We are not trying to prove that god doesn't exist, just get an admission that there is no evidence that he does exist. Simon
For the thousandth time it is not about the existence of god. Cofty
So which is it?
flamegrilled
JoinedPosts by flamegrilled
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday 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.
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flamegrilled
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday 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.
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flamegrilled
Viviane: Not buying a car doesn't = not generous.
That is correct.
Finally, in soccer, hockey, Australian and American football and rugby, backwards moves are part of a valid strategy with the entire field visible and an explantion for the call.
That is correct too. The point of the analogy in this case is that a single action taken in isolation does not reflect the overall picture.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday 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.
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flamegrilled
I don't have to pretend. THE GLADIATOR
That's no surprise to me. But for those that are able to comprehend it I will continue to discuss. If there isn't anybody on this site that can, then so be it.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday 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.
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flamegrilled
Okay, I switched my brain back on and I will have to withdraw what I previously wrote (oh wait, someone already removed it so that's good). It's too painful not to be allowed to think.
Cofty asked which of these I disagree with:
1. God observed the Asian tsunami as it evolved
2. God knew it would kill a quarter of a million people and displace 5 million more
3. God had the power to stop the tsuanmi
4. God did not stop the tsuanmi
5. Everything that god does is perfectly loving
6. Therefore allowing a tsunami to drown a quarter of a million people is a perfect act of love.
It starts to go off the rails at point 5.
Whilst the statement may be true, the way you are framing it is an oversimplification. What you are really asking us to agree is:
God is love therefore every act or lack of action taken in isolation must definable as an act of love.
This is not necessarily true.
I will create a couple more analogies that you can have fun misapplying and pretending not to understand.
You are a generous father. Does every action taken in isolation reflect that? Your daughter asks you for a high powered sports car as soon as she passes her driving test. Let's say you have the power to buy it i.e. it's easily affordable to you. Should we expect every action you make (or do not make) to reflect your generous personality? If we take your decision in isolation (assuming that you are a sensible parent who withholds it because of care for her safety) does this non-action in isolation reflect your entire personality as non-generous?
Here's another. The objective of a soccer team is to get the ball to other end of the pitch and score. A player makes a pass backwards. If taken in isolation does that mean that the player is not acting in accord with the objective?
Now you will say ... explain how killing a gazillion people = passing a soccer ball, blah.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday 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.
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flamegrilled
There is a good reason Flamegrilled refuses to engage in anything except a flawed analogy.
The only reason that I didn't move beyond the logical example is because you refused to answer it, and/or insisted that it be turned into an analogy to fit the tsunami specifically, which I explicitly had said I never intended.
Now that you say that you grant the point made I am happy to discuss it beyond that. But as long as you grant that the point is made then the assertion made in your OP is not necessarily true. It might well appear that the existence of a loving higher being is impossible in the light of the tsunami or any other "natural evil", but since we can already conceive of circumstances under which such a conclusion would be false based upon limited information we cannot be certain that reaching such a conclusion would be true in this case.
I have company right now, but I will try to respond to the further points later.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday 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.
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flamegrilled
No, because it is not an analogy about the tsunami as I have said several times. It is not intended to parallel the experience in any way. It simply demonstrates we can logically conceive of a situation whereby a being of lower intelligence is not capable of understanding the situation. If it makes what seems like the obvious conclusion it would be wrong.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday 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.
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flamegrilled
bohm - no, that's a different analogy which would be attempting to demonstrate a different point.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday 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.
-
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flamegrilled
So far you have offered nothing apart from insisting that forcing unpleasant medicine on your dog is morally equivilent to drowning a quarter of a million people for reasons we can't possibly understand.
Where did I say this?
I think we both know the answer to that too.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday 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.
-
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flamegrilled
I read that entire post and nowhere did it answer the question as to whether the dog would be logically correct.
You can reject the application if you choose, but why are you finding it so hard just to answer the question? I think we both know the answer to that.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday 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.
-
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flamegrilled
Way to miss the ENTIRE point of the analogy, since it's inexplicable to the dog: he cannot explain it!
This is true, although I no longer accept that they are missing the point. They are just unwilling to answer the question, because to do so would be to acknowledge that the OP is logically flawed.
Trying to pretend that I am illustrating the tsunami is silly. Calling the dog dumb is irrelevant, unhelpful and inaccurate. If the dog were truly "dumb" in the absolute sense, then it wouldn't feel malice toward Louie CK either. We ourselves are NOT omniscient, therefore we can be lacking certain information just like the dog.
We can logically conceive of a situation whereby a being of lower intelligence is not capable of understanding the situation. If it makes what seems like the obvious conclusion it would be wrong. This is simple to understand people.
zound made the best contribution by saying that "God CAN communicate with his 'pets' if he wants to." But this also presumes that such communication would be in our best interests. There is no particular reason to logically presume that.