Atheists - prove it.

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Says all of the common descriptors for morality. We can say "God isn't loving if he does X", we can say "God isn't just if he does X", we can say "If God does X, and if his doing X is good, then calling God good becomes meaningless as if X is good, then ANYTHING could be considered good", we can say "God does X. ~X is right according to our moral epistemology, ergo, if God doing X is good, then we have no knowledge of morality." etc etc.... I already went through the list, and the divine command theory presented fails. It's even questionable on the scriptural grounds, and fundamentally problematic on the philosophical grounds.

First of all, that's not really basic to the story of Job, as Satan was acting in part of a bet with God, and in fact, God is labeled as the one who inflicted suffering on Job in one of these instances: Job 1:16 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you."

Even further, is the free will theodicy actually taught by the Bible? I have not really seen much in scripture explicitly teaching the free will theodicy, that God refuses to restrain man for the sake of his free will.

Finally, I already attacked free will as not existing and on empirical grounds, consistency, and the incompatibility of a meaningful conception of free agency and God's foreknowledge and omnipotence.


Your line of arguing is mind-numbingly stupid. Nobody gives a damn about the mere possibility of being wrong. Am I more likely wrong for using Occam's razor or am I more likely wrong FOR NOT using Occam's razor? The latter. So, if I don't want to be wrong, I ought to use Occam's razor. That's the end of it.


Really? How come it was the freaking center of Christ's ministry in the Gospels with multiple references foreshadowing it. How come it is explicitly stated things like:

1Pe 1:18-19 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, (19) but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

Heb 13:12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

Heb 9:13-14 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, (14) how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Col 1:20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,

I mean, the theme "Christ suffered and died on the cross and this made things right" is explicit in many other places, thus making it seem very clear to me that this notion was basic within early Christendom, y'know, that Christ was crucified for a reason.


1) Who determines what is in the Bible? Even further, how do we draw the lines? Finally, who's to say that Sola Scriptura is right? You assert this without proof.
2) Unless we're going to say that they love perfectly, which you won't, how do we draw the line? Even Martin Luther, great hero of the Protestant reformation, is known for a large amount of anti-semitic remarks.
3) Can you actually prove that disinterest in politics is a sign of basing one's teachings on the Bible. Christian theologians HAVEN'T come to a consensus on what the Bible actually teaches on the matter.

In any case, no, I don't think there are "real Christians". I think Christians want to believe in such, but the reality is that "real Christians" are about as rare as unicorns, and about as mysterious as well.


Your historical claim is nonsense. Hell is part of the shared theological teachings of both Orthodox and Catholic Christians, and the two groups didn't really share much of the middle ages, breaking apart officially around the year 1000, and splitting theologically for a much longer time before then.

Even further, there were church fathers that did teach the doctrine of hell. John Crysostom describes hell as an unquenchable fire. Tertullian described the soul as immortal. Neither was a guy from the middle ages, but rather both were from the Early Church.

In any case, debating back and forth with a person who is contesting orthodoxy holds little meaning for me. I mean, the lake of fire in Revelations is considered to be a place of eternal torment in the text, and yet all of these people end up going there. Certainly whether hell exists or not isn't a claim I rely on so heavily that I really feel like I have to have it.


Well I really tend to check my work on these things. Also, there are people that..... braindead. Finally, I was really really really frustrated because that would in all likelihood be willful ignorance.


Torturing people to the point where they eat their children is always unreasonable. In fact, whether or not God promised to do good things is irrelevant for how terrible all of the bad things are that he will do. I mean, could you really see anybody writing the bad things into a contract? Could you really see the bad things being made into punishments by a government? I can't, but if this is reasonable, then shouldn't we expect such behavior to be tolerable in another context?


..... Ok? And if Cthulhu exists, then he will spawn horrors and madness on the face of the earth that will shock the mind and soul to the degree where committing suicide as a means of escape is preferable. The proof he exists will be indubitable. It's still not meaningful though to invoke him.


So.... almost genocide is a big difference? A genocide doesn't require LITERALLY every person exterminated to call it a genocide. All I simply mean is that a God who needs much more extreme methods than we do, either is not competent as an actor, or not morally competent.


What, so you can regurgitate an apologetic? I've heard most of them at this point.


Hunh? That evolution, one of the best attested theories in biology, is false? That the very historical facts undergirding evolution, from which the inferences are made are also entirely false?


Well... try to be more careful. If you misspeak then you can end up saying something hideously wrong, and I will react in a manner befitting that. It isn't as if my reaction to you claiming that tormenting people to the point where they feel compelled to commit acts of cannibalism is good parenting is really unreasonable. Anybody who makes a claim that extreme will find some pretty extreme reaction. Extreme reactions are put forward for things LESS contestable than this... so... just be mindful of that, as I jumped off of the handle because I read something that seemed pretty disturbing.

At first it sounds like non-sequitour anyway... I'll bite.

Let us assume that:
* God wants a good soup.
* God is omnipotent to create a good soup instantly.

But then why would God leave the bones and the scum in the soup for 3000 years and then not apparently do anything to fix the soup? God is either for some reason unable to make the good soup instantly, or he doesn't want to. If he does not want to, then it must be because he likes seeing and smelling the bad soup for those many thousands of years.

If instead he needs to do the soup this way, he is following some sort of rules that are above him and he is not omnipotent for whatever reason.

Possibly, but not in this case. See, I have already spent much time over the past 30 years doing so, and at times with minds brighter than (or at least equal to) any mind found here on WP ... and philosophy has been found just far too wanting! Get it?! You can be stuck there fer just as long as you wish, if you like, but whether drunk, stoned or stark-raving sober, that almost killed me.


Not at all, and neither do I eat pork. Rather, "life experience" has taught me to just stop wasting time sitting around staring at my own navel, yours and/or any one or more of any others'.


Alcoholism actually has two distinct parts:

1) Mental obsession for the mental/emotional effect produced by alcohol;
2) Physical "allergy" (a misnomer) causing out-of-control drinking once drinking has begun.

The first part of that is very simple: We each and all need something to make us feel okay in life ...

"For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone [because the physical 'allergy' of alcoholism had taken over our drinking] ..."
"The less people tolerated us [if they ever even had], the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we did - then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen - Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand!"
("A.A.", the book, page 151)

... and there is alcoholism in all of its simplicity, and no alleged "psychological disease" is anywhere within sight! Everyone who drinks actually does so for exactly the very same reason: To get the effect ... and then after that, the alcoholic's physical issue takes over and destroys him ...

"First the man takes a drink (for exactly the same reason anyone else anywhere might),
"Then the drink takes a drink (because of some abnormal body chemistry going on),
"Then drink takes the man."

End of story as far as alcoholism is concerned, and again: The psychologist could do absolutely nothing about anything about my alcoholism and sent me to "God"! Get it?!

It is at that point, then, that the matter of "God" and/or "spirituality" enters the picture for one purpose, and for one purpose only, and that is to make it possible for the outcasts of society to "buddy up" a bit and "use the fellowship" they share to replace the effect they used to be getting from alcohol.

A friend once told me a story about someone who was meeting with his psychiatrist twice each week, and my friend had then asked why the man was seeing a psychiatrist if the Steps were actually doing what they should do ...

... and then the man replied, "Because I am his A.A. sponsor, you goof!"


Either complete ignorance or outright delusion on your own part is now showing. I well understand I do not even come close to measuring up within many of the discussions here in PPR, but you are in my territory at this particular moment and I have already paid a very high price for my expertise here! So, you just keep right on believing whatever you will and doing as you believe you should ... but be warned:

When it comes to discussions related to permanent recovery from chronic alcoholism, you would do well to listen and to learn right here and right now!

Last edited by leejosepho on 09 May 2011, 9:15 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Vexcalibur:

I do not know how much you know about the manufacture of wine and cheese.

I do not know how much you actually ponder theology.

I suspect you have not rread enough of the relevant sci-fi - does the telepathic scream from the neutron star mean anything to you [long time - was it a neutron star or a black hole? Has to be one of the two.]

Most of all, I do not know if you care - if you are probing reality or poking licensed tender parts.

So I am not up for doing a big thing on the soup issue.

The thing is this - paradox of eternity - what God creates instantaneously has an implicit timeline. Sombody with more talent than I have paints a stooping falcon. The image is a freeze frame. But it implies the flicker in the grass and the talon's in the ground squirrel's side.

I don't think you actually know much philosophy.


.... ok? This forum takes as part of its cultural norms to cross-examine ideas.


Not sure you've really proven anything here.


No, I am not in your territory at all, leejosepho. You aren't a psychologist. You aren't a sociologist. You have no real academic background in the general trends governing alcoholism. You have no real philosophical background and don't really know how to handle issues of explanation and proving one explanation superior to another. You have nothing to contribute, you just don't realize that anecdotes don't add up to create statistics, or that the summation of all anecdotes happens to be incoherence, thus critical examination is needed of any anecdote.

In short, although your experience might give you some knowledge, without proper tools to contextualize what you have so that we can really dig down to the bones of reality, it's meaningless. A lot of experiences are just as meaningless. I have experiences, some of them very negative, but I don't rant and rave about how my experiences disprove X, Y, and Z, or prove A, B, and C, as I know that the question isn't just what have I experienced, but also whether my experiences are justifiable within the larger background of knowledge.

If God is omnipotent he can get wine and cheese without bacteria.

You are making up excuses really. If we were to call God omnipotent then God allows evil. If it is for a greater plan then for some reason the plan includes torturing innocents. That does not sound like a plan from an all loving entity.

I know enough to not mess with it.


Where did you ever get the idea I was even trying to do so?! I was simply trying to inform ...

"How many times people have said to us: 'I can take it or leave it alone. Why can't he?' 'Why don't you drink like a gentleman or quit?' 'That fellow can't handle his liquor.' 'Why don't you try beer and wine?' 'Lay off the hard stuff.' 'His will power must be weak.' 'He could stop if he wanted to.' 'She's such a sweet girl, I should think he'd stop for her sake.' 'The doctor told him that if he ever drank again it would kill him, but there he is all lit up again.'
"Now these are commonplace observations on drinkers which we hear all the time. Back of them is a world of ignorance and misunderstanding ..."
("A.A.", the book, page 20)




"General trends governing alcoholism", eh?! What a hoot! When is the next election?!


Once again: I well understand why I am occasionally little more than just a pest around here, but we are presently standing on my very own home court.


Blah, blah blah, and yes, I do understand all of that!


Have I ever claimed anything else?


... and neither do I.

No - I am not making up excuses. If God is as I say or as you say there is no need or point for excuses. I am speaking to you as one who cannot see enough to know what is going on to another whose perceptions and insight are limited, sharing data and insights, or trying to.

I will not expatiate. I was pretty sure you did not have access to the right theology or sci-fi. Bacteria, indeed. Of course he does not need bacteria.

Some people operate by pattern and analogy, and some are just not attuned to parables.

Which, for you, probably means nothing. It's got big words, so you have to avoid.


The point is valid. You don't know what you are talking about. You know the experience of one person, and with that and a dollar, you can get a bottle of soda from a soda machine.(depending on the cost though, some soda machines charge more than a dollar)


Except we aren't. We're still talking Philosophy, Politics, and Religion, and unless you can speak that language as your first, you aren't on your home court.


Then you'd understand how your experience is meaningless, as it could be anything, even a statistical outlier or some sign of repressed delusion.

Implicitly by wasting everybody's time on this entire mess again rather than giving us something meaningful. If it is meaningless, then why the heck don't you shut up about it, and talk about meaningful things?


And now we know that one of the posters here is a liar, and it isn't me.

second attempt:



Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?

Epicurus (c. 341 - c. 270 BC)

And what is it to learn?
leejosepho's permanent recovery from alcoholism happened,
therefore God exists?

No, I'd say no reasonable person would buy that as sufficient to say it proves or that is evidence

That is simply, not enough, it works for you I know, and that is because of your psychology, (even if you deny that psychology has to do with it), that is the most logically conclusion that makes sense. You are having a problem presenting your argument with acceptance in a forum, when your reasoning is been so poor and when justifications from anecdotal experiences are not taken seriously.

Not to mention the problems that your justification carries, I think AG and others have pointed this problem already.

Such as:
X's permanent recovery
therefore God

but, could also be
X's permanent recovery
therefore Virgin Mary

or
X's permanent recovery
therefore Brahman


So, no, the conclusion is insufficient, so it has to be rejected.

Finally, being this a psychological issue, due to your experience, I see why it is very hard to argue with you and why is impossible to logically accept your conclusions, I know you will still hold to your belief, (yes it is a belief, don't even pretend that it has nothing to do with it, because it has everything to do with it) no matter what you are presented with.

I'ts insane to think that others, especially skeptics who can work with inductive reasonings better, "get" your justification, just with alcoholism recovery.

Last thing, anecdotal experiences are meaningless, to justify something so abstract and so vague as God., heck even they are questionable to things are known to exist.

Last edited by blunnet on 09 May 2011, 10:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

We know no such thing.

We know that communication between a dolphin with a shortwave radio and a Yoruba with a talking drum does not work well.

I am not hearing lies. I am hearing incomprehension and annoyance.

AG - it is NOT incumbent on everyone to think and talk like anyone. Vigilans is not bound to follow my style, nor Bethie to think like you. Have you been training her, by the way? It is not taking.

leejosepho - AG in maybe ten years may learn to listen and figure there is more than one path.

Nope, that is not the reason.


You are absolutely and completely wrong there! I have personally experienced all of the "general trends governing alcoholism", and I have yet to ever see even just one of them actually have any positive effect at all as far as permanent recovery from chronic alcoholism is concerned ...

... but of course, I do understand you are speaking from a much different vantage point and with a much different agenda.




That might be your own experience, but it is certainly not mine!


When talking about permanent recovery from chronic alcoholism, we might just as well be.


Whoa, whoa, whoa! I live for one primary purpose alone, and that is to try to be helpful to other people like myself ... and then I had only made one simple post to correct some bad information someone else had posted, and then whoever else began taking all of us here on this journey from there!

You accuse falsely.


Two reasons:

1) I cannot possibly believe I am the last real alcoholic who might ever need to hear it;
2) I refuse to ever again (as long ago) be bullied either by you or by anyone else here in PPR.


Once again: You accuse falsely.

Okay, Philologos, you are by far one of the most meaningless obscurantists around here. FORUM POSTS are different from private journals in that generally they're meant to comprehensible by other people and are supposed to be suitable for discussion if not debate. While AG and Bethie argue, at least they're arguing about something - i.e. Bethie says "atheism means this", AG say "atheism is a sociological construct that can mean things other than that". Bethie doesn't go around putting contradictory statements next to AG's only to turn around and say "I'm not trying to convince people, I don't need evidence, logic, reason, or any other form of persuasion here - I have unverifiable life experiences whose interpretation I'm not even going to discuss!" (why the F*ck would one poke a debater in the eye if they're not going to debate?).

No such claim ever has been or is even now being made by me. The things to "learn" however, are the things alcoholics need to hear if/when they might ever find nothing so far has ever made it possible for them to "live", as such, without drinking alcohol.