..specifically, the suffering of animals.
you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.
i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.
Your problem isn't with God... it is with who wrote the bible. Humans (with inspiration of course) pinned it. They did the best they could to explain and understand as they could but... Human minds are limited and we have greatly grown in knowledge since biblical days.
I believe the bible is truth but it must be understood through the culture and experience of the human co-writers.
..specifically, the suffering of animals.
you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.
i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.
Suffering could prove we don't understand God.
Suffering in no way proves if God exists or doesn't.... it is a separate argument.
..specifically, the suffering of animals.
you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.
i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.
"I have never encountered an atheist who was sufficiently facile to make this challenge.
This is another straw man."
Maybe I don't understand your argument... but that is what I am hearing. If we have an all powerful all loving God he would eliminate suffering... There is suffering so therefor no God.
How should I understand this statement then?
"Suffering proves the god of christian theism does not exist. It is a point worth repeating. Please stop trying to change the subject."
..specifically, the suffering of animals.
you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.
i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding that neither side is addressing...
Atheists think that if there is an all loving and all powerful God he must prevent suffering. This idea suffers from confirmation bias just as badly as many statements and beliefs Theists make.
Can you prove to me that perfect love must eliminate all suffering... and not only that must do it right this minute? Maybe love and suffering are compatible in some way that we can not fully understand here in our temporal existence.
To say suffering is bad and love is good is to simply just confirm how it feels to experience it. However your feelings on the subject don't create a moral absolute on the subject. Sometimes good things feel bad and bad things feel good. We can't go by how things feel when it comes to judging them.
my wife and i are planning on taking a year off and taking a jeep and a camper through all the 48 contiguous states and alaska and some of canada.. living in florida, i have always had guns and a concealed carry permit.
but researching for our upcoming retirement vacation, it seems to me that i might not be able to legally carry firearms on my upcoming expedition.. it seems every state has different laws and licenses.
what does a camper from florida do when he goes to new york or california?
Something to consider....
Many places have license plate scanners. They will know you have a concealed carry permit. Some places they will pull you over and mess with you just because of the permit. Be careful.
ive had to make statements like this too many times.
communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times.
once again, communities [were harmed] because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no problem getting their hands on a gun.. lets be clear: at some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.
TD you make a GREAT point!
The entire purpose of the constitution is to limit the power of government. You could consider every one of the bill of rights or any provision in the constitution as being anti federal government.
ive had to make statements like this too many times.
communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times.
once again, communities [were harmed] because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no problem getting their hands on a gun.. lets be clear: at some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.
"Any thoughts on why the crime rate was so high 30-40 years ago?
Didn't people have enough guns to deter the crime?"I am not specifically arguing that the proliferation of guns has decreased crime. That would be very difficult to argue with the statistics. What I AM arguing is that as guns have become more available crime has NOT gone up and that is very easy to show with statistics. Gun opponents want to claim more guns always = more crime but it is not backed up by the research.
ive had to make statements like this too many times.
communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times.
once again, communities [were harmed] because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no problem getting their hands on a gun.. lets be clear: at some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.
Some theories on why crime rates are going down...
Check out this chart but make sure and click "per capita", yes our total number of reported crimes is high but the rate is very low.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Total-crimes-per-1000
The USA is not even top 10 in murder rates...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/10/worlds-highest-murder-rates_n_5125188.html
Also please consider that none of these normalize for urban vs rural. They are just gross statistics.
ive had to make statements like this too many times.
communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times.
once again, communities [were harmed] because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no problem getting their hands on a gun.. lets be clear: at some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.
Nicolaou, you have really dig through the statistics...
I reached that opinion after looking at lots of research. You have to really dig into how the studies are done to understand what they say. You also have to understand that crime is reported differently in different places. So that also makes it hard to compare. I will try to find some article for you if you want to but this is what I know for certain...
Yes our gun homicide rates are higher than most countries... but our over all murder rate isn't that much greater. If you don't consider gun murders our crime rates are lower than most first world countries.
Then you have to consider also that most gun murders happen in certain specific metropolitan areas. If you eliminate the top 5-10 crime ridden metropolitan areas we are extremely safe. America is really divided into two states... those that live in big cities and those that live in the country. You only hear news from the big cites. You never hear how quiet the vast majority of small cities are.
I will see if I can get some research for you guys.
ive had to make statements like this too many times.
communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times.
once again, communities [were harmed] because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no problem getting their hands on a gun.. lets be clear: at some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.
