Did I say that you had to?
The fact that you had no idea of even what a god was doesn’t play to your argument that I am the one proposing some kind of change from your uneducated presumptions. You believe they were speaking merely about fairy tale … that is what you are supposed to believe.
AoC, I am not here to convert your ass.
If you want to think that the Bible absolutely MUST!!! be read LITERALLY with every jot and tiddle, that is your prerogative. And if you choose that course, of course, you are going to think that it is all bullshit. It seems that an intelligent man would at least consider an alternative to thinking that billions of people and their leaders throughout history were THAT damn stupid and yet have managed to dominate you entirely. But maybe it just takes one to know one.
Everything that is posted isn’t merely for mindless atheists to argue about. But if you have an argument, no one has stopped you from posting it.
And YES!!!, I dismiss literal readings (and those who insist on it) concerning almost all literature and films (and frankly don’t know of any intelligent and educated people who don’t do the same).
Allegorical and metaphorical readings produce varied interpretations, which would mean that the event(s) interpreted in a non-literal way could have been many different events at once! But this is impossible; whatever happened, happened just like it happened in a very certain way, for very certain reasons and/or causes. Only a literal description of events has any real meaning regarding the relevancy and accuracy of historical events.
You can say story X means this or that, but that interpretation wouldn’t be any more credible than any other because, according to you, nothing literally happened.
Well, thank you. It would be nice if my time could be spent challenging those theists to get even better rather than merely posting what atheists and many theists want to rant about. I have never, in many years, met an atheists who had anything relevant to say on the subject and in person, doesn’t stay an atheist for long around me (Online is a very different story).
First, realize that I didn’t say that NOTHING literally happened. I said consider a literal reading … so that you could see the options of which literally happened and which was metaphor or allegory.
But now consider the follow recent response given after a math-word problem/teaser had been proposed;
Of course Lev had no idea that the brain teaser had a perfectly legitimate and provable answer to the riddle. Its first impression is that there is no way that anyone could resolve such a problem. Yet there was and usually is.
That exact same concern is raised when anyone speaks of metaphorical understandings of the Bible (although seldom concerning anything else). How could anyone know?!?! They immediately profess that “because there could be many interpretations, there can be no certain truth in the text”. And yet, just exactly like those brain-teasers, there really is only one story that is truly consistent, comprehensive, and relevant (the very definition of Truth).
The teaser that Lev was given was;
The unintelligent and uneducated read that problem in the same way they read everything else, including the Bible. They proclaim that there is no sense at all and the problem is not resolvable because the reader is given no clue at all. But of course, they are wrong, just as every atheist.
The fact that most people do not have the “eyes to see and ears to hear” (aka “the intelligence and education required”) is why there is such a huge belief in the anthropomorphic non-sense, the “Santa Claus version of the Bible”.
The religions, as with every organization, must consider the consequences of trying too hard to make every person understand the exact truth. When dealing with millions of very uneducated and unintelligent people, it is certainly unwise to disallow them to believe in what is a distortion of the truth, because that is all they are going to be able to understand for the rest of their lives.
And that is why it is not my job to convert AoC. He only has a certain amount of education and intelligence to work with. The fact that it isn’t enough to see the resolve of the brain teaser, isn’t something that would be wise for me to struggle against. He is going to believe that the Bible cannot be understood and that anyone who believes in anything it says is merely deluded because he already knows that it cannot make any sense … end of story. Why should I try to change that? I can’t increase his intellect from this distance.
If you can’t see the truth behind the myth and you want to rant at anyone who gives you clues, who am I to force you to do otherwise.
I realize that statistically, saying there’s a God makes you more likable, and I know this is all you care about from my correspondence with you, you are like all the other apes to this regard.
But you have to understand that you’re using the same argument John Bannon used, which I destroyed. I stated that there are many things, probably about 5 through the course of those threads that NO BEING can create or destroy. And you’re sitting here just like John Bannon, and saying that the creator chooses what to manifest.
The many theories attempting to explain God, and the many arguments for and against His existence, show that human wisdom is limited in its capacity to do so. When truth is combined with error, this creates a real challenge and should not be taken lightly, it distorts the truth in an insidious way, while not denying the truth, but by mixing truth with error. To not take literally the Scriptures, one ignores Prophecy, which is narrative in advance, a spotlight into future events.
Understood, but when it comes to the concept of God, I’ll argue that with anyone. I think they do it to fit in when they otherwise wouldn’t. I mean just think about my argument that atheists practice religion better than theists for example… and use basic logic. If you were an ethical God, judging people, wouldn’t you be more interested in the purer sacrifice of the atheists who doesn’t believe life is fair but still acts out of goodness, rather than blind faith that some being is going to make it all better. The size of the hearts between the two beings is infinite in extent. I call this the god paradox, if God did exist, God would favor the atheists, and this works better than Pascal’s wager when considering the entire strain of theism from it’s inception.
Note an issue with plurality in that quote? The Lord has six legs, yet is human?
It is little things like that, which most people miss, that tell you there is something to be read “between the lines”. In general, when something seems too magical (eg. dividing the sea, walking on water, turning water to wine,…) it is time to think deeper about what is really being said.
I’ll look further for the quote I remember… it’s been a long time since i read the Bible… What I recall is that God came with two angels and refused to look at Abraham. I always wondered why God wouldn’t look at Abraham. You never responded to Arbiters better example either.
Just as with all great literature, not merely scriptures, if you are silly enough to read them literally, you deserve to misunderstand them as simplistic stories with no significance. Hollywood films are similar. Even extreme slapstick films still carry a subtle message. If you can’t see the subtle, you can’t see the light in the shadows. Homer and Shakespeare didn’t become famous by telling meaningless fairy tales.
What I’m asking, and I don’t see an answer to, is what an atheist has to change their mind about if they accept your ideas. I’m not seeing a premise here or a new position so much as claim that the word “God” should be used in a different way.
2op
Possibility limits itself, impossibility; “the fact that some things can never occur” doesn’t exist, there simply are no limits to what is possible. That is to say, if you begin in a space where anything is possible, as soon as you make anything then it is that which limits things and produces the concept of the impossible.
Well, as I said, I didn’t write this merely for atheists to ponder (or argue about). But since you are concerned, what an atheist “might” do is to realize that there is at least one thing to “bow to”, to know with certainty that he cannot ever thwart are argue against, nor can anyone else. And then, perhaps if he is interested in further wisdoms (philosophy), he “might” consider wondering exactly what it is that is truly, without question, impossible. He will begin a journey of discovering God, the real, eternal, un-thwartable God - The Determination of all things. And through that path, he will not merely gain wisdom, but also see exactly where he fits in this whole Christian vs Atheist tripe. He will eventually learn that being an atheist is being childishly manipulated by others, non-atheists. And more importantly, he might even learn what can and cannot be done - God himself (rather than depending on the newer church on the block - secular scientism).
It would be merely a beginning to a much longer journey toward wisdom that he could then bestow upon the older possibly even more narrow minded theists, but as I have said, it wasn’t written for his express use. There are theists around who can learn too (or at least pose a coherent argument).
I was wondering if anyone was going to make that argument.
Do you believe that neither you nor I can think of anything that is impossible?
If I were to ask for you to do something, perhaps turn into a frog for the next 5 minutes then back again, would you think it possible even if it didn’t happen? Why didn’t it happen? Isn’t there a reason why it didn’t happen?
To be a possible event means that there is no reason whatsoever to prevent that event - none at all. If there truly is no reason/cause for an event to not happen, then, by definition, it will happen. There isn’t any choice in the matter. If it happened there was nothing stopping it. If it didn’t happen, there was something stopping it. It is that simple.
The concept of impossibility is such a thing? I don't know. I feel like plenty of atheists already know that the laws of physics (or math, or logic, or whatever they think it all boils down to) can't be thwarted or argued against. In fact, I'm pretty sure I hear them say things like that with some regularity.
I don't bring up atheists because I think you are obligated to convert them. I bring them up because, if you are purporting to show that God exists, it seems to me you must be disagreeing with atheism somehow, and that's what I'm looking for.
What they do is not really think twice. It is reported that some scientists have concluded, X or Y. They accept on faith that such people are holy honest and although might make mistakes, never misrepresent the truth of their most, unchallengeable, intellectual findings, revelations. I find, through a variety of means and methods, that their preachers and prophets of science are in error. The atheists think that it is all merely a matter of worshiping the reports of science (not really the science itself) or worshiping a mythical God-priesthood instead, as though there is no such thing as doing neither (even though Science is defined as doing none of such things - Nullius in Verba).
Atheists merely worship to a different church and religion. I am not expressly challenging their religion. I am stating a fact, regardless of anyone’s religion. If they, or any theists wish to argue, let them argue with the fact, not their constant presumption that I am their devoted adversary - Christianity.
I am neither attempting to prove that God exists, nor proposing to argue with atheists.
I am merely presenting a fact: The reality of Impossibility causes and determines all that is - The Creator.
And of course, as I have stated many times, there are other concepts of “God”; social, psychological, delusional,… whatever. But every single one of them must bow to The Creator. The others have even more interesting things to say about them, especially the social god. But that isn’t this thread.
It is literally from Impossibility that light is caused to exist, as well as wisdom. The very source of all wisdom is found through Impossibility.
