create a world where Humans want to sin less?
Also, why did he curse us so that from birth we reject him and then suffer for it?

FA5. I did not claim suffering is only a third world problem. Nor did I claim suffering was not universal. I was using the example of poverty. I could have used a more first world example of depression, but my point still holds

You said
The harvest is soon, but not yet. There is still time for people to chat/discuss and turn and listen to God. When we get to that final day, we cannot complain they he hasn't give us all (as a humanity unit)...

And I responded by saying
Sadly, it doesn't make any sense when we discuss individuals. Those suffering and dying from poverty, who love God and are devout Christians
Feelsbad, god won't help millions starving to death because 'humanity as a unit' needs more time to chat


So God is spreading the warning by letting millions starve do death? Can you be more clear?

As I said
Instead of "cleaning up" the entire world in a massacre
(1) Punish individuals who do wrong
(2) Help those who do good
God clearly isn't too bright if he couldn't think of that one lmao


Sigh.

Dan: God will decide everyones fate on judgement day
Sam: Millions and millions have died already from suffering and torture. Can't he just decide a bit earlier?

P.S: If god will decide if you go to heaven or hell,

Oh. I thought there are plenty of good people who go to heaven :/
Ouch. That is rough


Sadly, Jesus does not come up and say that to my face
If he did, I would consider it

What happens to all the muslims in the world who have done enourmous good deads and are very kindhearted people? Their deeds aren't "attrinuted to their accounts" ? Simple because they did not acknowledge him?

I will also be creating a seperate thread with all the things that were ignored. I beleive it is better if we reply in one large post, rather than split it up into 20 posts addressing different points. Up to you tho, I just think it is a bit easier to follow

I honestly think that endless thread replying is difficult to track anyways. I reply to each bit in term.

 

[cosmo 2]

[youtube]zQfZSMN8LKE[/youtube]

 

[dan964]

Thanks for the info.
My reasoning did not assume anything. See below

False representation: to be able to do science, you are under the the assumption that the universe is ordered. No one disputes. I am simply making the claim that when we approach science we come with assumptions.
The AIG site which was alluded to, several posts, is one classic example that approaches science with bad assumptions. (We can tell the metholodogy is bad because its reasoning isn't coherent)

I did not imply impossibilty. I'm going to start numbering these, because you make an accusation and then ignore it when questioned. False accusation (FA1)

Your argument and model does/by claiming the following:
[1]

Only one statement can be true

1 - Jesus broke the laws of nature and came back to life
2- Jesus did not break the laws of nature

The data supports 2.
Sure, 1 is possible in the hypothesis test if you think the laws of nature are wrong for this one instance (They are called the universal laws of nature for a reason)
But for any given alpha level, the data greatly supports 2

[2]

Find the number of accounts which report deaths that do not result in a ressurection (probably billions)
Find the number of accounts in the bible
Add them together and this will be the denominator. Basic maths
Yes . a few billion accounts cannot be approximated with infinity
I can take into account all events :/
This is a hypothesis test. I am not "trying to get" anything
Just checking which hypothesis is affirmed by the model. (Not saying that your position is impossible, just saying that there is FAR FAR more evidence to support my position -> Number of accounts of death vs ressurection)

(1) Firstly, this is not how historians make any historical conclusions, as far as I am aware.
(2) Secondly, what data? The New Testament writers would suggest in separate cases both (1) and (2) hold. But first to address the points:

Let me refine your premises, on a case by case scenario:
1. In a particular instance, Jesus broke laws of nature and came back to life.
2. Jesus did not break the laws of nature.

Technically, we can restructure again to consider all variants of (1):
1. The laws of nature were broken when Jesus rose again from the dead. (removing the agent as a factor)
[1A. The laws of nature weren't broken when Jesus rose again from the dead. (requires a different working definition for "laws" here)
(1A is the negation of 1) for simplicity ignore 1A due to current working definition of laws of nature. I also prefer 1 over 1A.]

This leads us to 2 possible conclusions for a particular case (we aren't considering 1A)
1. Laws of nature broken. Resurrection occured.
2. Laws of nature not broken, as resurrection did not occur. (there are other ways to rewrite 2 without agent)

In this instance your metholody is inadequate or if it was how it was pre-imposed in a variant form, implies fallacy (improbable implies impossibility fallacy) as before.

I think this is more of a case of a classification and category problem, where the data is of one category and the studies conducted are in category. Part of the nature of miracles, is their scientific unpredictable.
That is you cannot guess or predict when a miracle, if miracles exist, will occur from the category of data.

In order to conduct your study, you either have to assume they do or don't exist; whichever you presume is irrelevant, although assuming the latter could be consider circular logic.
If you assume they do, your aim from your model is to prove they are contradictory. However your methodology is insufficient and inherently flawed.

To use your example from earlier, to make it even more narrower:
0.000000000000000002% of events - resurrection and suspect dead for at least 2 days.
99.99999999999999998% of events - no resurrection and suspect dead.

Common sense/laws of physics say that dead people do not rise from the dead (premise)

Assume that Jesus rose from dead.
Data then says that 99.9999999% of people do not rise.
Therefore Jesus did not rise.

If that is what your argument is, which is what it appears to me as, then the claim of implying impossibility from improbability is to some degree correct.
although as mentioned earlier there are more fundamental issues.

However if it as I would appear your argument is:
1 (assume 0.00002% neglect due to low probability) All evidence/data supports people not rising from the dead.
2. Therefore we have much confidence to believe that Jesus did not rise again from the dead.



My position simply negates (2) by adding in:
1 (modified): Almost all evidence/data supports people not rising from the dead.
3. There is data to suggest that Jesus rose again from the dead.

The problem is my position is not completely opposite to your position. Position is 99.9999998% identical to yours.
Unlike you, I deem the "outliers" (using the term loosely of course) significant because they exist and not because of their number.
However your model, only gives value to them, if they occur in large enough numbers. I think the best way is then to consider the individual data, that
is the accounts for each case, and then examine why/why not they are the case. Because the truth value of the outlier cannot be determined from
the other cases.

Firstly,
1. People die and are not raised
2. When an exception to (1) occurs, there is a particular reason.
(*immediately, that is more of thelogical side point)

http://spectrum.troy.edu/renckly/images/propor.gif
So what do we know about Z? The confidence level, how do we determine that to determine the sample size and the distibution. All the miracles of resurrection, are clustered. Why is this significant to our study?

Let us define an f, where f maps to zero if dead person states dead, and when person does not stay dead, f maps to some positive n.
Our model can be approximately with a continuous - the Dirac mass/delta function. The integral over the whole area is 1, so it is statistically valid.
What is good/bad about this model?

Lets think of it alternatively in terms of the 'density' of miracles. If we categorise miracles of the type that our testing, is concerned with (resurrection).
This number can be assumed, quite safely to be close to 0.

To simplify the study from before, lets consider male deaths only in the period 32-34AD with further limiting characteristics.
The question is can we generalise from this refined study? Of course not. Factors that caused death were different there and then and now.
Why are we permitted to do the opposite, and take a more general study of billions of people (yes not infinite, but still very very large),
what affect should the existence of one small outlier

Because of the significance of the outlier, in terms of its radical implications to our model, it is worth studying these outliers in more detail than your study has done.
we have to study it more closely, unlike your model, which if it does avoid the charge of fallacy (improbable implies impossibility)
still has a composition problem of being far too general to properly consider the data;
or applies the fundamental assumption, laws of nature cannot be broken.

Premise: It is more likely that Jesus did not break the laws of nature
Evidence: Hypothesis test for proportions as mentioned above
Conclusion: The evidence greatly supports the motion

As I said, Sai baba has a lot more witness accounts of miracles than the bible. Accounts of him bringing the dead back to life.
Why do you not accept him as god? Why Jesus?

How large is the sample of accounts that say Jesus came back from the dead?
Is it larger than the accounts of Sai Baba? No. Yet for some reason you will not accept him as a god, only Jesus
Is it larger then the accounts of people dying normally?

I am not arguing that the resurrection has to be unique, only you would have that problem.

Technically the resurrection doesn't prove that Jesus is God, by itself, it is a bit more complex than that.
It is the declaration that Jesus is right and true.

And Jesus taught about God and all that. So it requires assessing also Jesus' claims, what did Jesus claim as true.
This means not just assessing the resurrection but everything leading up to that, the rest of his claims. If they all have stack

Many believe that Jesus teaching is 'quality' and give value to it, especially its moral teachers; however Jesus fundamentally believed in
God, claimed to be God, and claimed that he would be killed in X fashion and rise again exactly 3 days later.

With regard to Sai Baba, I would actually have to handle the witness accounts to be able to give an answer to your question.
Because I haven't done that, I wouldn't know.

The very little I do know, would suggest to you that I would reject him. But for different reasons:
http://saibabaexposed.blogspot.com.au/2005/12/sai-babas-contradictions-on-jesus.html

Also I would have to investigate further the claims of Sai Baba's resurrection, would you be able to post a link or something?

I do not beleive in the metaphysical.

I know

What is your methodolgy, which can be applied in this scope, where science cannot?
You keep dodging that question.

I addressed that above. It requires actual examination of the cases.
Whether you call that science or not, is irrelevant.

Science for instance:
- Doesn't make moral judgements
- Doesn't make aesthetic arguments
- Doesn't tell you how to apply scientific knowledge
- Doesn't draw conclusions about supernatural occurences.

Unless you reject the 4th of these, and assert that science can make supernatural conclusions.
1. Events/properties consistent with natural laws.
2. Events/properties inconsistent with natural laws.
under assumption natural laws are well-defined by science.
1A. Because natural laws are consistent, we can make predictions


If (2) is possible, then in science they are not well-defined enough to study with science, by principle of what science is.
We cannot predict for instance a miracle, because by definition, a miracle falls outside natural laws.

Wrong
I did not assume anything in the above test. Premise, evidence and conclusion.

Wrong, also. Every premise we form is under a series of assumptions, or hidden premises. No-one truely argues/hypothesis independently of
their own worldview. Not commenting on whether these assumptions are good/true or not.
The scientific method has fundamental assumptions in it as well.

To demonstrate, the scientific method studies events of a particular nature, predictable. It is an inductive process.
Deductive reasoning, starts with a premise and then seeks a conclusion.

Again, you are wrong

In a criminal case, you can assume innocent until proven guilty for wildly different reasons which are irrelevant here.
In a civil case, we look at the balance of probabilites
Does the evidence favour the plaintiff or the defendant? Here, clearly there is far more evidence that ressurections do not happen.
This does not prove they are impossible, but often we can never prove who is right/wrong, we must weigh out the evidence and decide on a conclusion.

Ok, but quality over quantity. If I was in a courtroom, and there was one person who was saying something different to the rest, who were saying exactly the same:
1. Dismiss him as false, since clearly he is opposing everyone else.
2. Or because it is different, study it more closely.

no assumptions were made

sure, I don't believe you, eh. we'll have to disagree on that one.

Genuinely do not understand what you are saying. You have a set of cards ... what am I ignoring again?
Um, I said this. Not sure why you repeated me.

yeah misquote. I didn't bother addressing that, because it was an incomplete sentence of mine.
Sometimes started a thought but never quite finished it.

So let me get this straight
Personally, you beleive that the laws of physics are not universal?

I explained my position above/ and previously.
1. Yes in the sense, that everywhere they occur and hold. (that can be dispute in science)
2. No in the sense, they don't necessarily have to hold every single time, but generally they do.

When you understand this, you'll understand why I perceive you as ignoring information.
Your assumption appears to be: they do hold every time. While it is explicit in your argument, it is relied upon to make your conclusions.

Another false accusation (FA2)

False accusation here, i am simply saying "ok sure" to one of your statements. How is THAT an accusation?
Seriously, trying to show to others moral superiority here is not worth it.

I think it's safe to assume that if god is caring, he wouldn't let his children suffer for centuries with plague, starvation, rape, toture and murder.
Just a thought

Yep, but is there more to God. Is not God also just? Punishing evil. Is not God right to discipline his children when they are disobedient for instance?

Why do you say that it makes no sense for me to discuss the characterstics of god? I will assume god exists for the sake of argument, is there something wrong with that?

no of course not. but how do you suppose God exists. which God are you supposing exists?

Why do you have to blatantly misquote me?
Sam: No I do not believe he exists. I will assume he exists to argue some of your points about the nature of god
Yet you only quoted the first sentence in Italics.

Pure dishonesty. FA3

Dismissed, hardly a misquote. You are not getting/understanding my point. Ah no. There is a difference between assuming God exists, it is another jump to start making assumptions and conclusions about God's existence.
If you are expecting rigour for God's existence, the same is expected for conclusions about what he is like.

Empirically if God exists, you can only deduce that he is powerful and that he is divine. That is it. The rest rely on some form of revelation
(God speaking) about what he is like. To make some of your claims REQUIRE more assumptions than simply just God exists. You yourself in your arguments, which I have addressed
have revealed such. I have addressed particular ones at points. You are trying to argue from a position of faith in some
matters when you do not have faith. You cannot expect to be neutral, unbiased simply because you are from the negative position. It doesn't work like that.

You can make claims, but your basis is an assumption which you yourself do not hold. The problem is your positioning is not the same as mine, and so trying to prove that God doesn't exist
or is a jerk, requires that the same assumptions are made between my position and yours. In our discussion, this is categorically demonstrated as false.

Because you cannot argue from a position independent of your worldview/assumptions. Neither can I entirely either.
There is always a bias. Now in this case, it can be good for you to attempt to argue, but you come across a lot of problems because you
assume certain things about God which I do not assume:

"God is caring" so he must stop suffering.
"God is just" so only evil people are killed (with the hidden premise that I am a half-decent bloke on God's scale)

"God is caring" implies X as your PREVIOUS reply stated. I am simply saying that unless your assumption that God exists is based on a firm grounding,
how can you make claims about what God is like?

How is that not applying assumptions to God?

No. For that argument, I am disussing his character, not trying to disprove he exists.
Can you not gather this without me telling you?

yes, is it an argument or discussion. Your discussion is of the form:
God has X property, which requires to him to do Y thing.
You will notice I have generally rejected those lines of reasoning.

Just odd behaviour
You go to a random athiest website.
You then 'attack' the arguments on it by repeating 'i reject it' or 'out of context'
I then mention that (1) these aren't arguments and (2) I don't care about the website
You get defensive and say "I dont have to give arguments"
I am really confused as to why you brought up a random website, said "i reject it" to it's claims and then say "I don't have to argue the points?"
Does this have anything to do with my arguments?

It was more of a commentary on the website, you may dismiss it is relevant, although the first guy on this thread goes to a random website and posts the arguments there.

What that website shows is that Christians hardly have it always together in arguing/presenting a case;
and it is naively stupid to claim that I have EXACTLY the same assumptions as the Christian next-door.

This makes perfect sense, but I stated that I do not care about arguments random websites. I will state it again.
Stop trying to attack the website and address my posts instead.

I have been. But you are not the only person I feel obliged to address sometimes.

Yep, that was my fault. I thought you were referring to any miracles, such as resurreciton
Did not know you were attacking some random argument on the website. Hopefully you understand my confusion
Makes sense tho , different kinds of miracles

thats ok. even I make mistakes too.

Can you answer it in as little words, and as clearly as possible. I legit don't see how that answered anything at all.
Why has god let his children suffer rape, torture, murder starvation etc and die for centuries?
What is my 1.Y.O cousins offence towards god?
What is the offence I have commited? If God wants us to accept him, he can show himself magnificently in the heavens.
He doesn't tho.

there may not be a specific reason that I can give you, for x person suffering y thing/event. In general, it can be understood that
the world is broken under a curse and under judgement. The offence is maybe not the right way of saying it, sorry on my part.
It is more of a positional & internal thing, we are separated from God, we have rejected God, we have sinned; rather than simply actions or words.

"The heavens are telling of the glory of God. And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; Their voice is not heard." from the Psalm.

More blatant lies. Why do you resort to deliberate misquoting?

FA4 (more like a deliberate

How was that a misquote? What I said is a true statement. I am not a/the all-powerful God.
That is my answer, your hypothetical is irrelevant, I dismissed it because I am not an all-powerful God, and I will not be.

Maybe I should have explained better, but for me I don't put myself in God's shoes and try to say what I would do, if I were him.
What I have been replying is more so of how I understand God, but I am not going to be able to know everything nor answer everything either.

In this forums and discussions between different world views, there are going to be misunderstandings, especially in the written text media;
and especially because we do not know each other personally. It would be good to keep that in mind.

I said : Oh and yes, I still think it's unjust that person A suffers for the crimes of person B, when person A has not done anything wrong .
The example you gave is terrible.
Original question:
Why does a newborn have to be punished (e.g. with a terrible disease), because the general population, as you say, have 'broken the world'

Example was addressing something else. Yeah that happens (as in I give terrible examples).
Same as question about 1 YO cousin. The answer is still the same.

there are 3 things:
1. God never gives a particular reason for why X person suffers Y thing/event.
2. We can only understand why suffering occurs in general, and what God is doing overall. The specifics are not mentioned/revealed.
3. God participates in our suffering as well, in Jesus.

this will mean that if you are giving specific examples of suffering, there is no specific answer from me on that.

See above, did not know you were attacking a random claim not made by me
It is just your nuance
I will try again
--> God can perform another miracle for me today. In fact, god can do a lot of very simple things to point me towards him. Instead, he elects not to. Why?

Again if you do not pay attention or dismiss the things that Jesus said and did, most chiefly his death and resurrection;
you are going to miss "the very simple things" you demand.
That is how God has chosen to reveal himself, so that we would seek him.

Babies suffer at birth because "the world is broken under the curse of sin"
The baby itself did not sin (No crime commited)
Other humans did commit sin (Broke the world)
Yet the baby has to pay for the crimes commited by other human beings

Yep, because sin is not merely something "committed", it is also a state we are under.
Think of it like citizenship. You either have citizenship with God or not. By default, when we are born, because of broken world/order
we are separated from God.

The baby 'pays' for its own crimes. The suffering received in this life/the curse, is a warning as to what is to come, in a life eternally separated from God.
But the specifics, I wouldn't have an answer.

I see nothing wrong with healing all poverty without massacring everyone in the proccess.

That is you. You are not God. There is a question of justice. To repeat the end of my last post:

Instead of "cleaning up" the entire world in a massacre
(1) Punish individuals who do wrong
(2) Help those who do good
God clearly isn't too bright if he couldn't think of that one lmao

Except for one fundamental problem. Who decides who does wrong, and who does good? By whose standard?
I am pretty sure God accounted for that one

Everyone but 1 is in category (1). Only 1 person, Jesus, is actually in category (2)

Jesus then comes up, and says for those who acknowledge/accept him, that his good deeds would be attributed also to your account. (the blessings).
And he takes upon your debt, and pays for it.
He comes and frees people under the curse, and under slavery, buying them back for God.

I am simply explaining at this point because I understand you won't be convinced.

Then answer the question?
Why can't god remove poverty without some judgement day massacre/ end of the world scenario

When God removes poverty and all sin ==> end of world/judgement.
Because God is just is my answer.

Why does god put them through the suffering in the first place?
Instead of
1) Suffer from rape, torture, poverty etc..
2) Die
3) Ressurect and live eternity happily with god

Lets have only natural deaths from (2) and (3) for the good christians out there

Steven was stoned.
Some Christians were matryed for their faith, and rejoiced for being counted worthy of suffering for the name.

So he listens to the thousands of prayers by children starving do death, yet does not give them a bit of food
What is his answer?

I answered that in general, re-read my previous replies. If my answer does not satisfy then that is the answer I have given/see below.

I am sure there are countless good people in the world who have suffered and died
Just reading about one of them now!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi

Again, what is good and what is not good. That is the question. Science cannot answer that, so where is the basis for you?
And note I will, as explained have a different basis.

1. Um, God did create world where humans want to sin. Why not create a world where Humans want to sin less?
2. Also, why did he curse us so that from birth we reject him and then suffer for it?

Addressing (1), God created world, then human sinned. I don't think either me or you have the basis to claim that God created us wanting to sin.
The picture Christians get from Genesis 1-2, is that God created his world according to his purposes, we presume without sin.
It seems that accounting for human sin was always part of God's plan of bringing glory to himself, and bringing people to himself.
suffering is part of that, and living under the curse is part of that.

It is judgement,
"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned"

FA5. I did not claim suffering is only a third world problem. Nor did I claim suffering was not universal. I was using the example of poverty. I could have used a more first world example of depression, but my point still holds

Well I only replied to what you said, not to what you didn't. Simply a comment on the seemily one-sidedness of the examples used. Could have been done more clearly.

You said
The harvest is soon, but not yet. There is still time for people to chat/discuss and turn and listen to God. When we get to that final day, we cannot complain they he hasn't give us all (as a humanity unit)...

And I responded by saying
Sadly, it doesn't make any sense when we discuss individuals. Those suffering and dying from poverty, who love God and are devout Christians
Feelsbad, god won't help millions starving to death because 'humanity as a unit' needs more time to chat

So God is spreading the warning by letting millions starve do death? Can you be more clear?

Not quite, I don't think we can clearly extrapolate the warning from human suffering and the broken of this world.
The flow is:
1. When Jesus returns, suffering will end.
2. Reason behind (1): so that people can hear Gospel about Jesus and repent.
3. As when Jesus returns, he will also judge.

As I said
Instead of "cleaning up" the entire world in a massacre
(1) Punish individuals who do wrong
(2) Help those who do good
God clearly isn't too bright if he couldn't think of that one lmao
Sigh.

I addressed this earlier. Jesus death was the way for those who would have otherwise been punished to have their punishment removed.

Dan: God will decide everyones fate on judgement day
Sam: Millions and millions have died already from suffering and torture. Can't he just decide a bit earlier?
P.S: If god will decide if you go to heaven or hell,

Ouch. That is rough

Yeah that is rough but that is the diagnosis.
Pretty sure if heaven is God's kingdom, where God is, then he gets to decide.

See after last quote bubble... but also end of last post.

Sadly, Jesus does not come up and say that to my face
If he did, I would consider it

Yeah, he would have to return to say it to your face. You might just have to take it from those who did hear him, wrote it down?
Jesus said:
"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him."

What happens to all the muslims in the world who have done enourmous good deads and are very kindhearted people? Their deeds aren't "attrinuted to their accounts" ? Simple because they did not acknowledge him?

I think you know my answer to that one.
It is the same as my last reply. only those who acknowledge Jesus as Lord are saved. Muslims do not, despite believing in a God.