cofty

Joined

• started 464 topics
• posted 24,957 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by cofty

• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  cofty

  Atheism = I find the claims that Christians make about the world to be unconvincing. In the OP I described 9 examples of my reasons.

  Nobody speaks for atheism. Least of all Neitzsche.
• 
  99

  2 Peter 1 = Deity of Christ.

  by towerwatchman in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  2 peter 1 = deity of christ.

  2 pe.

  1:1 simon peter, a bondservant and apostle of jesus christ, .

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  cofty

  our moral duties originated from God's commandments such as the 10 Commandments - towerwatchman

  Which version of the ten commandments do you base your morality on, the Elohist version at Exodus 20 or the Yahwist version at Exodus 34?

  The first version is the best known but the latter is the only one called the "ten words" in the bible.

  Exodus 20 ...

  1. I am Yahweh your god; you shall not have other gods before my face!

  2. You shall not make for yourself a statue or an image.

  3. You shall not swear falsely by the name Yahweh, your god

  4. Remember the Sabbath day.
  

  5. Honor your father and your mother.
  

  6. You shall not murder.
  

  7. You shall not commit adultery.
  

  8. You shall not steal.
  

  9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
  

  10. You shall not covet you neighbor’s house.

  Exodus 34 ...
  

  1. You shall not bow down to another god; for Yahweh is a jealous god!

  2. You shall not make molten gods for yourself.
  

  3. You shall observe the festival of Unleavened bread.
  

  4. You shall redeem every first born of your sons!
  

  5. You shall observe the Sabbath.
  

  6. You shall make a festival of Weeks.
  

  7. Three times a year every male shall appear before Yahweh, god of Israel.
  

  8. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice on leavened bread.
  

  9. You shall bring the firstfruits of your land to the house of Yahweh your god.
  

  10. You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.

  And Yahweh said to Moses: “Write these words for yourself, because I’ve made a covenant with you and with Israel based on these words.” And he was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights. He did not eat bread, and he did not drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words (Ex 34:27-28)
  
• 
  99

  2 Peter 1 = Deity of Christ.

  by towerwatchman in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  2 peter 1 = deity of christ.

  2 pe.

  1:1 simon peter, a bondservant and apostle of jesus christ, .

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  cofty

  towerwatchman - Thanks for your reply.

  A world in which Nazis don't get to gas millions of innocent people because of their race, is objectively better than Germany of the 30s. The well-being of conscious creatures is a useful basis for objective morality that does not require an ultimate law-giver.

  Your proposal that morality needs to be rooted in god doesn't work. How would any of us ever know whether a particular action is a moral good or not? If we follow the bible we would have to conclude that slavery and infanticide is a moral good.

  I think in reality christians mostly make moral judgements on the same consequential basis as atheists do. Theists them pretend post hoc that their judgements are approved by the almighty. God is the ultimate sock-puppet.
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  cofty

  John I can't imagine there is anything useful to say that you haven't said a dozen times already.

  Everything you have written makes the nine points in my OP even more convincing.

  "God is not a magician" is perhaps the most amazing thing I have ever read in this forum.
• 
  99

  2 Peter 1 = Deity of Christ.

  by towerwatchman in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  2 peter 1 = deity of christ.

  2 pe.

  1:1 simon peter, a bondservant and apostle of jesus christ, .

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  cofty

  Outside of God there cannot be objective meaning

  That's a big claim.

  Do you feel like defending it?
  
  
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  cofty

  You quote the bible when it suits you. You might not be sola scriptura but you can't disown the bible whenever it doesn't work for you.

  The only theological assumptions I am making is that there is a god who made all things, who is the epitome of love and goodness, who is active in the world and who desires a relationship with humans.

  For the nine reasons I gave in my OP I find this story totally unconvincing.

  99% of what you have written in the last 24 pages misses this simple point.
• 
  26

  Reasoned With A JW Yesterday

  by pale.emperor in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  had a great chat with a jw on my door yesterday.

  girl 1: .... i dont think you would.

  me: ________, and say hi to my uncle ________ for me.. girl 1: i will.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  cofty

  Excellent reasoning. You have given them something to reflect on later. I hope they do check out JWFacts.
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  cofty

  The best option is the one that best reveals His love

  So why is the physical world perfectly designed to maximise suffering?

  24 pages of avoiding the question!
  

  Do you really believe in this statement?

  Yes. If you don't agree then you need to learn more about the last 3 billion years of the history of life.
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  cofty

  CC accepts the ToE and this theory implies death and destruction. - J_M

  Yes. You have not answered to question, you have restated it. If god chose to bring the present physical world into being through this process then he is not a god of love. He made a world perfectly designed to maximise suffering. Not just a world that inevitably includes some physical suffering - a world that maximises it.

  He is also not the wonderful intelligent designer christians claim he is. 99% of all the species that ever existed failed. They are extinct. Their last representatives died out.

  Five times in the history of life almost all of life was violently wiped out through catastrophic events. These are not the actions of the same god who claims to care about the death of every sparrow.

  You have not even started to deal with these first two points (which you have conflated into one point)

  This is how the physical world works. Catholic faith is all about the salvation of the metaphysical soul.

  That doesn't work. You asserted earlier that your god cares about physical suffering. He clearly doesn't.

  Our physical bodies and some features of our minds came to existence through natural laws. Only our immortal soul was made to be an image of God.

  But according to christians god invented those natural laws from scratch. The predominance of predators and parasites was god's idea. The natural world reflects the nature of the creator. He could have made the world any way he wished. He designed it to maximise pain.

  You are so obsessed by the soul you are willing to justify any physical suffering aren't you?

  There's historical evidence that the Gospels were written before the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem.

  Many scholars disagree but even so, predicting that the Roman's patience would soon run out with the Jews is not impressive at all. When we read those prophecies in detail it is clear you have to cherry-pick a couple of phrases to get anything useful for your case. That is always the case with bible prophecy.

  This is a very subjective statement. But if you apply statistics then the majority of people says the opposite of this statement. There's statistical evidence against this subjective statement.

  What statistics are you referring to? I am making a simple observation that if god revealed anything through the bible it is reasonable to expect some evidence of that when you read the book. There is none.

  Personally I would have hinted at germ theory of disease. Or mentioned the fact that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun. Something simple but interesting and way ahead of its time.

  I was going to carry on but you get the picture.

  All your work is ahead of you. This is a thread where I am very happy with the OP and very disappointed with the quality of the conversation that followed.

  Nobody - absolutely nobody - cares about you Roman Catholic dogma. It is totally irrelevant to challenge.

  
  
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  cofty

  Here is the basic core of the disagreement.

  John M believes that faith is a virtue and requests for evidence are anathema to faith.

  He dismisses all challenges to his doctrines by calling them metaphysical and therefore off limits for rational inquiry. Of course like all theists he will take any shred of evidence available.

  Even if we took the ontological argument seriously and accepted John's personal vision as authentic it would not begin to answer any of the challenges of the OP.

  The OP simply observes that in many ways the world doesn't actually look the way Christians pretend it does.

  Proposing other lines of evidence for God doesn't meet the challenge. Attacking atheism as a worldview doesn't either.

  The OP stands unanswered.