O Hambydammit, a lowly board-user beseeches thee, and plies thee with beer and nachos so that you may hear my request: I want steak for dinner.

By your leave,

shikko.

P.S. Hambydammit doesn't use the boards here; the board here exist because Hambydammit wants a place to hang out. He's the new Chuck Norris. SEE HIS FELINE WEAPONRY, AND TREMBLE.

Me thinks you're one confused mother fucker, and that you need quite a bit explained to you. You didn't even bother to try and defend your assertion, and he pointed out how off the mark you were.

Sure it does.  I never was under the illusion I could come on the atheist forum and convince anybody - especially against their will.  

My premise is true.  You can't prove your non belief faith and I can't prove my faith in God to you.  Even the Bible starts out assuming you believe in God.  It's elementary.  

Here's an example:  what you guys believe is the equivalent of believing all the lap-tops found their parts coming together and parked on the shelves at Wal Mart - with no designer.  

The only thing about this analogy is that even a hummingbird is infinitely more complex than a lap-top, self feeding, self reproducing, flight, landing, romance, etc.  You believe all that happened with no designer.

That is totally proposterous!  That's why I said you guys have great faith (in the proposterous).   

This sounds like a subtle rehash of the inability to create/destroy matter/energy, in which case, please read this:

 http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_absurdity_of_the_cosmological_argument

Yes I can. Gravity is caused by Einsteinian general relativity, which dictates that space and time are one unified entity and the distortion of which causes gravitational effects, and hence that causal effects which take place within the spatiotemporal fabric are, if the interaction between material bodies, causing small temporal and spatial distortions (technically, space contracts as a body accelerates, which is called the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction). Being that all material bodies are (in classical mechanics) divided into discrete entities by space and time. Relativistic kinematics dictates that the movement of these two objects causes calculalable spatiotemporal distortion.

Magnetism is caused thusly: particle charge is dictated by one of the four fundamental forces in the universe, which is the electromagnetic force, an extremely strong force generated at the subatomic level. Weinberg and Salam showed that it could be unified to the weak nuclear force. It is caused by a particle exchange between the three leptons, which are electrons, photons and nuetrinos (ghost-like particles which can pass through trillions of miles of solid lead without interaction), photons are wavelike bundles which generate light by an electric field oscillating at a transverse to a magnetic field 50/s. Electrical fields are generated by the interchangal of large particles called W and Z bosons between neutrinos and electrons, and the field generated is necessary for the formation of the photon.

This is all standard model quantum physics. In relevance to the Big Bang, the four forces that unify the universe were once unified into a mysterious singularity called a symmetry.

A symmetry in physics equations is generated by the ability to interchange expressions in an equation. Thanks to Weinberg and Salam, we can interchange all three leptons in an electric field, which gives it SU(3) symmetry. The ruling of the universe is dictated by SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) symmetry, regarding the simplest particles that make up the universe. In the singularity during the Planck era of the universe (10^-43 seconds), the collapse of the false vacuum led to the breaking of the symmetry from SU(5) to what we see today. Symmetry breaking is not properly understood, and very difficult to solve. We think it was a "virtual quantum event" that caused it via tunnelling (this violates a lot of classical Newtonian laws, but the Heisenberg Uncertainity allows it, since it is extremely small and only occurs for about 10^-45 seconds. This caused the false vacuum fluctation, and the symmetry broke. Gravity was the first force to disengage, giving a SU(4) x U(1) symmetry. The breaking off of the other three, including electromagnetism, generated the asymmetry we see today, which explains why the electron has a negative charge (the electromagnetic force).

And, maybe this will give you incentive. If you do not read the links to essays which I took the time to write, or essays posted by others attempting to educate your ignorant ass on logic, and then attempt to form real responses, in other words, if you do not start debating in the proper fashion, then I will simply call for a moderator concensus to lock the thread, and that will be the end of that. 

Oh really?

All a posteriori Arguments For the Existence of God Are Intellectually Bankrupt

Proteomics and It's Applications For Evolutionary Mechanisms- Indisputable Proof of Evolution and Common Descent

When most people say atheism (there are different degrees of it; the terminology has been evolving from the derogatory term of its origins to something that reflects actual philosophical attitudes) we're not talking about an absolute certainty that all things described in myth are totally false, we're talking about a lack of unjustified belief in their being true. An important distinction here is that it applies to ALL myths, not just the one you believe in.

That seals it. Hambydammit is a false prophet, and must be punished. Bring me the Old Nature Documentaries and Uncomfortable Chair.

Thank you for answering my question but please don't preach. 

I believe that you said somewhere on this thread that you cannot prove the existence of god.  Why do you believe in him, then?  

Considering you are so infatuated with design, meth, this may interest you:

Science deal with what we can test, quantify, explain, define and conclude. The reason science is such a deeply rational exercise is because of this. Something can only be called scientific truth when it has undergone the most absolutely rigorous and brutal test. A scientist will present a new theory at a conference, and the whole audience will take gleeful turns trying to shorn it apart and blast it to pieces. It is a terrifying experience if you are on the podium. And should you survive this baptism of fire, then other scientists will try to replicate your results, and they are always trying to prove you false.

So, for amusement, let us put the God hypothesis through this process.

Theist: Science proves God.

Scientist: Really? Can you cite an arm or branch of science which proves God? Perhaps a respected journal? Furthermore, you haven’t, as of yet, defined God, being that God is an incoherent term, so your statement is merely so much gibberish.

Theist (ignoring this): But...look at all the complex things science discovers. These must be designed.

Scientist: No, the natural laws and mechanisms which govern the biological and cosmological evolutionary processes do not necessitate that such entities are designed.

Furthermore, is your conclusion testable?

Theist: What?

Scientist: What I mean to say is, is the conclusion that you are drawing from your empiricism testable under the scientific method?

Theist: Well...no. God is outside nature.

Scientist (feigning a pondering expression): I see...

Scientist: Do you have any quantifiable results?

Theist: What?

Scientist: What I mean to say is, have you done any quantititave testing which might provide us of some knowledge of this, er, “God entity” you are referring to? Perhaps, for example, you could tell us how much entropy God expends which each yes/no decision regarding the designing of entities, and then we should be able to work out how intelligent God is. We’ll start from there. Then you can tell us the size and magnitude of God. What volume does this entity occupy? What chemical state is it in? What sort of intelligence is it? Computational, chemical, biological, meteorological etc. What is its mass? What is it's computational capability? What is the evolutionary process by which this being came about? How is the information by which this being is encoded stored? DNA, like us? Another biomolecule, or is it an Non-biological intelligence? What are its metabolic processes? Does it have language? What is it? What is its physiology? What arm of science would you classify this entity as? The word seems to be garbled nonsense, but it does seem that you have implied this entity possesses intelligence. That implies biological, usually, or perhaps computational information physics. Which?

Theist: Well, I can’t do that. God is outside space and time. He is supernatural.

Scientist: I’m sorry. I must have misheard you. Did you say God is outside space an time?

Theist: Yes.

Scientist: And, pray, how do you test for an entity outside space and time. Furthermore, how on Earth is it possible to measure the effects using quantitative empiricism of the effects of a being outside space and time? Extending this, the words event and occurrence make necessary reference to time and causality, it does no good to say that any supernatural entity could have any sort of occurrence or event, and it would not be able to control anything, being that it is outside of causality. And hence, there is no method by which we might obtain results about this entity. So your conculsion is invalid.

Theist: Well...

Scientist (interrupting): It seems like you are making an argument from ignorance. You are observing the natural world and have the inability to comprehend it. Hence, you are drawing the conclusion of the supernatural. However, this is an argument from ignorance being that you simply cannot test for such things, nor can you coherently explain how they solve the conundrums you are attempting to bring up. You cannot quantify your results, you have no method. You have no graphs, no tables, no charts, you are defending this conclusion from scientific attack on grounds of its transcendence. This is absurd. Either you will coherently and rationally explain this entity using quantifiable scientific terms and quantifiable scientific tests, or you cannot legitimately call this amusing exercise science. Unless, of course, you wish to register with a fake scientific institution, such as ICR.

Scientist (now with large grin): Also, is your conclusion falsifiable?

Theist (Snapping out of stupor): What?

Scientist: What I mean is, is there a possibility of disproof found within your claim? Could evidence hypothetically arise by which we may invalidate your conclusion?

Theist: Well, no. God is outside of space and time. How could we falsify it?

Scientist: But then claiming that evidence is found of God is a logical absurdity! Testing and falsifying are two sides of the same coin. If we cannot hypothetically disprove a claim, the reverse is also true: We cannot test it. All empirical claims are falsifiable. This is the absolute foundation of scientific epistemology. No falsification. No testing. No theory. Get out. The concepts of supernatural, atemporal, transcendent and immaterial are utterly antithetical to the scientific method and the scientific worldview.  Your hypothesis is an insult to the credence and is a mockery of the rigorous academic process by which scientific truths are gleaned.

Your relatively humble goal of bringing atheism down to your level relies on conflating all belief with unconditional belief (faith). If you provided empirical evidence, and it was denied without justification, you would have an iota of support for your assertion. As it currently stands, you're arguing from your ignorance of words.

I haven't read your dull essays.  Actually I haven't had time.  I work all day and use my study time satisfying my thirst for the Bible.
You may as well use that time to jerk off. For all I know...

Then why does the science of one generation laugh at the last?  Do you know that during the Civil War the existence of germs and bacteria was not even known and that one of the first doctors to say there were such was banned from the doctor club and later put in a asylum?

Interesting that you should disparage science using one of its best features. Science, being based on evidence rather than benighted ancient rhetoric, is open to new data. It evolves. The principles of science are sound, but scientists themselves are human and susceptible to folly; such as when they behave dogmatically to protect their point of view from threats of new evidence. Where this is a failure in the responsibility of the scientist, this is the defining characteristic and high virtue of the faithful.

What about the crazy inventions we see from past generations that were supposed to represent science.  So you have confidence in science?

To make a perfect comparison to religion, there would be no "past generations" for science. We would continue to see the same useless crackpot inventions generation after generation, passionately defended in spite of no evidence they work. It took half a century to go from flight to orbit via science, what progress has religion made? It's still picking lice out of its ass.

My thread and premise was the farthest thing from trying to use science to prove God.  I said it was faith.  I admitted it.

A venture you failed in.

I said your belief that there is no God is faith too - which you can't prove.  You guys not only don't admit that, you are defensive.

You smell.

I'm with you on the idea that you don't try to prove the existence of God in the court of science.  It's over science's head.

It is to laugh.

It actually doesn't, science is progressive, building on the past. 

I'm about ready for bed but expect to see an answer in the morning.

Your pathetic excuses for queries and argumentum ad nauseams were answered in my essays. You clearly have no understanding of the most basic of epistemology. You refused to read my argument, and then announced unswayed by it. You continue to assert that atheists have faith. I refuted that in my article. You refuse to read it. I refuted design in another article. You refused to read it. I refuted the necessity of intelligent creation in another article. You refused to read it. I refuted your claims about magentism and gravity. You refused to read it. I also offered a possible argument against God. And, suprise fucking suprise. YOU REFUSED TO READ IT!

Your debating tactic is such that you would banned instantly from any formal debate and the only reason I have hitherto not called for a moderator to act as an arbiter to lock this thread is that I am so deeply amused by your pathetic behaivour, that I wish only to see how this turns out, if only for insight into the theist mind.

And by the, could you please acknowledge the rest of my posts, instead of finding a single flaw in one paragraph of one post?

Except, of course, that the flaw was not really a flaw. Science is a continuum epistemology. That means that it does not postulate its claims as absolute truth- unlike the idiocy of religion. Science is inductive. So we get things wrong and improve that, build on them. If you lack the cranial capacity to understand this, I can provide you a picture with many pretty colors.

And by the way...if you had any understanding of basic epistemology you would know that science is merely a word employed for the testing of any empirical claim. Hence to claim that an empirical truth about the universe is "over sciences head" simply renders it utter gibberish and nonsense.

the religious often criticize the scientific epistemology on grounds that it changes. What was true 100 years ago is certainly not today. Who knows what we will overthrow in the next 100 years? Surely, science cannot be trust to provide us with truth, then?

This is an ignorant view of the scientific method. The whole beauty of science is that its inherently inductive and open minded nature of inquiry means that of course it changes as we gecome more advanced. There would be no science to speak of without this change! But because science does not and cannot postulate itself as absolute truth, this change is utterly acceptable. Hence, I think the religious who do make this claim are making a fallacy of equivocation. Religion propagates absolute truths which must be accepted, and which are presupposed, without evidence. Science does the absolute opposite. Being that scientific truths are inductively gleaned, they are indeed open to change and revision as our technology, method, and philosophy become more sophisticated. But because religion propagates that its tenets were written by a deity, it does not allow any revision. In epistemological terms, this is noxious vomit on the face of human understanding. There are indeed some people in the world whose essential position is that we have gleaned no knowledge of biology, chemistry, physics, geology, and climatology since the days of Abraham.

Furthermore, since the invention of the genuine scientific method as we recognize it today, with materialism and mechanism and falsification and repeated results and experimental uncertainty etc etc, what we have seen in terms of scientific revolutions is not so much that old theories are overthrown entirely, but rather improved upon. It is safe to say now that we can be quite certain of some things beyond a reasonable doubt (retaining an open mind, of course), for instance, that Relativistic kinematics is true, that Newton’s Inverse Square Law holds, that DNA is the foundation of living organisms on Earth. There are theories which have been in use for centuries and are not likely to ever change, although, again retaining an open mind. I am referring the laws of motion laid down by Kepler, Galileo and Copernicus. The point is that with the establishment of the genuine scientific method, the hyperbolic increase in the pace of science only makes it a strong epistemology, not a weaker, as new theories do not so much overthrow the old, as build and improve on them.

You clearly have no education in the matters regarding which you are attempting to argue on.

Grow up. PLEASE start acting your age.

Here: I'll even POST the first essay into here so you won't have to click on the damn link! Also, I expect you to acknowlodge my post regarding gravity and magnetism.

Also, since you brought up design, I expect you to read this:

Proteomics and It's Applications For Evolutionary Mechanisms- Indisputable Proof of Evolution and Common Descent

And since you brought up proof/disproof of God, I expect you to read these:

All a posteriori Arguments For the Existence of God Are Intellectually Bankrupt

The Absurdity of the Cosmological Argument

Given that you have been asking to show why atheists have no faith, why design is false, if God can be disproved, it is only fair that you read them. Otherwise, you merely cement my impression of you as akin to arguing with a rock.

The argumentum ad ignoratium or the argument from ignorance, is surely the most oft-abused and most poorly understood fallacy in the whole of debate, which is most odd, considering it is extremely simple.

The fallacy is double edged:

X is true because it has not been proved false

X is false because it has not been proved true

And usually, it is followed by the substitution of another hypothesis, in which case it becomes:

Hypothesis X is false because it has not been proven true, therefore hypothesis Y is true

Which is an obvious fallacy of hypocrisy.

To commit one of these fallacies makes you foolish. To commit both makes you a total moron, since position A is not only contradictory to logic and epistemic rights, and position B is contradictory to logic and epistemic rights, but A and B contradict each other. To hold such a position makes you worse than a fool.

To wit:

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

So, let us take a common example. The theist says (as they so often do)

Can you disprove God?

This commits the positive version of the argumentum ad ignoratium. The fact that God cannot be disproved is irrelevant. Positive proof of X does not depend on X not having been falsified. Otherwise, any proposition could be defended on grounds that it has hitherto not been falsified!

There is a subtle difference between saying that an argument has not been falsified and that it cannot be falsified. The first is invalid as a method of proving X. The second, however, is absolutely critical to burden of proof and epistemic rights. If something cannot be falsified, then it cannot be tested, and then, there cannot ever be evidence of it. If something is unfalsifiable, it is untestable, and if something is untestable, then there is no epistemic rights for saying it exists (the only exception to this is axioms, since they can be defended by retortion). However, this, again, is not grounds for saying that X does not exist. Strong atheism cannot be defended via the unfalsifiability of God, only by the creation of a deductive argument against God (to which, of course, any strong atheist worth his salt would reply “no shit”). However, this being the case, theism, propagating an unfalsifiable position, cannot be defended at all. By its nature, no evidence could ever come to light to support an unfalsifiable claim. Every valid scientific theory is falsifiable, even if it has not been falsified (there is a crucial difference). If we could discover something that traveled faster than light, we would falsify general relativity. If we could discover rabbits in the Precambrian era strata, we could falsify evolution etc. Any valid empirical claim about the universe must be falsifiable. So, I put the question to you: Is God falsifiable? If not, then you are within no epistemic validity to hold it as true.

The misuse of the argument from ignorance is indicated heavily when one argues regarding atheism. Most theists do not understand that atheism is inherently dichotomous, meaning there are two schools of thought. The first is mutually compatible with agnosticism, hence called agnostic or weak atheism. The position:

-There is no evidence for God. This abscence of evidence does not mean that God does not exists. However, it does mean that there is no reason to suppose God exists, and the default position, as with all evidence-free claims such as the existence of the Loch Ness monster, should be non-belief, albeit retaining open-mindedness. This position does not require faith. It is an admission of not knowing, but retaining that there is no reason to suppose the existence of the entity in question (God).

This is different from the strong atheist position:

-God does not exist. I am quite certain of this. I can disprove God.

And many strong atheists have indeed formulated arguments against God.

My position is not quite either, but it leans much closer to strong atheism. It is thus:

-“God exists” is an empirical claim about the universe. The fact that it is untestable and unfalsifiable hence automatically renders it contradictory gibberish. What we should do, as with all empirical claims, is assign it a probability. Being that Hume proved that it is impossible to have absolute empirical knowledge, we can only assign such things probabilities. It is possible by induction to reduce the probability of God existing to the depth of absurdity. I have shown this here:

All a posteriori Arguments For the Existence of God Are Intellectually Bankrupt

The Absurdity of the Cosmological Argument

(Meth, if you are indeed a rational open-minded person, you will read both of these in careful detail)

So, when Ray Comfort and CARM insist that absolute knowledge is necessary to make a negative claim they are making a positive argument from ignorance fallacy.

Precisely analogous to the positive argument from ignorance from theists would be an atheist saying:

Being that there is no evidence of God, God does not exist

Which commits the negative version of the argument from ignorance.

The only difference between the two (saying God exists because it cannot be disproved, and saying God does not exist because it cannot be proved) is that I have hitherto the hear the latter invoked, while the former is invoked all the time.

And yet, while theists continue to make this absurd negative argument from ignorance...at the same time a very oft-repeated argument from theists is:

There is no naturalistic explanation for how life arises from non-life (abiogenesis), therefore God exists, and God created life.

This is a positive argumentum ad ignoratium, falsely declaring that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Recall:

Hypothesis X is false because it has not been proven true, therefore hypothesis Y is true

which is worded

Abiogenesis is false because it has not been proven true, therefore God exists

The negative analogous process to this would be if an atheist declared:

Abiogenesis has not been proven false. Therefore it is true

Except I have never heard an atheist say that. Ever. And if they have...they are just as foolish as the theists against which they stand.

A slightly different position is to state that abiogenesis is impossible, which, if true, would put the theist within their epistemic rights to say that it is untrue (it would not put them within epistemic rights to say God exists, however). The usual argument is that “life cannot arise from non-life”, however, as a molecular biologist, I can testify that none of my colleagues believe that. And abiogenesis is not the scientific Dark Horse I have painted it for this discussion. There are good hypotheses abound (Clay theory, RNA world etc), and there is no reason to suppose that life cannot arise from non-life. However, we should be careful not the fall into the same fallacy as the theist, and declare, hence, that thus being that it has never been falsified that life can arise from non-life. Instead, we should simply maintain an agnostic position towards the matter until evidence comes to light which would swing in favor of how life got off the ground.

I have no doubt that all of this feels very real to you. The brain is very accommodating. If you want to believe something bad enough, it will allow you to.

I have a Christian fundamentalist buddy whose marriage has fallen appart. In 2005 his wife kicked him out of the house. But instead of working on the real issues that resulted in the separation, he's waiting for prayer to solve his problems. After two years of prayer his wife told him last week she never wants him back.

He probably thinks that God is just working in mysterious ways. But I believe he has yet to grasp the reality of the situation.

I don't believe that a person can effectively deal with the challenges of life it they can't trust their brain to know the difference between what's real and what's not. Rational thinking is the best way to do this.

NOTE:

I just called for a moderator concensus on locking this thread unless some genuine debating and respnding takes place.

Consider all your warnings used up. Whatever your next response is, it had better be good.

and here's me who always thought that the Bible was written by men.    

you must have a different version of the bible to the one I read.   In it He proved himself to be willful, capricious, malevolent, murderous, egomaniacal and just downright nasty 

Snafu,

As I have stated, I believe the Bible.  I believe, as it says, that men wrote the Scriptures as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

God is God.  He does what He pleases - and I love Him and I love what He does.  

There are mischaracterizations of God everywhere.  There are mistaken impressions and misunderstandings of what the Bible says, such as yours.  God is love.  

But He does mean what He says - even to the point of sacrificing His Son to satisfy His justice and allow His mercy - to those who have faith.  

Mephibosheth (crippled, yet I eat at the king's table) 

but you just said that you believed that God wrote the scriptures. 

what, even all the really nasty stuff like encouraging rape and genocide?

I have evidence that there is no God. Hence my beleif that there is no god is not a position of faith. You have no evidence for your God and hence your belief that there is a God is a position of faith. End of argument. Really thats all there is to it I'm afraid.

Unless you change the meaning of the word "faith" to mean "a belief that you dont have 100% concrete proof is true" then you really have no argument. If you do define faith as such then it turns out that pretty much every belief we have about the world requires faith. The term faith is thus rendered useless it has no real meaning any more. We would need to have faith that the earth is a sphere, a mad man could have faith that he is Napolean, we could have faith that pixies exist or faith that elephants cant fly when we are not looking. Under your definitin all of these beliefs are equal faith positions of faith. Do you see why this definition of faith is just silly?

"If a man has a stubborn, rebellious son who will not obey his father or mother, even though they have punished him, then his father and mother shall take him before the elders of the city and declare, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious and won't obey; he is a worthless drunkard.' Then the men of the city shall stone him to death." - DEUTERONOMY 21:18

Christians love to talk about Biblical family values. Is murdering children what they're talking about?

Mephiboseth, according to you, the Holy Spirit inspired these words. The Holy Spirit says to kill disobedient children. Is this the love you're talking about when you say, "God is love"?

I tried to struggle through the essay.  I would compare it to modern classical that seemed to be in search of a key and a direction.  

I'm going to take you up on this.  Here is an essay from me:  

Judges 13

 2 A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was sterile and remained childless. 3 The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, "You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. 4 Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, 5 because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines."

17 Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the LORD, "What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?"

 18 He replied, "Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding. ^[a] " 19 Then Manoah took a young goat, together with the grain offering, and sacrificed it on a rock to the LORD. And the LORD did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife watched: 20 As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground. 21 When the angel of the LORD did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the angel of the LORD.

 22 "We are doomed to die!" he said to his wife. "We have seen God!"

 23 But his wife answered, "If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things or now told us this."

SURPRISE VISIT

Samson was the last judge in the book of Judges.  Throughout the book of Judges Israel would do evil in the sight of the Lord and God would give them over to the power of their enemies.  Then He would send a “deliverer” or “judge” to lead them out of their trouble. 

Samson is one of the few births throughout history where the parents knew the sex of their child.  It’s more common now, but think of all the centuries it was not known except for a very few births. 

Plus, Samson is especially unique; he is one of two (beside Jesus) whose birth was announced by an angel.  The other was John the Baptist.

STORY:

The Israelites had done evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord delivered Israel into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years.  Then the Lord sent a deliverer - Samson.

It’s not every day that your wife comes in and says she had a visit by an angel.  I don’t know how you would react – I’m not sure how I would react, but Manoah believes her.  He must have had a pretty good marriage.  He must have had a lot of confidence in his wife and faith in God. 

He just prays that the man will come back and give him more information on how the boy is to be raised. 

When the angel came to Manoah’s wife he told her she was going to have a boy and he was going to be consecrated to God from birth, a Nazirite, no wine, no haircuts.  The long hair and no wine was a outward indication of his consecration to God. 

I want to take a break in the story here to say this:  Samson was to be consecrated to God.  Consecrated people are strong people.  You can’t be strong in anything without consecration and dedication. 

All Christians are supposed to be consecrated to God.  That’s our strength.  The world will come along and try to give us a haircut and then say we look better.  We have to guard against our locks of consecration getting cut by the Delilah of the world. 

We left off with Manoah praying the man/angel that appeared to his wife would come back.  And the man came back.  

But right away things aren’t going like he planned.  The angel didn’t give him any more information – he just said have your wife do what I told her. 

When you think about it, did Manoah think the angel forgot something in his message? 

Do we think God has forgot to tell us something we need to know?  Are we putting a “hold” on applying what we already know in hopes that we will find out something we don’t know? 

I would kind of like to know the name of Samson’s mother.  But should that cause me to miss the point that I don’t need to know that? 

God evidently had confidence Manoah would know how to raise the boy.  God has confidence that we can do what we need to do with the information He has given us.   

2 Peter 1.3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Manoah is excited.  He is charged for action. 

We have an idea about how it’s going to go, and maybe it doesn’t go that way.  And maybe we’re excited too, so we try to make it work.  So maybe we have illustrated what happened to Manoah at times. 

Think of it.  Manoah was in the presence of an angel and he had in mind getting some more information about how he was going to raise this boy the angel told his wife about. 

Right off, the angel doesn’t give him any more information.  He just says have your wife follow the instructions I gave her. 

We need to have a positive attitude about trials because this shows we believe in a God that knows what He is doing. 

.    

No more information.  The angel just referred Manoah to what he had already told his wife.

Manoah wanted to know the angel’s name so he could honor him.   The angel refused to give his name.

Manoah wanted to cook the angel a meal.  The angel wouldn’t eat, but he said, “fix a sacrifice to the Lord”. 

When Manoah set the burnt offering on the rock the Lord did a wonderful thing  - the Lord ascended in the flame up into heaven. 

Manoah realized it was an angel of the Lord he said, “we are doomed to die”. 

The man of God appeared to Manoah’s wife again when she was out on the field.  She ran to tell Manoah that the angel was back. Manoah didn’t question it, he just followed his wife.  “Are you the man that appeared”?  Yes he was. 

Manoah didn’t question the prophecy.  He just ask for more information about raising the boy.  The angel just referred Manoah to what he had already told his wife. 

Manoah wanted to fix a meal.  The angel said, “I’m not going to eat, but you can fix a sacrifice to the Lord”. 

Manoah ask the angel his name so he could honor him when the things came to pass. The angel wouldn’t give it to him.  We’re not even given the name of Manoah’s wife.   

So Manoah prepares the food and lays it out on the rock to the Lord as a burnt offering.  As the flame went up from the sacrifice the angel went up in the flame up into heaven. 

Manoah says to his wife, “we are doomed to die, we have just seen God”.

23 But his wife answered, "If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things or now told us this."

MANOAH’S PROBLEM 

This was an exciting time in Manoah and his wife’s life, but he was having a problem, and it appears he was agonizing over something.  See if this works: 

Manoah had a solid faith and this was exciting, this was good news.  Faith is not the problem. 

Submission is not the problem.  Doing something is not the problem.    

THE RIGHT FOCUS

Manoah is going through the discomfort of not knowing what his focus should be. 

At first he thought he should focus on information he didn’t have.  That’s not what we should focus on.  The Lord has revealed what we need to know and done it right the first time.  We should focus on applying what the Lord has revealed and not worry about what He hasn’t. 

He wanted to fix a meal for the angel.  The angel told him to make a sacrifice to God.  Here is a good example for the one giving a message from God is to direct people who want to do something in return to do it for God.  He referred Manoah to God. 

Manoah wanted to focus on honoring the angel – but the angel wouldn’t even give his name.  I think he wanted to refer Manoah to honor the Lord.

Even at the end, when the Lord did a wonderful thing and went up into heaven in the flame, it seems he was directing Manoah’s focus to the Lord.   That’s what we need to do.  We need to fix our eyes on Jesus.

Manoah is afraid it seems when he realizes it was an angel of the Lord.  He says, “we are doomed to die”. 

What’s interesting is his wife’s answer.   She said, “No, if the Lord had meant to kill us He wouldn’t have accepted the sacrifice and told us all these things”.   The fire won’t burn us, it has consumed the sacrifice.

If we look at Jesus on the Cross all our fears should be put to rest.  If the Lord had meant to kill us would he have accepted the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross?  No.  Haven’t we seen the Lord Jesus fastened on the Cross in extreme agony?  It can’t be that Christ loved His Church and gave Himself for it – and now the church must perish too. It can’t be tha the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all and now will lay our iniquity on us too. 

If the Lord had meant to kill us would he have told us all these great things?  Would He have let us hear the gospel and His great promises – of what He has in store for us if He had meant to kill us? 

Would the Lord have enabled us to have such joy in fellowship with Him if He had meant to slay us? 

God has shown us our sin at least in part. Would He have done that if He meant to kill us?  What reason was there for Him to show us our filthiness except He planned to take it away.

God has let us see the emptiness of this world and its pleasures.  God has let us experience laying down our burden at the feet of Jesus. God has let us feel longings for Him.  Would He have put those longings into our hearts if He had meant to destroy us?

We are “not our own, but we are bought with a price”.     

Maybe we pray for blessings that will make us tremble when we receive them.  We don’t know God’s methods of answering our prayers.  If we pray for increased holiness it might mean increased affliction

We don’t know God’s methods do we.  What if we pray for spiritual growth and He sends us afflictions and trials.  James tries to help us see that trials help us develop character and strength and we need to let them have their full effect – by being positive about it.  We need to embrace it as training.

The angel told Samson’s wife the boy was to be a Nazirite from birth, set apart to God.  He wasn’t to drink any wine.  One of the outward symbols of his consecration was his long hair.  He was to be a man consecrated to God. 

Manoah was rattled.  He had been in the presence of God and it scared him.  Job had a similar experience at the end of his suffering.  Remember he said, “I had heard of You God, but now I have seen you, and I despise myself. 

When we are convicted of our sin and see ourselves as sinners it can rattle us.  But Manoah’s wife had the answer:  If God intended to kill us – would He have accepted the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross?  No. 

If God intended to kill us, would He have told us all these wonderful things – about His Son, about how He loves us, and about how badly He wants to save us? 

If God intended to kill us would He have told us how to be baptized and wash away our sins?  No. 

God intends for us to look at the sacrifice He has made and to go beyond it to the resurrected life on the other side where we trust in Jesus, and walk with Jesus. 

If you have faith like Manoah that wants to do what God wants you to do, it’s this:  put all your hopes, your trust, and your focus on Jesus, His sacrifice, His promises, what He’s revealed and Who He is. 

If you have been visited with the Gospel, please consider deeply responding to it. 

Deludedgod,

Understand I am quoting from part of your post only to save bandwidth, not pick and choose.

First I want to thank you for being both frank and decent - not calling names, making bathroom graffiti remarks, etc which is off point - AND, AND, showing some humor too which you don't normally get from Physics books.

Now, about your essay.  Actually I impressed with the vocabulary.  I have trouble seeing the prize that awaits me running the race, or navigating the obstacle course of your essay.  

Tell me about how happy you are and how your non-faith works for you.  How does non-faith apply to your dealing with life, death, your neighbor, tragedy, raising your children, loving your wife - in essence:  what's happening now.  

I think my essay is on point, because I not only share with you the problem as I see it, but the unseen reality and application to life.   

Give me the Cliffs Notes application as to how your essay applies to life.  If it doesn't - then it truly is a pet rock as you say.   

Mephibosheth (eating at the King's table, crutches against chair)