Posts by flamegrilled

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

I got to page 100 first - do I win a prize? Simon

Yes, but you have to provide it and award it too :)

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

Again, the old stalwart of theist arguments - trying to make out that it's all unknown and so 50/50. Simon

Not at all. I am not in any way of the mind that it is 50/50. I believe that Cofty is plain wrong. However I am not going to assert that there is logical certainty that he is wrong. This is the line that can either be crossed or it cannot.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

Pretending there are things we don't or can't know for an absolute certainty is just playing silly word games. Cofty

This is one of the more ridiculous and illogical statements so far.

To acknowledge that there are things we don't know is an act of wisdom, prudence, and frankly is the first step toward being able to understand anything at all. To say otherwise would demonstrate gross hubris and stupidity. No scientist would ever discover anything if they took such a position.

To acknowledge that there may be things we can't know is a slightly different thing. But an assertion that that there is no such category of knowledge* clearly cannot be substantiated. If such a thing as a multiverse exists, we would by definition not be able to have knowledge of it. But are you going to say that it is therefore logically impossible? You would find it difficult to obtain support for such a position amongst intelligent company I venture.

These statements are not "silly word games" Cofty. Neither is it "pretend". This is reality my friend, and unless you acknowledge that you will continue with your illogical conclusions.

[*Knowledge in this case would have to be defined simply as "that which can be known by at least one being", since if we limit it to "that which can be known by humans in our universe" then of course there would be nothing that fits the second category.]

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

OK, the "I don't know" answer is really just a restatement that God knows more than we do. It is not really a direct answer to the question which would have to look something like "logically if I had access to the same information as the all loving omniscient God and if I was going to act in the long-term interests of all humanity then I would act the same way as he did". Therefore the answer is NO. But the answer would not be NO without that additional knowledge. The answer for me would be YES, but that would miss the point of the question which was framed "if you had the powers that God had".

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

We had more affection for them than the bible/christian God does for his children on earth. humbled

I have no idea how you have measured this.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

interestingly, is it prudent to worship a god, you know so little about regarding his morals and actions? Maybe get to know his motives for what appears immoral, before getting down on your knees?

You have jumped two steps ahead S&R. Nothing in what I wrote tells you how much I know regarding his morals and actions. You asked a very specific question about a particular event, and I answered very specifically as requested.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

please just a one word answer first. S&R

Idon'tknowbecauseIdon'thavehisknowledge

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

None of us chose to sign up for this experiment. Apo

That's a fair point, but if you did have a choice between not existing, or playing your part in this universe, what would you choose?

We would call this teacher an insecure jerk, wouldn't we?

I have to agree. I really dislike the illustration. The JW framework of theodicy doesn't work for me.

As for the Flood altering the way the world works, we can ignore what science has to say about this and simply ask the question, "Why did God need to bring a flood to kill the wicked? Why not strike each one down with an individual lightning bolt or something?

I guess the ark would then not have existed, and the figurative part of the event - salvation by baptism - would be lost.

But actually if I had to choose between a lightning bolt and drowning, I think I would go for the latter. But that's just me.

Why kill nearly all the world's animals as well as alter the environment massively?" I don't think the Society has ever attempted to explain why the Flood was a necessary form of execution.

According to the Genesis account something happened as a result of the badness that caused "all flesh" to be ruined. It's pretty sketchy on detail so who knows what that might mean?

Anyone who claims to have ALL the answers, whether in supporting the Bible account, or in writing it off completely, is not worthy of listening to IMO. Anyone who questions things and deals realistically with uncertainty and probability I can listen to. Hence why I jumped into this conversation to challenge Cofty's certainty. It's not that I begrudge anyone their personal certainty based upon the balance of probability, but just don't try to tell me it's a logical certainty if it isn't.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

During the gruelling job summarizing flamegrilled's argument, I found it took about ten pages for him to run out of steam along a particular argument line.

No one ran out of steam. At least not at my end. But once it's said, it's said. I'm familiar with the urge to have the last word on everything, but there comes a point that you've made your point and the reader can decide.

I think this will tip to 100 pages mostly on people like S&R commenting simply on the fact that it's close to 100 pages. But that was one of the more useful contributions he made to this thread :)

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

The summary so far:

It's simple. Cofty and I actually agree that this whole discussion hinges on probability and not certainty. You only have to read the past few pages to verify that. For a more in depth discussion of why it matters you will have to read back quite a bit further.

Cofty and others do not like the uncertainty, even though they acknowledge that it exists, and therefore feel the need to not only reach a certain conclusion whilst lacking information, but to compel anyone taking part in the conversation to do so also.