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Why a god who notices humanity can’t exist

DifferentDrummr said:
For the record, my parents didn't send me there for the religion. They sent me because the academics in the local public schools stank.
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That's happening more and more where we live.

However, there were religion courses where my daughters graduated from public school back around 2000.
 
You left Faith out of your collection of gifts, DD.
The idea of faith is that it directs you towards what is "true".
A Christian doesn't need blood evidence of Jesus being born to only one parent, doesn't need someone to authenticate the Bible as the word of their God, and so forth. Once they have let the spirit of God into their soul it directs them in the direction that God wants them to go in.
They can be dissuaded from that direction, can even ignore the direction altogether, but if they ask for guidance then it is provided.

You are welcome, Christians (kidding! don't throw things!)

Do I believe any of the above? It is dubious to me and a bit cruel for those of us who were created with the natural urge to question everything. But that is my understanding of how it works from when I was on that path. :shrug:
 
Ntharotep said:
You left Faith out of your collection of gifts, DD.
The idea of faith is that it directs you towards what is "true".
A Christian doesn't need blood evidence of Jesus being born to only one parent, doesn't need someone to authenticate the Bible as the word of their God, and so forth. Once they have let the spirit of God into their soul it directs them in the direction that God wants them to go in.
They can be dissuaded from that direction, can even ignore the direction altogether, but if they ask for guidance then it is provided.
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Ah, but there's the rub. How can they be sure they're moving towards what's "true" and not simply being directed by a false prophet?
 
DifferentDrummr said:
Ah, but there's the rub. How can they be sure they're moving towards what's "true" and not simply being directed by a false prophet?
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They can't. That's why it's faith?

Yeah it's dumb but that's what faith is.
 
DifferentDrummr said:
I have already given a rigorous proof of the argument. All you've done is throw out ad hom denials, unsupported assertions about interactions with holy spirits, and facts that have zero relationship to the argument itself.

I always find it amazing how many people buy into such empty rhetoric.
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You haven't provided any proofs that I could see.
 
DifferentDrummr said:
And who gets to determine which people are "spiritually deranged" and which are not? You!? :lamo
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Have you never read the Bible?

"..but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world." 1 John 4:3

DifferentDrummr said:
You don't deserve to call yourself Locigman any more than Kim Jong Un deserves to be called "Freedom Man."
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You just got taken to school, so you've got no credibility with that nonsense.
 
DifferentDrummr said:
For the purposes of this argument, I’m going to use the Abrahamic God as an example, because so many people have claimed that he takes a personal and immediate interest in what humans are doing.

So let’s assume for the moment that he does.

God has given you intellect, senses, and the ability to reason through problems. So it almost goes without saying that he expects you to use those gifts. And that you be honest enough with yourself not to deny what these gifts tell you about your world.

It follows that God, if he were interested enough that he wanted you to take a particular course of action over a different one, would convey a message to you. Most importantly, it would have to be a message that you could somehow authenticate, given that the world is so full of malicious third parties who falsely claim to be God’s representatives. In other words, how do you know that any given directive is coming from the “real” God? You would have to rely on your own intellect and judgment to prove it somehow.

Has there ever been a foolproof way to identify a legitimate message from God? No. Therefore the assumption that an interested god exists leads to a contradiction.

To clarify, this argument doesn’t proof the non-existence of the Abrahamic God or any other god. It just proves that if any such gods exist, they aren’t micromanaging us.
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I'll explain this to you, but I doubt that you're open-minded enough to either accept or understand, but I can always hope...

God is Love and as such, set us in place as both someone to love and someone to be loved by. It's His nature. For us to love, we have to be able to choose to love, anything outside of complete free will to make that choice and it's no longer love. If God made Himself so obvious that no one could ever deny His existence, then there is no choice in the matter, we would be forced by the very nature of that understanding to love Him, making our love a hollow and meaningless thing. God has given us enough of an understanding of Him to understand the choice, but still leave it a choice.
 
faithful_servant said:
I'll explain this to you, but I doubt that you're open-minded enough to either accept or understand, but I can always hope...

God is Love and as such, set us in place as both someone to love and someone to be loved by. It's His nature. For us to love, we have to be able to choose to love, anything outside of complete free will to make that choice and it's no longer love. If God made Himself so obvious that no one could ever deny His existence, then there is no choice in the matter, we would be forced by the very nature of that understanding to love Him, making our love a hollow and meaningless thing. God has given us enough of an understanding of Him to understand the choice, but still leave it a choice.
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It's been brought up in this thread before, but how can you claim that people would be "forced" to love him if they were sure of his existence? There have always been contrarians among us who knowingly believe in the irrational, such as flat earthers.
 
DifferentDrummr said:
It's faith if you know the message is coming from God. If you're just pretending to know, it's something a lot less noble.
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Sorry but again, I just don't see the distinction.

Faith in the messenger vs faith in the message. Both are still just faith.
 
Nilly said:
Sorry but again, I just don't see the distinction.

Faith in the messenger vs faith in the message. Both are still just faith.
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All right, think about the oldest(?) biblical story about faith: God's order to Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac.

The only way this story can "work" is if the reader accepts that Abraham somehow has a way of knowing that this order is coming from God and not, for example, from a bad mushroom trip. If Abraham weren't sure or didn't care about that crucial point, he'd have been nothing more than a homicidal maniac.

Bottom line, that story was strictly about faith in the message. The accurate identity of the messenger had to be assumed. (Is this making any more sense?)
 
akrunner88 said:
My statement wasn't meant to be insulting in any way. For skeptics, it's hard to just go by the words written by men thousands of years ago. Both my parents are atheists (conservative and republican too, which I know is an odd combination) and they raised me on these ideas of science. Therefore, when I was old enough to come across people of religious beliefs and comprehend their belief systems, my understanding of the world and how I view things was already settled. So to change that, I would need a higher burden of proof other than somebody's words in a book written thousands of years ago.

That's not to insult anyone's intelligence, because I find religion to be perfectly rational to be honest. There's a lot involved with religion that makes sense to me as to why people would believe in it.
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From the start it's important to understand the difference between religion and belief. Religion is to belief what taking a chemistry class is to being a chemist. Therefore, a condemnation of religion as an organized entity doesn't hold much sway when it comes to belief. The two only have a very loose relationship. Religion doesn't require belief, and belief doesn't require organized religion. In fact, religion could be an obstacle to belief if for no other reason than religion's emphasis on traditional forms, just to mention the obvious.

Literalists and fundamentalists insist on a literal interpretation of the OT. I do not. In fact, worrying about precisely how something was accomplished is not central to the message at all, and insistence on such things is far more detrimental to the central message of the Bible than simple outright rejection could ever be. Did Noah actually get every species in the world on his boat? Must've been a big assed boat. But none of this matters. The precision of recorded events is very much secondary to the message that God directs events and that man plays a role in that by his own spiritual behavior. The NT codifies and consummates this approach that belief in the central message is the only path to salvation, and further, demonstrates it. That path is Jesus, and all of the Bible is incorporated in Jesus and points to Him.

Is there any evidence that Jesus existed? Well, yes. That so many were willing to die for their belief in Him is suitable enough given that those killed actually knew Him. Would you give your life for a lie? No. Nobody with any moral sense at all would willingly and knowingly do that, and it doesn't even require belief in anything beyond ourselves to know that. Paul doesn't appear to be a man easily duped, either. He seems rather the opposite.

It's an easy thing to point to events recorded in the Bible and describe them as impossible or ridiculous. That misses the point that whatever occurred was extraordinary and not done by the hand of man. Were certain events just natural events? Perhaps. Why wouldn't an all powerful God use that which is immediately at His disposal, an element of His creation?

None of the above constitute reasons leading to belief. The above is simply an inadequate answer to those who deride belief. Derision is easy. Belief is not. Belief is reinforced by God Himself. If you ask, you will be answered. I have asked, and I have been unmistakably answered. I am not different from you or anyone else in this regard. It is available to all who truly seek Him.

If you are seeking a simple answer or simply want some thing, a palm reader and the lottery will do the job without all this fuss.
 
For the purposes of this argument, I’m going to use the Abrahamic God as an example, because so many people have claimed that he takes a personal and immediate interest in what humans are doing.

So let’s assume for the moment that he does.

God has given you intellect, senses, and the ability to reason through problems. So it almost goes without saying that he expects you to use those gifts.
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Seems like a red herring argument here. I have no idea what an Abrahamic god is or what he/she would think but I am not sure you can jump from your own definition in the first sentence to your conclusion of " it almost goes without saying that he expects you to use those gifts". Perhaps the god is like many of us who enjoy comedy, especially slapstick or ironic humor. Oh what diabolical laughter to give us curiosity and forever hold the answers away from us. If I were god, that is what I would do-watch and laugh as my pets struggle. You ever own an ant farm and mess with them? Shine a laser near a cat? Watch a dog chase his tail?
 
DifferentDrummr said:
For the purposes of this argument, I’m going to use the Abrahamic God as an example, because so many people have claimed that he takes a personal and immediate interest in what humans are doing.

So let’s assume for the moment that he does.

God has given you intellect, senses, and the ability to reason through problems. So it almost goes without saying that he expects you to use those gifts. And that you be honest enough with yourself not to deny what these gifts tell you about your world.

It follows that God, if he were interested enough that he wanted you to take a particular course of action over a different one, would convey a message to you. Most importantly, it would have to be a message that you could somehow authenticate, given that the world is so full of malicious third parties who falsely claim to be God’s representatives. In other words, how do you know that any given directive is coming from the “real” God? You would have to rely on your own intellect and judgment to prove it somehow.

Has there ever been a foolproof way to identify a legitimate message from God? No. Therefore the assumption that an interested god exists leads to a contradiction.

To clarify, this argument doesn’t proof the non-existence of the Abrahamic God or any other god. It just proves that if any such gods exist, they aren’t micromanaging us.
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gods dont have to be rational or good or treat every one the same way so i dont agree not even for the Abrahamic one
 
Eric7216 said:
Seems like a red herring argument here. I have no idea what an Abrahamic god is or what he/she would think but I am not sure you can jump from your own definition in the first sentence to your conclusion of " it almost goes without saying that he expects you to use those gifts". Perhaps the god is like many of us who enjoy comedy, especially slapstick or ironic humor. Oh what diabolical laughter to give us curiosity and forever hold the answers away from us. If I were god, that is what I would do-watch and laugh as my pets struggle. You ever own an ant farm and mess with them? Shine a laser near a cat? Watch a dog chase his tail?
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What you're postulating is a god who enjoys watching human activity but has nothing invested in any possible outcome of that activity. Or, like one proverb goes, "God likes stories."

Even if that's true, it doesn't contradict my thesis that God, if it exists, doesn't micromanage or care about humans.
 
DifferentDrummr said:
For the purposes of this argument, I’m going to use the Abrahamic God as an example, because so many people have claimed that he takes a personal and immediate interest in what humans are doing.

So let’s assume for the moment that he does.

God has given you intellect, senses, and the ability to reason through problems. So it almost goes without saying that he expects you to use those gifts. And that you be honest enough with yourself not to deny what these gifts tell you about your world.

It follows that God, if he were interested enough that he wanted you to take a particular course of action over a different one, would convey a message to you. Most importantly, it would have to be a message that you could somehow authenticate, given that the world is so full of malicious third parties who falsely claim to be God’s representatives. In other words, how do you know that any given directive is coming from the “real” God? You would have to rely on your own intellect and judgment to prove it somehow.

Has there ever been a foolproof way to identify a legitimate message from God? No. Therefore the assumption that an interested god exists leads to a contradiction.

To clarify, this argument doesn’t proof the non-existence of the Abrahamic God or any other god. It just proves that if any such gods exist, they aren’t micromanaging us.
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Not really.

Let's take the example of the "computer simulation" hypothesis, which is one type of "god" that could theoretically exist -- basically an extremely advanced programmer who created our world in a simulation.

If we're all programmed to do certain things -- perhaps even everything -- then we haven't been gifted with anything, and we can't perceive any difference between what we believe we think, and what "god" has directed us to think.

There's also no specific reason why, even if we have been gifted with our own minds, a god may not choose to overrule that at their own whim. And there's no specific reason why that would be conveyed as a "message," rather than it being completely melded to what we think is our own thought process.

Of course, this is all talking theoretically, since there is no evidence of any deity. But, there is no specific reason there couldn't be a god who is deeply invested in humanity, and perhaps even controls every individual action that humans take, with or without our knowledge. This would make "god" not terribly nice, of course, but that is neither here nor there.
 
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SmokeAndMirrors said:
Not really.

Let's take the example of the "computer simulation" hypothesis, which is one type of "god" that could theoretically exist -- basically an extremely advanced programmer who created our world in a simulation.

If we're all programmed to do certain things -- perhaps even everything -- then we haven't been gifted with anything, and we can't perceive any difference between what we believe we think, and what "god" has directed us to think.

There's also no specific reason why, even if we have been gifted with our own minds, a god may not choose to overrule that at their own whim. And there's no specific reason why that would be conveyed as a "message," rather than it being completely melded to what we think is our own thought process.

Of course, this is all talking theoretically, since there is no evidence of any deity. But, there is no specific reason there couldn't be a god who is deeply invested in humanity, and perhaps even controls every individual action that humans take, with or without our knowledge. This would make "god" not terribly nice, of course, but that is neither here nor there.
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I certainly never meant for this discussion to be anything but theoretical, agreed. However, I suspect that some of the scenarios you just laid out run into some logical inconsistencies once you start to explore the consequences. I don't have time to walk through them today, but I hope to delve deeper into them soon.
 
DifferentDrummr said:
To clarify, this argument doesn’t proof the non-existence of the Abrahamic God or any other god. It just proves that if any such gods exist, they aren’t micromanaging us.
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Right, we've got FREE WILL to do as we please.
For example I had a trial for Leicester City Football club in 1969, and our team of triallists beat the other triallist team 4-2, with me - ahem - scoring twice. The manager and coaches stood silently on the sidelines the whole match taking notes on how we did.
Same with God, he silently takes notes on how we do in this "game" called life..:)

(PS- after the soccer trial I went home and waited for the sign-up papers to arrive.
I'm still waiting..)
 
Desperado said:
Right, we've got FREE WILL to do as we please.
For example I had a trial for Leicester City Football club in 1969, and our team of triallists beat the other triallist team 4-2, with me - ahem - scoring twice. The manager and coaches stood silently on the sidelines the whole match taking notes on how we did.
Same with God, he silently takes notes on how we do in this "game" called life..:)

(PS- after the soccer trial I went home and waited for the sign-up papers to arrive.
I'm still waiting..)
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Maybe and maybe not. There is no proof or evidence one way or the other.
 
OrphanSlug said:
Perhaps one mistake we are making is looking at God within the confines of human intellect and emotion, if you can divorce that then you can explain that very little of what God does would match our exceptions or standards for benevolence, or interest, or active participation.
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Bingo.

For his ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts higher than our thoughts.

However I do believe that God does help and answer prayers I have seen it time and time
again not only in my life but others.
 
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ludin said:
Bingo.

For his ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts higher than our thoughts.

However I do believe that God does help and answer prayers I have seen it time and time
again not only in my life but others.
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How can you be sure it was God and not random good luck?
 
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