Objections to Christianity part deux
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ChrisElston wrote:
It's somewhere to keep the salt when eating
... celery, in bed. [Edited to remove didactic tone - hopefully.]
Be dogmatic, not thoughtful. It's easier, and you get bumper stickers.- Anon.
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If God exists, then how come he can let bad things happen? If he does exist, and lets bad things happen, then is he a god, or a twat?
============================== Nothing to say.
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Ever see a painting of Adam and Eve? How come they got belly buttons??? :wtf:
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
Err...would seem pretty obvious to me... Because paintings are painted by people. And they used models, probably much of the time directly, but at times conceptually. And of course all those models had belly buttons. But perhaps you are suggesting that they were originally created without belly buttons? Or that they were? And somehow you are suggesting that God didn't have enough power to create them one way or the other?
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God is an invention of man because man could not and can not handle the notion that life ends at death.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)Religion is a belief. The basis of that is just like any other belief of the hundreds or thousands that each individual uses to get through each day. Which is the only way a sane person can live. They certainly can't attempt to prove every single aspect in a day, so they must accept them on belief. For example I have no problem believing that the Sun will rise tomorrow and that my significant other will be there as well. And my actions today are based on those beliefs. If I have evidence otherwise then my actions today would be different. And I am not talking about probabilities either. But the actual absolute acceptance that many, many things now and in the distant future will 'become' as I 'believe' them to be. Formalizing such beliefs is also something that impact individuals in many ways. For example I invest in a retirement account and plan my future vacation assured in the belief that I will not be hit by a bus tomorrow nor die of heart attack next week. Again if I knew differently then my actions today would be vastly different. Thus I take very specific actions, actions shared by many, many others, who also share similar beliefs.
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Err...would seem pretty obvious to me... Because paintings are painted by people. And they used models, probably much of the time directly, but at times conceptually. And of course all those models had belly buttons. But perhaps you are suggesting that they were originally created without belly buttons? Or that they were? And somehow you are suggesting that God didn't have enough power to create them one way or the other?
jschell wrote:
But perhaps you are suggesting that they were originally created without belly buttons?
Or that they were?That is more the question that I am getting at.
jschell wrote:
And somehow you are suggesting that God didn't have enough power to create them one way or the other?
Actually that is not my implication. It is more complicated. It is to cause thinking. One can conclude one of two things. Adam and Even had belly buttons, or they didn't. 1.) Had- Created in Gods image, as we all are. Well then why does God have a belly button. We have it has an effect of the birthing process. One would deduce that God was born then. Or that we are in his image but with quite a few tweaks. Either way, the answer leads to more and more questions. 2.) Did not have. In this case how to we end up with the belly buttons then. Hmmm. Seems the species needed something and.. uhhh dare I say evolved to acquire it. Again, you end up with more questions. To re-iterate, I was not implying anything from it. Just asking. Because it is a question that causes more questions regardless of the answer. And in my experience, when this occurs there is a root fallacy.
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
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It was a general statement obviously. I cannot understand what makes intelligent people believe just for the sake of belief, but as you say plenty do. My old boss was 'religious (Christian)' but was comfortable with people who were not, and didn't want to get into pointless arguments about it or try to justify it. Another senior developer here is also a prominent member of a church, even preaches there from time to time, and he is the same although the religiousness is slightly more obvious in him if that makes sense. I have nothing at all against either of these people, or indeed against anyone who believes in whatever they want to until they try to covert. Both of them were raised in this church, another friend became Christian well into his 20s. Can't remember how he discovered God now, but he did a lot of study into religious teachings and text, and considers himself a Christian outside of religion. He is also a deeply irritating person at times, although also shuns discussion unless someone draws him into it, which I guess is fair enough. We also have a Muslim lad working here who is heavily involved in his mosque and very religious, but again it is not something that is 'in the room' as it were, certainly none here have adapted their ways since he joined. Personally I find those who are preachy anti-religion just as irritating as those who are preachy for one.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
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If God exists, then how come he can let bad things happen? If he does exist, and lets bad things happen, then is he a god, or a twat?
============================== Nothing to say.
If God exists why does he need mortals to believe in him? Is his self confidence so lacking that he needs to damn us to hell for the rest of eternity for disbelief during a fraction of time? Keep in mind that time is irrelavant to an omniscient being.
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
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Erudite__Eric wrote:
If God exists, then how come he can let bad things happen?
Pretty sure that is covered by centuries worth of philosophical debates.
Sort of, but in any convincing debate it undermines a lot key claims made to demonize those who don't believe in the given god. I've always found it much harder to bite into a religion that doesn't claim to have an almighty, all loving, beneficent god(yet lets it worshipers be so terribly oppressed). And really, the old testament, or just plain Job, poor guy. Better man than me by some measure, I'd have been telling god exactly where he could stuff his love around the same time my entire family died for a friggen bet. That's just a dick move. Though that could also very well explain why I've never felt any kind of connection with one...
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Religion is a belief. The basis of that is just like any other belief of the hundreds or thousands that each individual uses to get through each day. Which is the only way a sane person can live. They certainly can't attempt to prove every single aspect in a day, so they must accept them on belief. For example I have no problem believing that the Sun will rise tomorrow and that my significant other will be there as well. And my actions today are based on those beliefs. If I have evidence otherwise then my actions today would be different. And I am not talking about probabilities either. But the actual absolute acceptance that many, many things now and in the distant future will 'become' as I 'believe' them to be. Formalizing such beliefs is also something that impact individuals in many ways. For example I invest in a retirement account and plan my future vacation assured in the belief that I will not be hit by a bus tomorrow nor die of heart attack next week. Again if I knew differently then my actions today would be vastly different. Thus I take very specific actions, actions shared by many, many others, who also share similar beliefs.
I may plan some future vacations because I estimate the probability that I will live until then is high enough to justify the effort of planning. Even if I was wrong, not much would be lost, just a bit of planning. The things that I say I "believe" will happen, are things that I estimate as having a very high probability of happening. That estimate will be inaccurate, but better than total uncertainty, and I always try to account for the probability that I turn out to be wrong. What I really try to do, is optimize the long term estimated expected gain minus the long term estimated expected loss, estimated to the best of my ability and knowledge. It all takes a lot of thinking, but I think this strategy is optimal, in the sense that you can't do better without having access to more data.
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Ever see a painting of Adam and Eve? How come they got belly buttons??? :wtf:
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
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Probably. Couldn't remember what it was supposed to be so took a guess.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
ChrisElston wrote:
Couldn't remember what it was supposed to be
Sorry. Not meant to be a correction, just an alternative. (Etched into my memory, I'm afraid, along with the Goon Show, Hancock, soul crushingly dull Sunday afternoons, etc.)
Be dogmatic, not thoughtful. It's easier, and you get bumper stickers.- Anon.
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If God exists why does he need mortals to believe in him? Is his self confidence so lacking that he needs to damn us to hell for the rest of eternity for disbelief during a fraction of time? Keep in mind that time is irrelavant to an omniscient being.
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
That has always been my objection to many of the major religions. Eternal punishment for errors in judgement made through ignorance over a very short period of time just doesn't seem right, does it...
I wasn't, now I am, then I won't be anymore.
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Sort of, but in any convincing debate it undermines a lot key claims made to demonize those who don't believe in the given god. I've always found it much harder to bite into a religion that doesn't claim to have an almighty, all loving, beneficent god(yet lets it worshipers be so terribly oppressed). And really, the old testament, or just plain Job, poor guy. Better man than me by some measure, I'd have been telling god exactly where he could stuff his love around the same time my entire family died for a friggen bet. That's just a dick move. Though that could also very well explain why I've never felt any kind of connection with one...
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jschell wrote:
But perhaps you are suggesting that they were originally created without belly buttons?
Or that they were?That is more the question that I am getting at.
jschell wrote:
And somehow you are suggesting that God didn't have enough power to create them one way or the other?
Actually that is not my implication. It is more complicated. It is to cause thinking. One can conclude one of two things. Adam and Even had belly buttons, or they didn't. 1.) Had- Created in Gods image, as we all are. Well then why does God have a belly button. We have it has an effect of the birthing process. One would deduce that God was born then. Or that we are in his image but with quite a few tweaks. Either way, the answer leads to more and more questions. 2.) Did not have. In this case how to we end up with the belly buttons then. Hmmm. Seems the species needed something and.. uhhh dare I say evolved to acquire it. Again, you end up with more questions. To re-iterate, I was not implying anything from it. Just asking. Because it is a question that causes more questions regardless of the answer. And in my experience, when this occurs there is a root fallacy.
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
Collin Jasnoch wrote:
1.) Had-
Created in Gods image, as we all are. Well then why does God have a belly button. We have it has an effect of the birthing process. One would deduce that God was born then. Or that we are in his image but with quite a few tweaks. Either way, the answer leads to more and more questions.Nope. No more so than the conclusion that because there are blonds and redheads then God must be one or the other.
Collin Jasnoch wrote:
2.) Did not have.
In this case how to we end up with the belly buttons then. Hmmm. Seems the species needed something and.. uhhh dare I say evolved to acquire it. Again, you end up with more questions.Nope. By definition if God created people then god created them with the form that they have. One might ask/wonder why God created belly buttons but their existence itself does not invalidate the assumption that God did the creating.
Collin Jasnoch wrote:
And in my experience, when this occurs there is a root fallacy.
In my experience it is generally because people don't understand any number of things about logic and specifically often don't understand implicit assumptions and/or choose to ignore the very nature of such assumptions.
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I may plan some future vacations because I estimate the probability that I will live until then is high enough to justify the effort of planning. Even if I was wrong, not much would be lost, just a bit of planning. The things that I say I "believe" will happen, are things that I estimate as having a very high probability of happening. That estimate will be inaccurate, but better than total uncertainty, and I always try to account for the probability that I turn out to be wrong. What I really try to do, is optimize the long term estimated expected gain minus the long term estimated expected loss, estimated to the best of my ability and knowledge. It all takes a lot of thinking, but I think this strategy is optimal, in the sense that you can't do better without having access to more data.
harold aptroot wrote:
I may plan some future vacations because I estimate the probability that I will live until then is high enough to justify the effort of planning. Even if I was wrong, not much would be lost, just a bit of planning.
I agree that you might do that. But if you do so you are in a very small minority.
harold aptroot wrote:
That estimate will be inaccurate, but better than total uncertainty, and I always try to account for the probability that I turn out to be wrong.
Quite possible but no sane person is going to do that for every decision that they make throughout the day.
harold aptroot wrote:
It all takes a lot of thinking, but I think this strategy is optimal, in the sense that you can't do better without having access to more data.
It does however ignore completely that I was presenting an example. Only one example of many real situations that impact everyone every day (not that that example impacts them but rather that there are many different ones for each individual.) And I seriously doubt that it is possible much less sane to evaluate probabilities for every aspect of ones life. I would not however be surprised if there are in fact individuals that attempt to do just that and as such have great difficulty in managing their life.
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Distind wrote:
Sort of
Huh? You are claiming that centuries worth of philosophical debates on that subject are wrong. Where wrong means that there are logical flaws in the arguments?
When debating something that's based purely on supposition, conjecture and hand waving, it's quite difficult to be correct. This is without even getting into the more philosophical angle often used to excuse this such as redefining what is good, so that you can have a 'good' god who just so happens to kill innocent people by the thousands because someone annoyed him. the line: If God exists, then how come he can let bad things happen? Is a rebuttal of a very specific vision of god, which involves them being all powerful, knowing and somehow good. If you look at the old testament it's clear that god's only as good as he feels like on a given day, and the excuses required to make him 'good' by modern standards are pretty impressive. Now, if you toss any of the three aspects involved out the window, it becomes useless in disproving the existence of that god. Which is the only method of dismissing the argument which doesn't involve excusing crimes which thus far have been beyond the scope of human capability.
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harold aptroot wrote:
I may plan some future vacations because I estimate the probability that I will live until then is high enough to justify the effort of planning. Even if I was wrong, not much would be lost, just a bit of planning.
I agree that you might do that. But if you do so you are in a very small minority.
harold aptroot wrote:
That estimate will be inaccurate, but better than total uncertainty, and I always try to account for the probability that I turn out to be wrong.
Quite possible but no sane person is going to do that for every decision that they make throughout the day.
harold aptroot wrote:
It all takes a lot of thinking, but I think this strategy is optimal, in the sense that you can't do better without having access to more data.
It does however ignore completely that I was presenting an example. Only one example of many real situations that impact everyone every day (not that that example impacts them but rather that there are many different ones for each individual.) And I seriously doubt that it is possible much less sane to evaluate probabilities for every aspect of ones life. I would not however be surprised if there are in fact individuals that attempt to do just that and as such have great difficulty in managing their life.
Well there's no point in doing this for zero-impact decisions.. the decision whether to apply that strategy to a certain decision is therefore more important to get right, and the decision whether to apply that strategy to the decision whether to apply that strategy to a certain decision is more important yet.
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Well there's no point in doing this for zero-impact decisions.. the decision whether to apply that strategy to a certain decision is therefore more important to get right, and the decision whether to apply that strategy to the decision whether to apply that strategy to a certain decision is more important yet.
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When debating something that's based purely on supposition, conjecture and hand waving, it's quite difficult to be correct. This is without even getting into the more philosophical angle often used to excuse this such as redefining what is good, so that you can have a 'good' god who just so happens to kill innocent people by the thousands because someone annoyed him. the line: If God exists, then how come he can let bad things happen? Is a rebuttal of a very specific vision of god, which involves them being all powerful, knowing and somehow good. If you look at the old testament it's clear that god's only as good as he feels like on a given day, and the excuses required to make him 'good' by modern standards are pretty impressive. Now, if you toss any of the three aspects involved out the window, it becomes useless in disproving the existence of that god. Which is the only method of dismissing the argument which doesn't involve excusing crimes which thus far have been beyond the scope of human capability.
Distind wrote:
When debating something that's based purely on supposition, conjecture and hand waving, it's quite difficult to be correct.
Anyone that claims anything is more that what that statement entails doesn't understand the actual basis of logic.
Distind wrote:
This is without even getting into the more philosophical angle often used to excuse this such as redefining what is good, so that you can have a 'good' god who just so happens to kill innocent people by the thousands because someone annoyed him.
That doesn't mean anymore than anything else because AGAIN there are centuries worth of philosophy based on that. You can certainly belief that absolutely everything on the subject is nonsense because it it conflicts with other beliefs that you hold. But your beliefs on the subject are not more correct than any other belief for or against.
Distind wrote:
Is a rebuttal of a very specific vision of god, which involves them being all powerful, knowing and somehow good. If you look at the old testament it's clear that god's only as good as he feels like on a given day, and the excuses required to make him 'good' by modern standards are pretty impressive.
Ridiculous. As I already said there are CENTURIES worth of discourse on this very subject. Attempting to 'prove' something about it while entirely dismissing or ignoring the vast mass of discourse that already exists isn't 'logical'.
Distind wrote:
Now, if you toss any of the three aspects involved out the window, it becomes useless in disproving the existence of that god.
Which too me suggests that you haven't actually tried to do any research at all on the centuries worth of discourse. Or that you are dismissing it entirely without regard to merit because you reject the assumptions in the first place. And rejecting an assumption does not ever invalidate the argument.