Why do/don't you believe in a higher power? (Any HP)

[Neutraligon]

I don't claim that God created the world. I also contend that, in the Bible, God is not omniscient. It is actually one of the first things that happens in the Bible. God creates the world but he doesn't know that Adam and Eve will violate his instructions, and eat from the Tree of Knowledge. God is shocked when they do. This shows that he is not omniscient.

This is all kinds of messed up theologically so I'll just get to it:

God IS omniscient, but in order to preserve our free will, He keeps Himself from seeing our future. In doing so, and in creating anything apart from Himself, He gave up at least a bit of His complete control of the Universe. So while God surely knew that diseases and such might arise later on down the line, it clearly wasn't enough to stop Him from enacting His perfect will, which was to create us, and then lead us back to Him. That process results in eternal life, and beatitude for us, the ultimate and only source of happiness in our existence; of course He was going to put us into the world!

So no, God doesn't just go around putting tumors in the heads of kids. That's so contrary to everything about the nature of God, haha. It's just the logical end of a world that's metaphysically distinct from God. If we only existed within his complete presence, we wouldn't really exist in the way we do now, you feel?

Do you believe in heaven?

[Salandriagado]

I don't have evidence in particular for God the Father or God the Son, but I can definitely speak at length about God the Holy Spirit. I don't know if anyone has ever read Hume, but he talks a lot about happiness, and what makes a person happy, and how what makes people happy is what is good for themselves and the community (Rand and Plato also would back up these notions). We've evolved this goodness within us as a way to be more fit (in the evolutionary sense of the term). This goodness is a real thing, and with some exceptions (Biology is the study of exceptions) exists universally throughout humanity. "By one Spirit we were all baptized" is a line from the catechisms and I see reason to believe that what the church is saying and what philosophy and biology are saying is the same thing. We evolved and were anointed by God the Holy Spirit and that is how the universe works.

I chose Catholicism because the catholic church does the most good for my community out of any organization that operates there.

So why call it "god", rather than "evolutionary psychology"?

[Neutraligon]

That's, interesting.. So what are your guys' view on Moses and Abraham then? Metaphorical figures?

I’d say halfway between real and legend. Especially for Moses. But metaphorical figures would probably fit.

Moses is pretty much agreed upon by biblical scholars to not have existed.

[Jolthig]

That's, interesting.. So what are your guys' view on Moses and Abraham then? Metaphorical figures?

I’d say halfway between real and legend. Especially for Moses. But metaphorical figures would probably fit.

I see. Here in Ahmadiyya Islam, we view these figures as real, but regarding their miracles, we tend to have different views on miracles. Especially on Moses parting the Red Sea.

Unlike the common view held by many adherents of the three major Faiths that trace their roots to Abraham, we dont believe the Red Sea simply parted by the snap of a finger. Rather, it was a natural phenomenon that happened to happen at the right place at the right time where the sea tenporaey retreated. Similar to how an island in France (forgot its name) is either connected or disconnected with France through a semi-open highway that often gets covered by the ocean before it retreats.

[Erythrean Thebes]

Now you've told a lie about me. You don't think that's wrong? It's not wrong for you, after I've said that my contention is only that the Bible is logically consistent, to lie and say that I'm claiming God is real?

And yet the Bible is internally inconsistent. The bible says that Jesus will be of the male line of David, Jesus having no father cannot be of that line. And if you say that he is also the sun of Joseph, then you have the issue that Joseph would have passed down the sin you said would show up genetically.

As I think, Jesus having been born into sin was a major reason why his subsequent life, teaching, and sacrifice was viewed as an impressive achievement and an act of heroism among the Jews. For the angel of the Lord said, in the Gospels of Matthew, "he shall save his people from their sins."

[Thermodolia]

I don't claim that God created the world. I also contend that, in the Bible, God is not omniscient. It is actually one of the first things that happens in the Bible. God creates the world but he doesn't know that Adam and Eve will violate his instructions, and eat from the Tree of Knowledge. God is shocked when they do. This shows that he is not omniscient.

This is all kinds of messed up theologically so I'll just get to it:

God IS omniscient, but in order to preserve our free will, He keeps Himself from seeing our future. In doing so, and in creating anything apart from Himself, He gave up at least a bit of His complete control of the Universe. So while God surely knew that diseases and such might arise later on down the line, it clearly wasn't enough to stop Him from enacting His perfect will, which was to create us, and then lead us back to Him. That process results in eternal life, and beatitude for us, the ultimate and only source of happiness in our existence; of course He was going to put us into the world!

So no, God doesn't just go around putting tumors in the heads of kids. That's so contrary to everything about the nature of God, haha. It's just the logical end of a world that's metaphysically distinct from God. If we only existed within his complete presence, we wouldn't really exist in the way we do now, you feel?

That is the most convoluted thing I’ve ever read.

Tumors, disease, and the like are unfortunately a natural part of life. The lord doesn’t physically manage the world like a micromanager.

[Novo Vaticanus]

@Jolthig

I see you out here defending the theological and philosophical basis of a God. Religious gang, we gotta stick together out here man

[Jolthig]

What I said was simply evidence for a God. The proof of God doesnt come without revelation.

God doesnt need to do anything, and no, the state of the world simply is not like your view of an omnipotent God.

Careful, he needs to be perfect.

So what does this add to the discussion?

[Neutraligon]

And yet the Bible is internally inconsistent. The bible says that Jesus will be of the male line of David, Jesus having no father cannot be of that line. And if you say that he is also the sun of Joseph, then you have the issue that Joseph would have passed down the sin you said would show up genetically.

As I think, Jesus having been born into sin was a major reason why his subsequent life, teaching, and sacrifice was viewed as an impressive achievement and an act of heroism among the Jews. For the angel of the Lord said, in the Gospels of Matthew, "he shall save his people from their sins."

So to be clear, he is the son of Joseph in your view right? Meaning Mary was not a virgin.

[Achidyemay]

I don't have evidence in particular for God the Father or God the Son, but I can definitely speak at length about God the Holy Spirit. I don't know if anyone has ever read Hume, but he talks a lot about happiness, and what makes a person happy, and how what makes people happy is what is good for themselves and the community (Rand and Plato also would back up these notions). We've evolved this goodness within us as a way to be more fit (in the evolutionary sense of the term). This goodness is a real thing, and with some exceptions (Biology is the study of exceptions) exists universally throughout humanity. "By one Spirit we were all baptized" is a line from the catechisms and I see reason to believe that what the church is saying and what philosophy and biology are saying is the same thing. We evolved and were anointed by God the Holy Spirit and that is how the universe works.

I chose Catholicism because the catholic church does the most good for my community out of any organization that operates there.

So why call it "god", rather than "evolutionary psychology"?

People are more familiar with what it means to believe in God, not everyone is familiar with that it means to believe in Evolutionary Psychology, so I do it for that reason. But I don't think it would make much of a difference practically.

[Novo Vaticanus]

That is the most convoluted thing I’ve ever read.

Tumors, disease, and the like are unfortunately a natural part of life. The lord doesn’t physically manage the world like a micromanager.

Couldn't have put it better chief

[Neutraligon]

So why call it "god", rather than "evolutionary psychology"?

People are more familiar with what it means to believe in God, not everyone is familiar with that it means to believe in Evolutionary Psychology, so I do it for that reason. But I don't think it would make much of a difference practically.

Except that a god has connotations that evolutionary biology does not.

[Jolthig]

@Jolthig

I see you out here defending the theological and philosophical basis of a God. Religious gang, we gotta stick together out here man

I'd be more than happy to provide the Ahmadi Islam philosophy on God.

[Salandriagado]

You still believe that a god, specifically the Christian god exists,that is a claim and state as such

.

Asking you to actually support your claims is not 'atheist vitriol' Thebes.

No, it isn’t. My claim, though, is not that the Christian religion is true. Nor am I claiming that God exists. I am not willing to subscribe to either proposition.

You have explicitly claimed both of those, repeatedly.

The only thing I am claiming, is that according to its premise, the Christian religion is logically consistent, it is not illogical.

It absolutely is: it contains many logical contradictions, both within itself and with observed reality (in particular, your little fairy story about Noah a while back demonstrably never happened).

One therefore accepts the premise of the religion, and can be a Christian, or does not accept it, and is not a believer. It’s not ‘obvious,’ because many atheist arguments are that the logic of the Christian religion is nonsensical, and there is no way to believe and also be a logical thinker. But that is not true. An atheist argument that the logical premise for Christianity is cheap, and not compelling, one the other hand IS valid, but, it is also an opinion, and not a fact.

No, everything that we've said has been a fact. It is a fact that the various claims that you've attributed to Christianity in this thread are demonstrably false.

Yeah, and as the person on its side in a debate, it's on you to bring proof regarding to it. You can't say "can you prove the Bible isn't right?" -or well, it's not considered good debating at any rate. It is on you to prove the Bible is right, i.e. by proving that every single one of our ancestors was "people who are defined congenitally by their inexcusable and despicable proclivity to lie, to cheat, to steal, to do harm, to show disrespect to authority, to have no concern for law and order, to put their arrogance before their compassion and do what they want to others." (And then you'd have to somehow prove that it somehow justifies "God's sentence passed upon [us]")

You're the one making that claim (or, pushing for the side that makes that claim). It is only on you to prove it true.

My claim is that, if you subscribe to the premise of the religion, one of the key tenets of which is the intrinsic evil of humanity, then the partially desolate condition of man’s relationship to God has justification and is also logically consistent. My claim is NOT that such a premise is necessarily true.

It isn't, as demonstrated. And, again, any entity that creates intrinsically evil entities is, itself, intrinsically evil.

In regards to this particular point, your quote above, the Bible accounts for different types of people, some of whom are good, and some of whom are evil. Figures such as Noah, Esau, Joseph, and Christ, adhere to the original code of conduct which humanity observed in the perfect world of Eden. You will see, God doesn’t punish those people. He gives them assistance throughout their lives and he ultimately repays them for injuries they suffer. On the other hand, people like Cain, Jacob, the Pharaoh of Egypt, who are like Adam and commit sins willfully, are tormented by God for their sins. It may be debatable whether or not that is fair, but if you are accepting the premise of the Bible in the first place, it is fairly clear how it would be justified to punish a person for doing wrong. Do you think that the notion that evil people deserve punishment and good people deserve assistance requires justification?

Yes. Yes, I do.

It is not my opinion that it is fair for one evil act at the beginning of time to have ruptured our relationship to God, such that he gives us no succor on Earth and only offers a certain reward for good character after death. I will not make that claim. However, I do contend that it is not illogical, and I claim that it is consistent with the premise of the Bible that mankind was corrupted by sin forever because of the treachery of Eve and Adam. You may not believe such a thing, nor do I believe it without reservation, but that is not what I am debating with you.

Collective punishment is also inherently evil.

I am only debating if it logically follows that ‘within the world of the Biblical reality, the barren state of mankind’s relationship to God is justified by the events which are purported to have directly led up to it.’

Stop lying.

What is there to be confused about? You are aware that in the US besides Muslims atheists are one of the most hated groups? You are aware that it is practically impossible in most parts of the US for an atheist to be elected? You are aware that atheists have dealt with theists trying to force them to follow their religion through the force of law. YOu do realize that untill relatively recently atheists where killed for being atheist. That the term godless is a pejorative?

I guess it’s not confusing – it’s frustrating, because I wish that I would be viewed differently from an uncritical practitioner of the religion.

You are an uncritical practitioner of the religion, just one who likes to dress up your lack of critical thought in fancy words, and pay lip-service to critical thought.

That makes no sense. Why would a document inspired by a perfect being need to be cherry picked?

I contend that it’s not perfect, nor infallible. We both know that it was written in pieces over a long period of time.

Great, so now that we've concluded that it's bullshit, we can remove it from the discussion entirely.

WHy did god create a being that had intrinsic evil in it?

In the Bible, humanity was not intrinsically evil until they were corrupted by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. But, in accordance with the commonly held view of genetics and hereditability in ancient times, the corruption became embedded in the seed of Adam and passed down to the coming generations. Again, I do not claim that it is true, I claim that if you adopt the logical starting point that the Biblical God exists, then this story is logically consistent with the events purported to have happened both before and after it.

It is not, in any way, consistent with reality, though, so that's utterly irrelevant.

[Erythrean Thebes]

As I think, Jesus having been born into sin was a major reason why his subsequent life, teaching, and sacrifice was viewed as an impressive achievement and an act of heroism among the Jews. For the angel of the Lord said, in the Gospels of Matthew, "he shall save his people from their sins."

So to be clear, he is the son of Joseph in your view right? Meaning Mary was not a virgin.

I think his parentage was unclear, and that Mary would not admit to any father other than the Holy Spirit. I think it's pretty clear that Joseph was not the father, given that he was surprised by the pregnancy and initially contrived to 'destroy' Mary

[Novo Vaticanus]

I'd be more than happy to provide the Ahmadi Islam philosophy on God.

I'd also love to try my hand at making a Catholic of you in turn, but I think we outa focus on at LEAST making deists of every agnostic, atheist, and anti-theist here, lmao

[Salandriagado]

I think your mistake is in assuming that atheists are arguing with Christians purely as an intellectual exercise. Rather, atheists are arguing with Christians because Christians run our countries and write the laws that we will have to obey. So of course there is vitriol. Politics is a high-stakes game. And of course we are arguing against God being omnipotent. That's what Christians tell us they believe. If it's fallacious to respond to the arguments before us instead of running off to engage with theology that actually makes totally different arguments then fine, I guess this whole thing is a fallacy, but it's a necessary fallacy. You don't get gay marriage legalised by arguing with long-dead theologians.

Certainly I can understand. But in the end I believe a better strategy, even if it is not feasible to atheists or distasteful to them, is to advocate a different definition of the religion. And I happen to think a stringently humble and egalitarian formula of the Christian religion is also, not coincidentally, much closer to the original teachings of Jesus Christ and his initial followers, compared to institutionalized and polemical Catholic and Protestant views, for instance.

If your religion doesn't include claiming that god exists, then it's not Christianity. If it does, then the arguments that you keep ignoring are absolutely relevant, and the god in question is either evil, too weak to be called a god, or non-existent. So I ask again: which is it? No god, an evil god, or a pathetically weak god?

[Thermodolia]

I’d say halfway between real and legend. Especially for Moses. But metaphorical figures would probably fit.

I see. Here in Ahmadiyya Islam, we view these figures as real, but regarding their miracles, we tend to have different views on miracles. Especially on Moses parting the Red Sea.

Unlike the common view held by many adherents of the three major Faiths that trace their roots to Abraham, we dont believe the Red Sea simply parted by the snap of a finger. Rather, it was a natural phenomenon that happened to happen at the right place at the right time where the sea tenporaey retreated. Similar to how an island in France (forgot its name) is either connected or disconnected with France through a semi-open highway that often gets covered by the ocean before it retreats.

We jews have a similar view regarding miracles, or at least Reform does. It’s pretty much forbidden to pray for a miracle, or at least not advisable to do so.

There’s a good Hasidic proverb on miracles, “a Jew who believes that all the miracles said to have been performed actually happened is a fool, but anyone who believes that they could not have happened is an unbeliever.”

[Jolthig]

I'd be more than happy to provide the Ahmadi Islam philosophy on God.

I'd also love to try my hand at making a Catholic of you in turn, but I think we outa focus on at LEAST making deists of every agnostic, atheist, and anti-theist here, lmao

Not interested in Catholicism as I'm pretty firm in my faith, but thanks. I'd be happy to have dialogue with you though where we both talk about our views on the nature of God.

And yes, I agree.

[Thermodolia]

I'd be more than happy to provide the Ahmadi Islam philosophy on God.

I'd also love to try my hand at making a Catholic of you in turn, but I think we outa focus on at LEAST making deists of every agnostic, atheist, and anti-theist here, lmao

Why? I don’t want to convert anyone thank you very much.

[Neutraligon]

So to be clear, he is the son of Joseph in your view right? Meaning Mary was not a virgin.

I think his parentage was unclear, and that Mary would not admit to any father other than the Holy Spirit. I think it's pretty clear that Joseph was not the father, given that he was surprised by the pregnancy and initially contrived to 'destroy' Mary

Then Jesus cannot be the Messiah.

[Holy Epoch]

Soooo

God is a woman?

Actully, God is genderless. Refering to God with male pronouns is because of a bad mistranslation

Actually, God *looks* like man. He made Adam in his image, and made Eve as a companion to Adam. Thus we can infer that God at least looks masculine, and we can judge that he is.

[Jolthig]

I see. Here in Ahmadiyya Islam, we view these figures as real, but regarding their miracles, we tend to have different views on miracles. Especially on Moses parting the Red Sea.

Unlike the common view held by many adherents of the three major Faiths that trace their roots to Abraham, we dont believe the Red Sea simply parted by the snap of a finger. Rather, it was a natural phenomenon that happened to happen at the right place at the right time where the sea tenporaey retreated. Similar to how an island in France (forgot its name) is either connected or disconnected with France through a semi-open highway that often gets covered by the ocean before it retreats.

We jews have a similar view regarding miracles, or at least Reform does. It’s pretty much forbidden to pray for a miracle, or at least not advisable to do so.

There’s a good Hasidic proverb on miracles, “a Jew who believes that all the miracles said to have been performed actually happened is a fool, but anyone who believes that they could not have happened is an unbeliever.”

We Ahmadi Muslims believe that miracles are a natural phenomenon because Allah is unchanging being. How can he break his natural laws with a snap of a finger? Like the myths of Jesus and Elijah bringing people back from the dead. That contradicts God's natural laws because when you die, you die. You're dead. You return to Allah according to the Holy Quran. I'm not sure of what the Torah and Tanakh say though. Perhaps a similar view? I know every soul goes to She'ol.

[The Alma Mater]

I'd be more than happy to provide the Ahmadi Islam philosophy on God.

I'd also love to try my hand at making a Catholic of you in turn, but I think we outa focus on at LEAST making deists of every agnostic, atheist, and anti-theist here, lmao

Why not of the pagans, hindus etc ?
We even have a few Satanists here

[Thermodolia]

That is the most convoluted thing I’ve ever read.

Tumors, disease, and the like are unfortunately a natural part of life. The lord doesn’t physically manage the world like a micromanager.

Couldn't have put it better chief

But the way you argue for it is very convoluted. You pretty much stated that god ceases to be god when cancer and other diseases pop up.