The problem of evil

Dave Ellis · Jun 15, 2016

jason_delisle said:
So you never seen any atheist ever misrepresent scripture to further their argument?

I've seen atheists put scripture forward, and have it shot down by the Christians as being "out of context" or whatnot even though the scripture plainly states what the atheist is saying, and the Christians can't ever seem to provide the "correct" context when asked.

Some Christians would call that a misrepresentation of scripture by atheists, however I would dispute that.

Dave Ellis · Jun 15, 2016

amariselle said:
Sure, but it should be done respectfully. That is how we should treat one another, because we ALL make mistakes.

Where were we disrespectful?

Dave Ellis · Jun 15, 2016

jason_delisle said:
Not naming anyone, I do recall several times when an atheist misrepresented scripture to further an arguement . And several times myself and several other explained the misrepresentation only to find the same individuals misrepresenting the same scripture in the exact same way elsewhere. Would you call that honest?

Do you have an example?

amariselle · Jun 15, 2016

Dave Ellis said:
Well, if the data is correct, it would make sense to take it very seriously, would it not?

Yes, however two points to consider:

1) Christians are acting as representatives of a supposedly supreme moral being, and often present themselves as having superior morality.

When Christians do this, they are wrong. We are not superior to anyone else. We are ALL sinners, we ALL fall short.

Dave Ellis said:
Science on the other hand makes no claims, in fact it's built around acknowledging that humans are fallible and sometimes dishonest, and tries to weed out all of the bad data.

Acknowledging that "humans are fallible and sometimes dishonest" is precisely what true Christians should be doing. If we do otherwise, we are, in effect, saying we don't need Jesus as our Saviour at all.

Dave Ellis said:
2) All of the hoaxes you listed above were exposed by scientific research, and the findings were discarded. That is the self-correcting mechanism behind science that makes it effective.

If we had used faith as our epistemology, then they would all still be considered legitimate finds. Can you really call faith to be a reliable method for discerning truth with that in mind?

True and honest Christian faith absolutely is. If we are really behaving as Christians, we will not claim to have all the answers in life, and we will be open to learning. I know I am always excited to learn more about this world and how it all works.

amariselle · Jun 15, 2016

Dave Ellis said:
Where were we disrespectful?

I was not speaking about this particular instance, but in general. There have been many instances on this forum and elsewhere where people are far from respectful. The anonymity of posting online seems to make some people think they can treat others in despicable ways they would (hopefully) never treat them in person.

Dave Ellis · Jun 15, 2016

amariselle said:
When Christians do this, they are wrong. We are not superior to anyone else. We are ALL sinners, we ALL fall short.

I agree with your first and second sentences, and I find your last sentence repulsive.

amariselle said:
Acknowledging that "humans are fallible and sometimes dishonest" is precisely what true Christians should be doing. If we do otherwise, we are, in effect, saying we don't need Jesus as our Saviour at all.

Or, they could be saying we need an epistemology that exposes those that are wrong, or blatantly dishonest and correct the data.

amariselle said:
True and honest Christian faith absolutely is. If we are really behaving as Christians, we will not claim to have all the answers in life, and we will be open to learning. I know I am always excited to learn more about this world and how it all works.

To be honest, I think "honest faith" is a bit of an oxymoron.

However, having faith in something, regardless of your religion is not a reliable way to learn what is and what is not true. Your faith is simply your opinion, however justifying your opinion by faith somehow is supposed to make it more profound or important. It's not, you can take anything on faith and be wrong.

ToddNotTodd · Jun 15, 2016

jason_delisle said:
Not naming anyone, I do recall several times when an atheist misrepresented scripture to further an arguement . And several times myself and several other explained the misrepresentation only to find the same individuals misrepresenting the same scripture in the exact same way elsewhere. Would you call that honest?

I would if the scripture in question had an objectively verifiable meaning. But since all scripture is open to interpretation, of course it's not dishonest to disagree with any individual's interpretation.

Would another Christian be correct in calling you dishonest if you interpret a passage differently from them, and then repeat your interpretation after they explain your misinterpretation?

bangmegafan · Jun 15, 2016

We all don't know what is the God plan.

His mysteries and secrets cannot be known or understood by us

He is holy and perfect. And moreover infinitely knowledgeable than us

There could be n number of instances that we can find to logically argue God is not there or he is cruel even if he exists but those reasons won't help us to understand the God

He does everything according to his will and his WILL will always be holy

If we pray with faith for anyone who is sick, he will be healed. If something happened beyond our wish, it means God plan is different

I never seen any person who didn't receive blessings from God or who left God as they are unsatisfied

Remember, if God is cruel he can destroy whole universe in fraction of seconds

Sent from my BlackBerry 9790 using Tapatalk

(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ) · Jun 15, 2016

ToddNotTodd said:
I would if the scripture in question had an objectively verifiable meaning. But since all scripture is open to interpretation, of course it's not dishonest to disagree with any individual's interpretation.

Would another Christian be correct in calling you dishonest if you interpret a passage differently from them, and then repeat your interpretation after they explain your misinterpretation?

I cannot believe we are having this conversation. Can you honestly tell me that you truly believe that the atheist here are completely without fault? That they have been perfectly honest the entire time?

ToddNotTodd · Jun 15, 2016

jason_delisle said:
I cannot believe we are having this conversation. Can you honestly tell me that you truly believe that the atheist here are completely without fault? That they have been perfectly honest the entire time?

I'm only speaking about my experiences. I haven't seen any dishonesty.

One example of dishonesty please...

ToddNotTodd · Jun 15, 2016

bangmegafan said:
Remember, if God is cruel he can destroy whole universe in fraction of seconds

Or let us suffer here on earth...

amariselle · Jun 15, 2016

Dave Ellis said:
I agree with your first and second sentences, and I find your last sentence repulsive.

Of course, that is completely understandable.

Dave Ellis said:
Or, they could be saying we need an epistemology that exposes those that are wrong, or blatantly dishonest and correct the data.

We are ALL wrong at times. Christians are not supposed to be elevating themselves about others.

Dave Ellis said:
To be honest, I think "honest faith" is a bit of an oxymoron.

I don't. Although I do acknowledge that no one has perfect faith, because no one is perfect.

Dave Ellis said:
However, having faith in something, regardless of your religion is not a reliable way to learn what is and what is not true. Your faith is simply your opinion, however justifying your opinion by faith somehow is supposed to make it more profound or important. It's not, you can take anything on faith and be wrong.

You can also take anything on the word of science and be wrong. People can be wrong, I never said otherwise, quite the opposite actually.

Dave Ellis · Jun 15, 2016

bangmegafan said:
We all don't know what is the God plan.

His mysteries and secrets cannot be known or understood by us

He is holy and perfect. And moreover infinitely knowledgeable than us

If he can't be known or understood, then how do you know he's holy, perfect and more knowledgeable?

bangmegafan said:
There could be n number of instances that we can find to logically argue God is not there or he is cruel even if he exists but those reasons won't help us to understand the God

Sure it will, if you claim he's omnibenevolent, but allows suffering, then we know your god is not actually omnibenevolent. That increases our understanding and can disprove some interpretations of god.

bangmegafan said:
He does everything according to his will and his WILL will always be holy

If we pray with faith for anyone who is sick, he will be healed.

That's a testable claim, and one that has been disproven. There have been plenty of terminal cancer patients with people faithfully praying over them, and they don't get any better.

bangmegafan said:
If something happened beyond our wish, it means God plan is different

That's a convenient way of giving credit to god when things go your way, and deflecting responsibility from god when things don't go your way. God can't possibly lose with that mindset.

bangmegafan said:
I never seen any person who didn't receive blessings from God or who left God as they are unsatisfied

Remember, if God is cruel he can destroy whole universe in fraction of seconds

I have seen plenty of people abandon their beliefs in god, virtually every atheist on this forum falls into that category.

Dave Ellis · Jun 15, 2016

amariselle said:
We are ALL wrong at times. Christians are not supposed to be elevating themselves about others.

So how do you figure out you are wrong using only faith?

amariselle said:
I don't. Although I do acknowledge that no one has perfect faith, because no one is perfect.

That's not really what I was getting at. I believe people honestly hold faith, however I view faith as a fundamentally dishonest epistemology.

I'm not trying to say those who claim faith are being wilfully dishonest though. Some simply haven't thought about the implications of their methods.

amariselle said:
You can also take anything on the word of science and be wrong. People can be wrong, I never said otherwise, quite the opposite actually.

Sure, however science revises itself when new evidence comes to light exposing our errors. There is no claim to absolute truth, science works with tentative explanations and presents the best picture we have given the evidence we are working with.

Faith does claim absolute truth however. Claims like "god exists, and created us all", "We are all sinners who fall short of this god", etc. Those are knowledge claims. There's also no way to falsify or disprove them (along with any other claim, even those that contradict those same claims) using faith alone.

amariselle · Jun 15, 2016

Dave Ellis said:
So how do you figure out you are wrong using only faith?

I am not using only faith. The Bible has been made available to us. And despite what many believe about Christians, I do look at the world around me, I do question things. I even question a lot that has been going on in Christianity itself in recent years.

Dave Ellis said:
That's not really what I was getting at. I believe people honestly hold faith, however I view faith as a fundamentally dishonest epistemology.

Okay, you can absolutely choose to see it that way.

Dave Ellis said:
I'm not trying to say those who claim faith are being wilfully dishonest though. Some simply haven't thought about the implications of their methods.

And many have.

Dave Ellis said:
Sure, however science revises itself when new evidence comes to light exposing our errors. There is no claim to absolute truth, science works with tentative explanations and presents the best picture we have given the evidence we are working with.

Faith does claim absolute truth however. Claims like "god exists, and created us all", "We are all sinners who fall short of this god", etc. Those are knowledge claims. There's also no way to falsify or disprove them (along with any other claim, even those that contradict those same claims) using faith alone.

Well, of course. If God is real and Christians are right about that, how could human beings refute Him? I don't know why so many have an issue with absolute truth. Truth is truth, regardless of what you believe about it.

(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ) · Jun 15, 2016

ToddNotTodd said:
I'm only speaking about my experiences. I haven't seen any dishonesty.

One example of dishonesty please...

[quote uid=381423 name="jason_delisle" post=69716971]Gee, if a master kills a slave, he should be put to death. [/quote]

Quote from SteveB28: Not if the slave survives "a day or two" before dying. Then the master is without blame.

From http://www.christianforums.com/index.php?threads/7799797/

Post #608

(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ) · Jun 15, 2016

Wow, I have no idea how to fix this^^^
I am working on it now.

ToddNotTodd · Jun 15, 2016

jason_delisle said:
[quote uid=381423 name="jason_delisle" post=69716971]Gee, if a master kills a slave, he should be put to death.

Quote from SteveB28: Not if the slave survives "a day or two" before dying. Then the master is without blame.

From http://www.christianforums.com/index.php?threads/7799797/

Post #608[/QUOTE]

Exodus 20:20-21
English Standard Version
But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.

No dishonesty that I'm seeing...

HitchSlap · Jun 15, 2016

jason_delisle said:
Not naming anyone, I do recall several times when an atheist misrepresented scripture to further an arguement . And several times myself and several other explained the misrepresentation only to find the same individuals misrepresenting the same scripture in the exact same way elsewhere. Would you call that honest?

In all fairness, was it a blatant misrepresentation, or just one of several possible interpretations of scripture. Be honest here, you'd be hard pressed to find any two theists with the same interpretation of scripture. I have several exchanges with theists, who, the minute I repeat what another theist has told me, tell me that interpretation is wrong, and it really means ...

(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ) · Jun 15, 2016

HitchSlap said:
In all fairness, was it a blatant misrepresentation, or just one of several possible interpretations of scripture. Be honest here, you'd be hard pressed to find any two theists with the same interpretation of scripture. I have several exchanges with theists, who, the minute I repeat what another theist has told me, tell me that interpretation is wrong, and it really means ...

Well, I can't argue with that. It frustrates me too. But I still find the idea that every atheist on this forum has been 100% honest is absurd. And for Todd to refuse to admit it is in itself "dishonest" and stubborn. This is the last I will talk about this subject because it is woefully off topic.

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