what if God could be proven?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by NMSquirrel, Nov 16, 2009.

  1. OriginalBiggles OriginalBiggles, Prime Registered Senior Member

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    BTW, LG;
    Herewith is the quote I promised to find from that great US orator, author and atheist, Robert Green Ingersoll.

    "Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms."...........Robert Green Ingersoll

    OriginalBiggles, Prime
     
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  3. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    biggles taps out

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    Last edited: May 10, 2010
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  5. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    my dog used to do the same thing until I had it dewormed
     
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  7. OriginalBiggles OriginalBiggles, Prime Registered Senior Member

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    11,000 post lightgigantic, your posts #462 and #463 reveal the customary insight and wisdom we have come to expect from you.
    The readership is aghast at the attention to detail and the depth of your perception.
    Those who can express themselves in wordless humility are the saviours of humankind.

    It is so difficult then to grasp and appreciate how simply by posting here you manage to reduce the collective erudition level of the group so much.

    OriginalBiggles, Prime
     
  8. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    A troll by any other name is still a troll ...
    (btw the same holds for a sockpuppet)
     
  9. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    9,879
    But LG you are not responding to his posts. Post #460 presents a legitimate argument but you answer it with tomfoolery. That would kind of make you the troll.
     
  10. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    there was a legitimate argument there?

    please divulge ...
     
  11. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    9,879
    Well go back and take a look. Its seems he was legitimately pointing his arguments to your claims or beliefs.

    For example:


    1) "Our presumptions aside, humans are a part of nature and must obey the laws of nature. Nothing we do, nothing that we can do, violates a law of nature.
    Nature does not change her ways, we adapt nature's ways to a new purpose or we adapt to nature's ways."

    2) "Solving the problems of the human condition, facing the tribulations of living in a material world and emerging triumphant is an ennobling feature of the humankind you seek to denigrate by your unsavoury urge to constrain them
    in a mire of theological treacle."

    3) "The yearning you have for the next life will ensure it comes soon enough and then you will live only in the memories of those who knew you. Your body chemicals are the same stuff that the stars are made from. Your consciousness will become a single vibration in the symphony of the Cosmos. Only your identity, your ego, will be lost forever."

    I would have thought those areas something of your speciality and therefore able to confront the criticism than merely resorting to avoidance.
     
  12. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    I don't follow
    if we can't act outside of nature, how do we "adapt" nature and to what?
    once again, biggles taps out
    sounds like he just finished having a cup of coffee with vienna circle or something ... needless to say, there are alternative views

    Maybe there are some arguments there but biggles is displaying the prime original qualities of a troll ... eg - a few posts over a 12 month period ... with the incendiary familiarity of the socky ... so I don't take him too seriously
     
  13. OriginalBiggles OriginalBiggles, Prime Registered Senior Member

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    122
    The readership will note that unerringly 11,000 post lightgigantic avoids pertinent issues and questions and expects a discerning viewer to marvel at his triviality and superficiality as if those alone are sufficient to command their submission and silence.

    Obviously 11,000 post lightgigantic would sequester his "alternative views" from the reach of rationality and reason. Though implacable in his belief, he sees it as vulnerable to the lights of reason and logic, preserving for it only the saccharine attention and pandering of his bretheren in belief.

    Religious faith, that is belief in the face of and in spite of reason and evidence, is always vulnerable for in defence it is denied the resort to reason and logic.

    sounds like he just finished having a cup of coffee with vienna circle or something

    Resort to such triviality and superficiality is that admission which declares; "I have no credible response."

    ... so I don't take him too seriously.

    Such a dismissive wave of the hand belies; "I don't dare take him too seriously."

    What is revealed here is an acknowledgement that certain issues and questions posed to the believer must eventually receive the ultimate "God works in mysterious ways....." response. By avoiding this response, 11,000 post lightgigantic is revealing his own lack of confidence in his god's mysterious ways. He, like the rational reasonable atheists, thinks it is a pretty silly excuse as well.

    Expect more dismissive remarks tinged with a smidgin of contempt. I assure the reader there'll be nothing of substance forthcoming.

    OriginalBiggles, Prime
     
  14. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    sheesh

    a smidge of contempt would pale in comparison with yours truly, the 44 post sock

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  15. OriginalBiggles OriginalBiggles, Prime Registered Senior Member

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    I don't follow
    if we can't act outside of nature, how do we "adapt" nature and to what?

    If I may usurp Lucysnow's privilege of answering.............

    It's a very simple feature of humankind's existence on Earth.

    [a] We can influence the weather to our purpose.

    We can change the course of rivers to our purpose.

    [c] We can level mountains to our purpose.

    [d] We husband and breed animals, farm and breed food plants to our purpose.
    [e] We mine nature's raw materials and refine them to a multitude of purposes.

    Except for [e], nature could accomplish what I have listed over millions of years. Humans accomplish this in a fraction of the time and to suit ourselves. We are adapting nature and/or natural processes to our purpose.

    It's quite simple really when you take time to think about it, which you didn't.

    And we accomplished this "within" nature, as a part of nature.

    When reflecting on this and examining the position of your god as needing to be "outside" of nature in order to create nature, it seems to me you are yourself creating a specious argument in order to avoid the necessity of your god needing a creator.

    OriginalBiggles, Prime
     
  16. OriginalBiggles OriginalBiggles, Prime Registered Senior Member

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    122
    This is what you call "fulfilling prophecy", isn't it? I predict what you're going to say [and not say] and you deliver as expected.

    How prophetic can that be??????? 3951 are the last four digits of my home phone number!!!!!!

    Did I say something about "myserious ways"? [shudders and looks tremulously skyward.............no one there, thank god]

    OriginalBiggles, Prime
     
  17. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    16,330

    reading this post it seems you are talking about nature.
    reading your last post it seems you are talking about the laws of nature.
     
  18. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    ok
    let me have a go

    I predict that you will post caricatured arguments against theism with a simultaneous attempt to flame me.

    I guess I must be psychic, eh?

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  19. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    You said it, brother, testify!
     
  20. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    Golly, eh?

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  21. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Lucysnow,


    This point goes nowhere unless he can explain what nature is and isn't, what aspect of our human existence "must obey" the laws, and what those laws actually are in their entirety.
    Also, what is the point of obeying laws, if there is nothing we can do to violate them?

    This is nothing more than an oppotunity to insult LG, most probably because
    he realises (OB) he doesn't have a real point to make outside of "i can't see God therefore he does not exist".

    This is not a debatable point, but an opinion based on ones world view.

    He answered them very early on, quite adequately, but the answers were
    overlooked because they didn't fit into the mindset of OB, who at heart, seeks to belittle LG. His post are awash with insult, and if you look hard enough, an emotional dislike (bordering on hatred) of God, and religion in general.

    jan.
     
  22. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    19,252
    Nature is what exists.

    All aspects.

    That's a totally specious request (and, I suspect, pointless: why do you need to know them in their entirety?).

    That's why we "obey" them - because they cannot be broken.
    You're thinking of natural laws as if they were legal laws. Incorrect. one (natural laws) are descriptive: they describe how things are; the other (legal) are prescriptive: they state how we as humans want things to be.

    Surely the fact that it's an opinion (as opposed to an incontrovertible fact) is what makes it debatable?

    There's a term for that; eisegesis. If you look hard enough you can discern whatever you want.
    How can OB hate something he doesn't believe exists?
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2010
  23. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,968
    Dywyddyr,

    And what exists is nature?

    So why do we have to obey, as we have no choice?

    OB appears to know what nature is in its entirety, and the question
    is totally relevant in light of his attitude.
    How can he possibly know nature cannot change her ways, wouldn't that require knowledge of time (past, present, and future), and knowledge of the
    whole of material nature. Otherwise is he not just refering to what HE knows?

    "Obey", somewhere along the line implies choice, and as we have no choice
    in this matter (according to OB), what is there to obey?

    I'm not.
    Legal laws change according to time place and circumstance.
    It would appear that you and OB are relating to two why you state
    we have to OBEY nature.

    That would depend on the character of the person whose opinion it is.
    In the case of OB, and most explicits I come across, there's no hope of
    debate, or reasonable discussion.

    So what's that got to do with anything?

    Maybe he doesn't actually believe God doesn't exists, whcih could possibly
    explain his frustration when faced with reasonable discourse.
    It could be argued that Anthony Flew, the famous atheist, wasn't an actual
    atheist, but just playing the part.
    Just a thought.

    jan.
     

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