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

We're not stupid. We're not pets. We're sentient beings who can reason. Simon

I agree we're not stupid. I agree we are not pets. I agree we can reason.

Furthermore I believe that some other animals can make decisions based upon available information just as we can, but to a different degree . I don't think that sentience and reason are binary things which your statement above implies.

I believe that higher beings can reason to a greater degree than lower beings. I believe that higher beings can work on a data set that is greater than that of lower beings.

In this context "stupid" is not a useful definition of anything.

If sentince and reason were to equate to omniscinece then I would see your POV, but they do not.

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

besty

I guess that was aimed at me.

What is the logical alternative? We either claim that we know everything (in which case it's pretty clear that the claimant is a fool), or we deal in some way with the fact that we don't know everything.

The two ways to handle that are:

1) Dismiss everything we don't know as irrelevant.

2) Acknowledge that some of what we don't know might be relevant.

Which is it? If it's #1 then on what basis is that sound?

You might hate my analogy of the pet. It might be intellectually revolting to you. But that is not important. The only question is whether the line of reasoning is valid.

If it is, then Cofty's assertions as to the fatal blow to Christian theism are null and void.

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'd like to draw on the Louie CK incident (referred to by Humbled) to present my reasoning in another way:

Dog 1: My owner punched me in the face, threw foul tasting liquid in my mouth and nose, and watched while I choked and threw up.

Dog 2: What a bast#$rd

Dog 1: I know. It PROVES that I cannot possibly have a loving owner.

Would Dog 1 be logically correct?

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

cofty, Christian theism has had other moments to wonder why their god has allowed death and destruction in the natural world kill people. The Lisbon earthquake and tsunami in the mid 1700's destroyed most the churches on All Saint's Day and yet let stand most of the red light district.So it is reported.

This is why I made the point that the numbers are irrelevant. Cofty makes much of the statistics of the Asian tsunami as if the 250K clinches the point of reason. What if it were 150K? What if it were 10? It makes no difference to the question, nor to the information available to us.

If 1 person suffers and dies due to what Cofty calls a "natural evil" then the question remains the same. Death by old age is surely a "natural evil" by this reasoning.

People die. Is this God's intent? The Bible says no. Can we fully comprehend why it occurs right now? Some people say yes, the Bible fully explains it. Personally I disagree with that. The Bible partially explains it, and I do not dismiss the information that is there, but like the pet that cannot fully comprehend the big picture I accept that there is some information that is outside of my range right now.

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

What is Z in your argument, flamegrilled?

The evidence for a loving Christian God.

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

Adam

You have been very fair in noting the limitations of Cofty's so-called argument.

I would just like to comment on ...

The claim is actually an 'appeal to ignorance', following the general form of, "humans don't know X (which in some cases IS true), but THEREFORE we should do Y".

... since it was directed at my point of reason.

I don't think that is an accurate way of presenting the way most of us Theists are motivated.

We do Y because of Z (which is not part of this discussion), and at the same time acknowledge that we may not know X. Nevertheless the evidence of Z is so compelling (to us) that we are prepared to reserve judgement on X and not allow an absence of information in this area to lead us to conclusion Q in spite of Z.

Cofty's argument is that we must reach conclusion Q based upon his interpretation of X. No allowance can be made for Z, and an admission that we may not know X is to be scorned rather than acknowledged.

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

Flamegrilled, your arguments and refusal to admit the obvious is reaching Ludicrous Speed. It's like the young earth creationists that claim that light may have moved faster inthe past or decay rates may have been faster making the earth and universe just LOOK older.

Viviane - you're very big on making general statements about my arguments without ever quoting them. Perhaps that's because you are continuing to infer things that I never wrote.

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

Viviene

Possibly not all-powerful.

What is the point of an impotent god?

The point about this comment was that it wasn't a logical response.

If someone comments that God might not be all powerful, it doesn't mean that the alternative is that he is impotent.

Cofty keeps making these leaps and so do you. Just because X does not equal Y, it doesn't mean that X automatically equals Z.

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

Flamegrilled - are you seriously proposing that human activity may have caused the Asian tsunami?

Nope. I think I was clear that I wasn't proposing that human activity caused any tsunami, never mind about the Asian one specifically.

On the other hand neither do I think you have any special knowledge of exactly how much human activity effects any particular environmental variable.

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

Viviane

You probably need to read more carefully. Cofty WAS using impotent as an antoym for omnipotent. And then you subsequently supported him. And I quote from two pages ago:

Possibly not all-powerful.

What is the point of an impotent god?

Now perhaps you'd be kind enough to quote me when you say "You did say [he lacks the power]"