a theists conversation
The following was an email i sent to the Rational Responders about their recent debate they had. I had one particular part to critisize and I tried to back myself up well. I guess I'll have to see what others think of the conversation. It will be interresting to say the least. btw, please, I do want to keep this respectful and there was no disrespect intended in any of this. Thank you
Email 1:
I first want to commend you for your work, and sticking to your belief especially with all the harsh friction you get. With that said, you might be surprised to hear that I'm a Christian and am fully devoted to the God you say is non-existant. I heard about a debate you recently had on a news bullitin. IT was the The ABC News "Nightline Face Off". I don't know much about you or how you normally respond, but I truely have to say that not all of that debate was approached by you in a "rational" way. e.g. When debate moderator Martin Bashir asked the atheists what would happen if they're wrong about God, "Kelly" had a quick answer: "I would rather go to hell than go to heaven and worship a megalomaniacal tyrant." now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that everyone who claims to follow my God uses "rational" means to get their point across either. I'm saddened to say that many don't use rationality. e.g. "im serios i luv GOD and he luvs me an done day i will see him rein up and destroy all of you you dumbass!!!!!!" I would like to try some rationality. That is what I believe my God would do. Now he was called by someone of your organization a megalomaniacal tyrant. If you've ever read the bible, He only has a view of supreme Soveregnty because of his just and upright ways. Before I lose you, I know you don't see him as just and upright. There are parts in the bible that talk about how his ways are just and upright. I don't believe you have the time to read through all of that. If you want I can present that to you in another email or in other ways. God was even reminded by Moses about how a certain reaction that God was thinking of may not make him seen as just and upright, so God changed his approach. But besides being just and upright, if he truely is the God he claims to be, e.g. he created heaven, Earth, the universe, Time and everything in between, and also put in place the rules and morals for our lives, then how could he not claim to be the Sovereign Supreme being that he is? He was also called a Tyrant. Using the comparisons of "Paintings and their painter" If a painter screws something up, if it's not perfect in his eyes... then does he not destroy it and start on a clean slate or paper or whatever you want to use? With that view, we are a "creation" of God according to the bible. in Noah's time, everyone had "not come out the way he intended them to be" so he destroyed all of it, except for the part that worked. For one to claim that God was unjust in doing that, they are also claiming it is unjust to punish a murderer, a rapist, a theif, etc. Basically making murder, rape, molestation, stealing, fraud, etc. all legal and ok. If you're not seeing the connection, those reasons listed above were the reasons why God destroyed those people. Another viewpoint to consider. If God is real, then he made us physical beings on earth. It is also mentioned that we have souls. So death on Earth (if God is real of course) isn't exactly death. it's just being seperated from our fleshy bodies. So to "kill" people because they were not doing right, isn't actually mass murder, but a just punishment, because they could still change their ways. Revelation talks about 2 resurrections, one of the people who were followers of christ, and the other of everyone else. Everyone else gets the chance to change their lives and do what God put in our hearts to understand as good and to follow Christ. By the way, following christ if you have an issue with that is a whole other topic that i again can get into in another email or in other ways. So in conclusion, with that understanding, to call God a megalomaniacal tyrant would not really be a "rational" conclusion about my God. If God is real, all the rules of the Bible have to apply, if God is not real,
> then we can use earthly conclusions and say that this idea is way out in
> left field. Not even from a fictional point of view can we call this God a megalomaniacal tyrant. If you find the time, I wouldn't mind a "rational" reply to this message.
> Thank you for your time
>
> IN Christ's love,
>
> Nick
Now for the response email from S.
Nice long letter Nick. Stick with school and never stop trying to learn
more.
- Sapient
And finally, my response to his response:
I'm surprised, I expected more opposition to my email. Granted i figured it would have been well thought out and well researched. I appologise, but my letter was long so as to avoid any obvious contradictions from you in my explanation keeping it strictly to the point and needing legit work to contradict. I use conversations with athiests and religious dipensationalists to help myself grow. My belief has been reinforced by the opposition I get from dispensationalists who make me do my homework as well as athiests, though to my disappointment, Athiests don't seem to give me as much of a challenge for research. I have always said that if it was ever proven to me that my God and belief is false, i'd walk away from it in a second. This would include scientific proof and not theory because all scientific theory has flaws. Also empirically.
As far as schooling goes, I always plan on learning, for the rest of my life. I'm currently working on grad school. If you ever want a sound, non-bias explanation of why Christians believe certain things that they do, please do contact me. I will give you the most thorough and concrete explanation I am able to give. If I don't know the answer, I will find out. Keep in mind that God cannot be put into a box and therefore there are some questions that are not able to be answered at this point in our lives. Same goes for science of course.
In Christ's love,
Nick
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Sapient is right: For God's
Sapient is right: For God's sake, you gotta learn how to use paragraphs, Nick. Your writing is simply unbearable to read without clearly marking when you're moving from one point to the next.
I also have several responses to the numerous queries you have embedded in your massive email paragraph.
Second, I think Kelly's response had less to do with God's attributes than the irrelevance of whether God exists or not. God's existence has no bearing on our lives. Nature behaves according to laws and statistics, not the capricious whim of a Deity. So as long as we understand nature, who cares about God? Seriously.
Third, if there are parts of the Bible that portray God as a megalomaniac and parts that portray him as just, doesn't that mean that the proper place for the Bible is in the trash? I'm being serious. To quote my favourite philosopher:
Questions
Second, I think Kelly's response had less to do with God's attributes than the irrelevance of whether God exists or not. God's existence has no bearing on our lives. Nature behaves according to laws and statistics, not the capricious whim of a Deity. So as long as we understand nature, who cares about God? Seriously.
Who wrote the natural laws by which nature operates? And who defined its constants?
Third, if there are parts of the Bible that portray God as a megalomaniac and parts that portray him as just, doesn't that mean that the proper place for the Bible is in the trash? I'm being serious. To quote my favourite philosopher:
The God who made the universe would own it and be allowed to make the laws for it, wouldn't he? He would also be able to judge it, right? Don't you know that if you live under someone else's roof, you abide by their rules? Why would it be any different if God is the owner of creation?
Sorry, your analogy is false. God is supposed to be perfect? Well it sounds like he fucked up. Yeah, he fucked up real bad. That's one crappy painter, eh? Why wouldn't God build punishment right into the system so that there WOULDN'T BE ANY RAPISTS, THIEVES, OR MURDERERS? Honestly, don't you see how idiotic your God sounds to us? A child playing SimCity knows to build a police station, and God didn't know to include police into the world he built? He had to wait for humans to take justice into their own hands? Sorry, that's just short sighted. "All-knowing" my ass.
If a person wrecks his own civic, does he complain to Honda for making a defective automobile? (The wrong doings of man invoked inevitable judgement, ergo the destruction of a perfect planet.)
Once again, your God sounds like a complete moron. He killed people, thereby taking away their chance to repent and learn from their mistakes, to punish them? Again, even a child knows that punishment is only effective when it allows one to change his ways. I don't mean to be rude, but your God is a vicious retard.
The Bible recalls that it took at least seven months for Noah and his sons to build the ark at which time Noah preached of God's coming judgement. Wasn't this enough forewarning for the people to change their ways?
Haven't Christians been preaching of a coming judgment for almost 2000 years? Is that enough forewarning for people today to change their ways?
On the contrary, you have demonstrated beyond any doubt that your God is indeed a megalomaniac that ought to be arrested and punished for his crimes against humanity.
Do these questions help you to see that your statement here is transformed from a conclusion to an opinion? And by whom then should the creator of the universe be punished for crimes which you, his creation, think he committed?
my take
I think the school comment was because you capitalized time and didn't capitalize Christ.
How can you worship a god that can only make one decent human being out of a planet full of humans?
Rationalize god's obsession with death, blood, and burt meat.
It would be tyranical to drown lots of people and animals who have feelings because you are inept.
If you created bad life forms and killed them because they were bad, what would you deserve?
What can you do in a finite life that could deserve infinite punishment?
If I had to worship someone who needlessly slaughtered animals for personal entertainment, it wouldn't be "heaven" to me.
In closing I would like to say: "If all the rules of the Bible apply, we are all screwed."
Adam
YES!!!!
You've got it. If all the rules in the Bible apply, we would be screwed!!! absolutely. That's why Jesus Christ came down and died for us. He took our sin on himself, so that we may live.
BTW, he made humans perfect, we chose to screw up.
I could not tell you why it was the slaughtering of animals that was the redemption of sins, but it could have been a way of punishment for people. If you had to kill a cat for your sin, would you do it again?
You decided that God uses that for his own entertainment, no where does the bible say that.
thank you
Thank you for filling in the gaps I left in my response. I really like some of the analogies you used as well. I'll keep some of those in mind. Thanks again
IN Christ's love,
nick
caposkia wrote: BTW, he
Now that's a contradiction if I've ever seen one.
God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, right? God has killed millions of people. http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-many-has-god-killed.html Of course that's assuming you believe the God of the Bible exists...
All loving God wipes out all life on earth 'out of love'??? The morality of the bible reflects the morality of the time it was written.
The morality of today is NOT the morality of the bible. Somethings may be the same. But in the bible, slavery is ok, or AT LEAST neutral. In our society its reprehensible. Equality of women, not killing gay people, etc...
www.andyhanson.net
Quote: God's existence has
Huh? Then what is this all about?
The most resembling to "God has no bearing" would be a Jeffersonian deist, and that would be the "god" of nature, not a being that interferes with our lives. Jefferson believed that something started all this and then steped asside.
So wich is it? God pokes around here and there at his whim(Christian), places his plastic army men and gets agrey at them for not carrying out the mission. Or much like the electric football(NFL) table game, puts them down and then watches?
It is illogical to say "God" has a bearing and no bearing at the same time.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Andyy wrote:
The morality of any ancient holy book was quite simple.
"If they follow, obey or submit you tollerate"
"If they dont, you squash them like a cockroach"
Which is quite understandable in mamilian behaiver. An alpha male wont nesseraly kill everything "Just because". It allows subordinates to exist if it feels that it is not a threat or if it feels that it will benifit them.
But, once you piss off the dominate leader, it comes down hard on anything that resists it. Why humans think they are above this is not only stupid, but quite dangerous.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
They burned flesh because the smell was pleasing to your god.
If Jesus lived, he died because he was trying to take power from a religious government who used the law of Moses to justify their dominion.
I think Jesus was right to fight them and he was a hero. He died for a cause that may still give me some freedoms. Any more than that is fantasy.
I think they sacrificed animals to "god" because it relieved the guilt of carnivors with conscience. It isn't fun to look into the eyes of your next meal.
I don't know what to think about your idea that humans are perfect. That's pretty far fetched too.
reply to the reply
I first want to apologize for the extensive time it took me to write my reply to the first response. The 2 times I wrote it, it somehow disappeared and I was never able to post it. This time I’m writing it in WORD and am going to cut and paste in the end.
As far as the paragraphs and writings go, first, I don’t usually take much concern on my paragraph formations or grammar for that matter. I do however try to make sense. We won’t even get on spelling because I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m a terrible speller. I apologize if the paragraphs bothered people, I will try to take more care in the future. Keep in mind I’m cutting and pasting this from Word, so if the paragraphs aren’t perfect or end up getting messed up, I apologize, but I assure you I’m taking the care to make appropriate paragraphs in the Word program. I’ll even use spell check before I post!
RESPONSE TO THE FIRST OF THE FIRST 3 RESPONSES.
First, I only used a “presumptive” suggestion because I have been unable to come to the conclusion that he came to by extensive research of the Bible. I would like to note that you have made an assumption about me, be it that he has supposedly read the Bible closer than any of us, but you are unaware of my credentials. I would also like to note that I came to know God by harsh critiquing of the scriptures. I would have been very much on top of any megalomaniacal behavior from this God. I’m not saying I’m right, but I do ask of anyone who challenges my understanding to show me where they got their information from, be it scripture numbers or other books. This way I can thoroughly research it all myself and then conclude from what I’ve seen whether I need to change my understanding or not.
RESPONSE TO THE 2ND OF THE FIRST 3 RESPONSES.
As I had said, I’m not fully aware of the topics discussed in the debate that had happened, but I heard a few things that I did not agree with. It’s apparent that this is not about whether God exists or not, so we’ll take that off the shelf.
RESPONSE TO THE 3RD OF THE FIRST 3 RESPONSES
Again, I say show me where you’re coming from.
RESPONSE TO THE “Sorry, your analogy is false” RESPONSE.
The problem with “building it right into the system” is that God gave us all free will. To build it into the system would take away our free will. We could not choose what we want to do, only what God says, we’d be nothing more than robots. Also, God chose not to be a dictator. Understand that if God truly wanted to, he could have made us unable to sin, only to do what he wants, but then how angry with God would you be if that was the case… er… wait, I guess you wouldn’t be because it wouldn’t be aloud.
RESPONSE TO THE “Once again, your God sounds like a complete moron” RESPONSE
You are viewing death as the end, that’s it, no more. Assuming the bible is real, the book of Revelation talks about 2 resurrections. That would be where those who were dead are once again alive. One resurrection is for the people who have followed God and Christ. The other is for those who have not. My understanding is that the 2nd resurrection is so those who have not can have another chance to change their ways and follow God.
RESPONSE TO “On the contrary”
I still stand by my conclusion, but please do show me where you’re coming from, I’d like to see for myself what you have seen. Let me leave you with this. You claim that my God should be punished for all he has done. Who decided what he has done is wrong? I do want to thank you for your response.
I want to thank everyone for their input, I’ve found this quite intriguing.
caposkia wrote:
I want to kill Shirley Phelps using only my mind. I can't. Why not?
Did God make me in such way so that I can't kill people with my mind? But I want to! Why didn't he give me the option to kill with my mind? Did he deliberately create me in that way? Why? So that less people die? But then he's policing us, limiting our free will!
Limited free will = free will my ass.
If he can make us in a way so that we can't kill with our mind, he could've made us in a way that we can't kill at all.
I still can't forgive him for not letting me kill Shirley Phelps with my mind. I was ready to answer to him at judgement day for this murder, yet I can't even kill her from here. I feel like a robot, killing only with direct contact, guns, etc... phhhhh... fuck that.
LovE-RicH wrote:
I don't know Shirley Phelps, but i also don't know why you'd want to kill someone. I guess if you hate them enough. Anyway, sounds to me as if you want to bypass the whole free will thing and be God.
I guess it's true, people don't know the freedom they are given unless it's taken from them. Without "free will", you would not be able to do anything on your own or for yourself. Someone would be making you do it. You would not be aloud to feel differently than whoever is controlling you decided you should feel. You would not even be aloud to think or know anything that the being who was controlling you did not want you to think or know.
Limited free will? Consider this. Maybe you just don't know how to kill someone with your mind yet. Let's take science for example. Scientists have discovered that humans use about 10 % of their brain. What's the rest of it for? What if we could use the other 90%. Is it possible that we do have the ability to kill someone with our minds and just don't know how to?
Obviously God (assuming he's real) created us with the possibility of being able to do much more, otherwise, why would we have so much brain when we use so little of it?
We know that life adapts to it's surroundings and needs. Obviously we had much more ability at one point, because the brain mass is there to prove it. If greater ability than we now know is not possible, then I don't believe we would have adapted with as much of a brain.
[MOD EDIT - fixed quote.]
Look Her Up!
Caposkia, Google Shirley Phelps, her father Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church and I suspect you'll understand.
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oh I see
yea, I was not familar with her particular story, but she is just another of many hypocrits out there who distort God's word to appeal to their idea of what should be. The bible warns us of those people and tells us to basically just ignore them because they're speaking nothing but hot air.
caposkia wrote:
but but but... how can they be hypocrites if they follow the scriptures literaly, and really mean what they say and do? haven't you read the bible? the christian god in the old testament is very cruel, vindictive, homophobic, etc... they are more honest than you are!
that's why the bible is dangerous and should be sold with a warning label: PICTURE!
once you stop cherry-picking and choosing just the pretty parts, and read it as-is instead, and still believe in it, then this shit starts to happen.
<
>btw, i was kidding about killing her, i was just making a point. but i am angry at her for mentaly abusing her children. those kids don't have any friends outside the church, they're not allowed to go for a cup of coffie with anyone, the pretty girls laugh at the idea of them having boyfriends, they make their 5 year olds hold up signs they don't understand ("God hates fags"Here's a nice documentary about them:
http://tinyurl.com/2ggr78
but but but... how can
but but but... how can they be hypocrites if they follow the scriptures literaly, and really mean what they say and do? haven't you read the bible? the christian god in the old testament is very cruel, vindictive, homophobic, etc... they are more honest than you are!
that's why the bible is dangerous and should be sold with a warning label: PICTURE!
once you stop cherry-picking and choosing just the pretty parts, and read it as-is instead, and still believe in it, then this shit starts to happen.
<
>btw, i was kidding about killing her, i was just making a point. but i am angry at her for mentaly abusing her children. those kids don't have any friends outside the church, they're not allowed to go for a cup of coffie with anyone, the pretty girls laugh at the idea of them having boyfriends, they make their 5 year olds hold up signs they don't understand ("God hates fags"Here's a nice documentary about them:
http://tinyurl.com/2ggr78
Oh, don't worry, I read it literally, and I don't just pull out the pretty parts. I checked out some video of what her and her supporters are doing. Please show me where in the Bible it says, "God hates Gays" I'm willing to bet you will not find that in there. The Bible's core beliefs are based on love. You claim she takes the bible so literally.... I guess she missed that part. She's hypocritical by doing what she does and yet showing so much hatred toward people. The Bible says we should be doing everything out of love, without that, it's useless. Her works are useless. She is not showing love.
yea, sounds like i"m taking the ugly parts out, but then again, prove what i just said is not true. I'm not talking about pull the bad parts out of the Bible either. Yea, there are bad parts in there, it wouldn't be the Bible without them.
Another thing to note, Christians are not Jews. You cannot take into account in todays world what the Old Testiment says without taking into account what the New Testiment says. Christians are New Testiment Followers. It plots out clearly what we are to follow from the Old Testiment and what we are not to follow. It also shows us where many missed what was said in the Old Testiment books. Yes, even way back then. It was apparent that people got too pompus with their faith. Sound familiar?
What anti-christians shouldn't be doing is "cherry-picking and choosing" the bad parts out of the bible when in fact there is so much good in it. One needs to take the books as they are, not by little parts in them. If I took parts out of certain books, I can prove to you that dogs like human blood, that we should kill people, and that God says that if you're a sinner, you should mutulate yourself or even kill yourself. You and I both know it doesn't actually say that in the Bible because we are people that read it as a whole and don't take parts out of context. right???