Still small wrote: ↑Sat Oct 13, 2018 3:50 am
Divine Insight wrote:
Actually, unless you are an extreme Biblical literalist who demands that every single word of the Bible is the infallible word of God, then you do agree with me and just don't yet realize it.
Once again, you have completely overstated (AKA - exaggerated) your case. For one, I don’t believe I have ever claimed to be “an extreme Biblical literalist� and yet I still do not agree with your position. You appear to be of the opinion that if others don’t agree with you they have to be wrong for you couldn’t possibly be wrong. Bad luck mate, you lose again.
Moreover, it's actually impossible to take a pure literalist position on the Bible in any case because there is no such thing as "The Bible" anyway. So, in the end, you really have no choice. It's not really open to personal subjective opinion.
What the . . . !!! ‘No such thing as “The Bible� anyway’? Mate, you need to slow down on your medication. Either that or you’ve been using to much ‘loco weed’ or ‘yippie beans’. What kind of ridiculous statement is that, ‘no such thing as “The Bible� anyway’? I’m current looking at about 30 copies (various translation, various languages) of a book in my library called ‘The Bible’. This is a book containing a collection of 66 writings (books) by 40 authors over a period of 1600 years. It’s estimated to have sold* over 6 billion copies. (* sold - though a great quantity are then given away). To deny the existence of the Bible with a statement like ‘there is no such thing as “The Bible� anyway’ reduces your credibility to zero. Sorry, you lost it again.
Still small wrote:
Why, in your opinion, is this “a gross contradiction�? Whenever there is a position of great power and authority, there will always be those who wish to snatch it.
How in the world do you propose that power could be snatched from an omnipotent creator? That's a contradiction right there.
I don’t, it cannot be done but some will try/have tried anyway.
The very idea that some fallen angel could think that he could snatch power from the omnipotent creator who had even created his very own existence is utterly absurd.
Agreed but, again, some will try/have tried anyway.
The very idea that an omnipotent God would need to go to war against a fallen angel is a contradiction. Either the God is not omnipotent, or if he is omnipotent then he's just playing ignorant games with people that are totally unethical and immoral by an sane meaning of those terms.
Let’s correct something here. God does not go nor need to go to war, as such, against a fallen angel. Not in the way we envisage war. It’s no contest, at Christ’s return, He will defeat Satan with a word (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12). There is no battle, Satan is defeated already.
The only way that a God could need to make a sacrifice of death in a war would be if the God himself was as helpless as a mortal human. Making a sacrifice in a war is an act of extreme desperation when all else has failed.
So how can you not see the obvious contradiction of an omnipotent God having to sacrifice himself or his demigod Son in an act of extreme desperation to win a war that he was already losing?
It is obvious that you have a total misunderstanding of that which God has done. This is evident by your analogy of ‘sacrifice of death in a war’. The better analogy would be that of a court of law (Rev 20:11) Imagine that you are standing in the dock of a court and the Judge is presiding over your case. He reads out the list of charges against you (Rev 20:12-13). The Judge, after going over all the evidence pronounces you ‘guilty’ and proceeds to sentence you. “According to the Law, the nature of the crimes which you have committed against the Authority requires a penalty of a $1 billion fine and you shall be incarcerated until it has been paid.� You immediately jump up and plead, “I can’t pay that, no way can I pay that, I’m doomed�. The Judge then steps down from the bench, walks up to you and says, “The Law requires that penalty to be paid but because you are my child and I love you, I will pay the penalty for you if you would like me to.� He hands over to the bailiff a cheque for $1 billion and you are released, the penalty having been paid.
Now, as the Judge, in order to be a just Judge, He must impose the true and correct penalty. If he fails to do that due to bias, then he is not a just Judge. But, then, because he is actually your father who loves you, he pays the penalty in your stead. Thereby being both a just Judge and loving father. This is, essentially, what God has done for man. As the Just Judge, He pronounces the penalty for your sins, the perfect death and eternal separation from God in the Lake of Fire until you pay it (Rev 20:14-15). As the loving Father, He pays the penalty of the perfect death (the unblemished sacrifice) so that you can avoid the Lake of Fire. He, therefore, is being a loving Father whilst also remaining to be a Just Judge (but only if you’d like Him to be).
The contradictions of this religion are right before your very eyes, and have nothing at all to do with me or my opinions.
No, the contradictions that are right before your eyes are your misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation of the truth of the matter. It, clearly, has all to do with you and your confusion or attempts to confuse others.
And now you are making utterly absurd excuses for a totally inept and ignorant creator. A God who created people who are so utterly stupid that they can't even understand the simplest of concepts. And then he's going to get angry and hold there stupidity against them?
You obviously don’t have children because, if you did, you would realise that they, for example, are not necessarily evil or ‘stupid’ but that sometimes they make bad choices. As a loving father, you don’t hate the child, only the resulting bad decisions. Punishment, hopefully, is administered, not from anger or a desire to hurt but as correctional to allow them to seek and achieve an overall ‘better life’ or outcome. I don‘t know whether it applies to you but I’ve certainly experienced that feeling of ‘this is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you’ when disciplining a child. In the case of God, it is most certainly true.
Sorry Still small, but the fictitious God you are attempting to defend would need to be so extremely ignorant that he couldn't even remotely be considered to be all-wise or intelligent. You don't create idiots only to become angry with them for being idiots.
Sorry DI, but the fictitious god you are attempting to argue against is only extremely ignorant because he is a figment of your imagination and has little real resemblance to the God of the Bible.
Besides, if you are worshiping God, then that's what you are doing. There cannot be any such thing as a "false God".
What the . . .! You do come up with some ridiculous ideas, don’t you. Simply, just as
Wiki puts it -
“A false god is, in Abrahamic doctrines, a deity or object of worship that is regarded as either illegitimate or non-functioning in its
professed authority or capability, and this characterization is further used as a definition of "idol". . . . . An alternative usage of the term "false god" refers to anything that is considered to assume a place of undue importance in one's life;�
You really need to research some of your bizarre ideas before posting.
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If the Canaanites were sacrificing their babies to God then that's what they were doing. What you are suggesting is that your God is so extremely stupid that he couldn't even figure that one out.
Without the use of labels such as ‘stupid’, you have failed to figure it out. Let’s have a look, shall we -
Deuteronomy 12:31  “Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire
to their gods.� (Emphasis added)
It is quite clear from this verse that there is a differentiation between the Creator God of the Bible and the false gods.
Jeremiah 19:5  “They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:�
To who? To Baal. The Canaanites were sacrificing to a god other than the Abrahamic God who detests such offerings.
The only way the story of the Canaanites could have made any sense at all is if the Canaanites refuses to worship God at all. Period. In fact, they couldn't even be atheists either. They would actually need to believe that God exists and simply refuse to obey or worship him.
I think you need to actually re-read the Old Testament again, this time with your eyes open and your brain in gear.
If they are worshiping God and sacrificing their babies to God then they haven't rejected God.
Do you believe doing something which you know God absolutely detests is actually worshipping Him? You obviously have no idea what ‘worship’ means. Buy yourself a dictionary, please, before you make any more embarrassing mistakes. It is clearly obvious that the Canaanites were ‘worshipping’ something other than the Creator God of the Bible.
So the story of the Canaanites gives away the Bible as being a clearly man-made fable that cannot have anything at all to do with any supposedly omniscient Creator, because an omniscient creator would know better than that.
If you lack the integrity or ability to comprehend what you are reading, don’t blame the ‘source’. My advice, as before, “re-read the Old Testament again, this time with your eyes open and your brain in gear.� Or even basic research in the easily accessed
Wiki articles.
You know this is a false argument. Even Christians disagree with each other. Just look at the greatest riff in Christianity, "Catholicism vs. Protestantism". They have wildly different interpretations and can't agree on much of anything. Even the Catholic Popes themselves over the centuries have had wildly different views and interpretations of this unintelligible religion.
The fact is that the religion makes no sense, and Christendom is the historical proof of this. There is no consistency in the Catholic Church over the centuries, and Protestant beliefs and interpretations vary so widely that Denominations at the far ends of this rainbow of confusion have radically different views and beliefs.
The idea that there is only one way to interpret these ancient fables is utterly absurd. Christendom has proven this beyond any shadow of a doubt.
If you don't see this you can't be paying attention to reality. (Emphasis added)
Firstly, I’m not here to defend one denomination against another. I speak of and for myself. Denominations, as such, are man-made divisions whereas the Bible speaks of Christians and non-christians. Second, your previously displayed lack of understanding is the indicator as to why you may think of the Biblical accounts as “fables�. Thirdly, I believe I pointed out that there is more than one way to interpret the scriptures, the correct way and then several incorrect ways.
"Life" is a term coined by humans. There is no actual difference between living and non-living things other than in how they are configured. They are all made of precisely the same elements. The only difference is in how they are arranged. That's it. Period.
So the difference between a non-living thing and a living thing is just a matter of arrangement of the elements that make it up. So there is absolutely no reason why life cannot evolve from non-living matter in this universe. It doesn't require any magic or outside intervention at all
So, basically you believe that bioprocesses of a living body are nothing more than physical and chemical processes. So, if I were to dump in front of you a 70kg pile of chemicals/elements of the appropriate proportions, for example -
Oxygen 65%, Carbon 18%, Hydrogen 10%, Nitrogen 3%, Calcium 1.5%, Phosphorus 1%, Potassium 0.25%, Sulphur 0.25%, Sodium 0.15%, Chlorine 0.15%, Magnesium 0.05%, Iron 0.006%, Fluorine 0.0037%, Zinc 0.0032%, Silicon 0.002%, Rubidium 0.00046%, Strontium 0.00046%, Bromine 0.00029%, Lead 0.00017%, Copper 0.0001%, Aluminium 0.00006%, Cadmium 0.00005%, Cerium 0.00005%, Barium 0.000022%, Tin, Iodine, Titanium 0.00002%, Boron 0.0.000018%, Selenium, Nickel 0.000015%, Chromium 0.000014%, Manganese 0.000012, Arsenic 0.000007%, Lithium, Mercury, Caesium 0.000006%, Molybdenum, Germanium 0.000005%, Cobalt 0.000003%, Antimony, Silver 0.000002%, Niobium, Zirconium 0.000001%, Lanthanum 0.0000008%, Tellurium,Bismuth, Gallium 0.0000007%, Indium 0.0000004%, Gold, Scandium, Tantalum 0.0000002%, Vanadium 0.00000011%, Uranium, Thorium 0.0000001%, Samarium 0.00000005%, Tungsten, Beryllium 0.00000002% & Radium 0.00000000000003%. (Link)
- could it be assembled to form a living human?
No?
Ok, you're probably not much of a biochemist, so we'll make it a bit easier. We assemble the elements into the various amino acids, proteins, adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G), even assembling them into DNA strands, haemoglobin, etc. Would you then be able to assemble the 'parts' into a living human?
No?
Ok, some of those connections, etc, are a bit tricky if you're not a micro-surgeon, so let's go a step further. We have all those various chemical 'body parts' connected and assembled correctly. Putting together all the 'cell parts', connecting all the 'plumbing', wiring all the 'electrical connections' correctly, etc, etc, etc. Basically putting a completely assembled, 'natural/material' (but lifeless) human body in front of you, could you get it to perform a simple task? Nothing complicated, like building a rocket or perform brain surgery, etc. Just something simple, like getting up, walking around outside and coming back to tell me what it saw? With all the appropriate parts put together correctly, will just the physical and chemical processes achieve this?
No? Why not? What is missing?
Also in answer to your question, "Why cannot an intelligent creative God create intelligence?" Well, you have already asked the wrong question. The question is, 'Why can't an intelligent creative God be an explanation for how intelligence came to be?"
That's the question. And the answer should be obvious. If an intelligent creative God is the explanation for intelligence, then how did that intelligent creative God come to be. According to this "explanation" this God must then have been created by yet another creative intelligence, and so on.
So you see, it's not that an intelligent creative God could not create intelligent life. It's just that this is no explanation at all until you have explained how that intelligent God came to be in the first place. (Emphasis added)
No, it was the right question. It’s just a question you can’t or won’t answer. Instead, you’ve ignored my actual question and substituted your own which you attempt to answer but having no relevance to the original question. So, again, I ask -
"Why cannot an intelligent creative God create intelligence?"
After all, if your argument is that intelligence is required to design intelligence, then you've violated your own argument the moment you postulate that an intelligent God could exist who wasn't created by a previously intelligent entity.
So your argument become circular and meaningless.
First, please give a more specific response to the question inferred in my previous post - “Explain why something of infinite intelligence cannot create something of lesser intelligence?�
Entropy holds for all dimensions. There is nothing about entropy that is limited by dimensions. Whatever dimension you imagine your invisible God to exist in, it would still need to have entropy if it is to have coherent thoughts in that dimension. And if it has entropy then it cannot be eternal.
So adding more dimensions doesn't help.
So far, we only know that entropy holds for our 4D space-time universe. What scientific proof do you have that entropy is not limited to just our 4 dimensions of space-time? What scientific evidence do you have that entropy holds for dimensions beyond our 4D space-time (physical) universe? Or is this just more ‘bluff and blunder’ on your part?
Have a good day!
Still small