Where's God?

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No, there are not three separate gods who are at the same time the same god. There is only one God, ie one essence, but three persons.
So the "one God" is not actually a person?
Absurd if the Trinity is a logical impossibility then so is your marriage. Your marriage is one in its humanity, but two in its persons.
But I am not a section of a marriage, and nor is my wife. We do not become one person. We are two people in love and we call that "being married", but the marriage itself is not an independent living entity. It would be pretty strange if it was.
Who said anything about favoring one religion? I just said that our nation was founded on Christian principles.
If they had founded the nation on Christian principles, they would have been favouring Christianity by declaring that it should be the basis of their nation. But they went to great lengths to make it clear they were doing nothing of the sort.
The USA was not founded on Christian principles. It was not founded on the principles of any religion at all, entirely on purpose.
Yes, but Many Christians DID endorse the Constitution and sign it. 100 out of the 110 signers of the DOI and the Constitution were Christians. And I never said America was officially a Christian nation, I only said that it was founded on many Christian principles. You are attacking straw men now.
Again, if America had been founded on Christian principles, that would have made it - at least in part - a Christian nation. But it wasn't.
You're right, many - perhaps most - of the Founders were Christians themselves. That makes it all the more remarkable that they did not make the Constitution a Christian document.
The USA was not founded on Christian principles. It was founded on the principles of freedom of speech, freedom of religion and democratic government. None of these things are Christian principles. One of the most important rules God ever gave His people was that they should have no other God before Him, entirely in opposition to the USA; and the preferred form of government in the Bible is a godly king, not an elected body.
LOL, Weak? I have provided specific ideas and principles in the Constitution that came from Christianity. You cant get any stronger evidence than that.
You certainly could get a great deal stronger than that. You could have a Constitution that declared that the United States was founded on Christian principles. Instead of this, you have a Constituion that says the USa will make no laws respecting the establishment of a religion, and a government which declared that the USA was in no sense based on Christianity.
Again, I never said that it was officially a Christian nation. But yes the founders own words and actions disprove the Treaty of Tripoli. It was a calculated lie to protect our navy from attack.
Prove it. You'll have a tough job. Where are the government officials who recanted afterwards? Where are the memoirs saying they regretted being forced to this lie, but it was a necessary evil? Where are the secret memos?
In fact, saying the government of the USA was in no sense founded on Christianity was an easy thing to say, because it is entirely true.
 
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They dont have a right to marry. It is a privilege that is earned. The SCOTUS needs to stop making up rights that dont exist. Such as this one and the right to kill your unborn child. At the very least Congress should be ones making such laws, SCOTUS does violates the Constitution when it starts legislating such things.
Marriage is a privilege that is earned? Really? Can you tell me when and how exactly I earned the privilege to marry? I don't remember doing it. And if straight people can earn it, why can't gay people?
I didnt say that goodness is what God says it is. He is goodness itself. And we have the ability to recognize it.
How do you know? How can you trust your own recognising? How do you know it is reliable?
and saying that God is goodness itself is a circular argument, as has bee pointed out to you many times before.
No, God does not change and we learn He is good thru experience and the truthfulness of His word has been confirmed by science and history.
Yeah? Prove it.
God has created us with a moral conscience that is how we recognize good from evil, though it is distorted, but generally accurate.
That doesn't address the issue in the slightest. Until you have a logical argument that proves that saying "God is goodness" means anything, the moral instinct you say He instilled in us carries no weight.
But good is meaningless to atheists, because you dont have an objective standard for what is good. And you dont have objective propositional statements that explain what good is that reflect that objective standard which is God's objectively existing moral character.
That's another discussion. I'll be happy to explain my standards of morality as soon as you can explain yours. So far, all you've managed it to say that we know what goodness is because God is goodness.
No, personal beings dont go against their character, even you generally do not go against your character. Since His character is the good, He would not do or command something bad.
Well, you've said it yourself. No, I don't generally go against my character, but I do sometimes.
No, just as you would not go against your character so also God would not.
How can you know? You just said that God is goodness. Therefore, if God did decide to change his character, how could you say that was a bad thing? Or, if God turned out to be lying all along, by what right would you say His lying was a bad thing?
Their personhood is reinforced irrespective if they can have babies, that is why gays cannot do it.
I think now might be a good idea to ask you what personhood means. As far as I know, it means "the quality of being an individual person." I fail to see how sexual congress changes it in any way, whether or not a baby is the result.
Because biology and science matters, humanity cannot survive at its highest level of unity if it condones a gay "marriage" and behavior. It damages society, studies have confirmed this.
Let's accept that this is true, for now. Do these studies show that the stable marriage of a devoted gay couple in love with each other damages society more than, say, the marriage of two mentally unstable people who never have children and end their marriage by committing suicide?
Because right now there are very few restrictions on marriage for straight people. You can get married if you're in prison. You can get married if you're a convicted felon. You can get married if you are mentally unstable, physically disabled, etc. etc. - and quite right too.
So if you say you're concerned about gay marriage damaging society, I have to say that your concern seems selective in the extreme.
Because there is no such thing as gay marriage, it cannot perform the functions that I have laid out in multiple other posts. I never said they cannot have their own ceremonies in their own churches. The government should just not recognize it for the many reasons I have stated.
You haven't proved anything that you've said so far, just asserted it.
No, see my post above why heterosexual marriage even without children is superior because is reinforces personal union. Gay sex depersonalizes people engaging in it.
Having children certainly does reinforce personal union. Or at least, it can. For some couples, having achild can be a disaster.
But the thing is - so what? That's the problem, Ed. you keep saying these things, and I think: so what? Why is it that having a child, or engaging in penis-to-vaginal sex, is necessary for a couple of marry? Don't you see how weird that is? And what if the couple are incapable, say because they're disabled? Would you forbid them from marrying?
And saying that gay sex is depersonalising. First of all, what on Earth does that mean? Second, granting for a moment that gay sex is depersonalising - just for the sake of this argument, mind - again, so what? Why should having depersonalising sex be grounds for forbidding marriage? You do realise that people do not have to prove they love each other in order to get married, don't you?
No, as long as the government is not involved they can do what they want. They can have commitment ceremonies and wear wedding gowns and etc, just not involve the government.
Why?
Because it doesnt unite persons biologically as I demonstrated earlier.
So what?
So did blacks and jews in the 30s thru the 60's and they did not have these rates and this magnitude of problems.
Okay. I don't have the facts at my fingertips here. But let's say you're right for the moment. Let's say that having gay sex can increase the risk of mental disease. Well, so what? Why should that stop them from getting married?
You didnt answer my question about judging someone just because evolution gave them different chemicals in their brain from you. But who says there is any thing special about humans? According to atheistic evolution there is nothing objectively special or intrinsically valuable about humans. So your morality is just based on irrational sentimental feelings for humans. Not based on anything rationally objective. There is no objective reason to treat humans any different from cockroaches.
Sorry, I'd like to stay on topic. The question is, how can you justify your own moral stance?
Go back to the arguments above. You say that you can know what goodness is because God tells you, and God is always right because God is goodness itself. Alright, then. So the question then becomes, what does it mean to say that God is goodness? Anything God does is good, right?
In that case, God could do evil, and it would be good. By your own definition.
You can say God would not do evil. But He wouldn't, would He? If He did it, it would not be evil. God could do, or tell others to do, absolutely anything - and under what grounds could you object to it? You already said, if God does it, that's good.
You've tried to get around this by saying God would not change his character, but that's not a logical argument. That's just your opinion. You'll need to do better than that if you're to resolve Euthyphro's Dilemma.
Some sins are worse than crimes because they can have eternal consequences for multitudes of individuals. Something like speeding usually does not.
How do you know any of this? Again, it sounds very much like you're just making it up.
 
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doubtingmerle

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Marriage is a privilege that is earned? Really? Can you tell me when and how exactly I earned the privilege to marry? I don't remember doing it. And if straight people can earn it, why can't gay people?

How do you know? How can you trust your own recognising? How do you know it is reliable?
and saying that God is goodness itself is a circular argument, as has bee pointed out to you many times before.

Yeah? Prove it.

That doesn't address the issue in the slightest. Until you have a logical argument that proves that saying "God is goodness" means anything, the moral instinct you say He instilled in us carries no weight.

That's another discussion. I'll be happy to explain my standards of morality as soon as you can explain yours. So far, all you've managed it to say that we know what goodness is because God is goodness.

Well, you've said it yourself. No, I don't generally go against my character, but I do sometimes.

How can you know? You just said that God is goodness. Therefore, if God did decide to change his character, how could you say that was a bad thing? Or, if God turned out to be lying all along, by what right would you say His lying was a bad thing?

I think now might be a good idea to ask you what personhood means. As far as I know, it means "the quality of being an individual person." I fail to see how sexual congress changes it in any way, whether or not a baby is the result.

Let's accept that this is true, for now. Do these studies show that the stable marriage of a devoted gay couple in love with each other damages society more than, say, the marriage of two mentally unstable people who never have children and end their marriage by committing suicide?
Because right now there are very few restrictions on marriage for straight people. You can get married if you're in prison. You can get married if you're a convicted felon. You can get married if you are mentally unstable, physically disabled, etc. etc. - and quite right too.
So if you say you're concerned about gay marriage damaging society, I have to say that your concern seems selective in the extreme.

You haven't proved anything that you've said so far, just asserted it.

Having children certainly does reinforce personal union. Or at least, it can. For some couples, having achild can be a disaster.
But the thing is - so what? That's the problem, Ed. you keep saying these things, and I think: so what? Why is it that having a child, or engaging in penis-to-vaginal sex, is necessary for a couple of marry? Don't you see how weird that is? And what if the couple are incapable, say because they're disabled? Would you forbid them from marrying?
And saying that gay sex is depersonalising. First of all, what on Earth does that mean? Second, granting for a moment that gay sex is depersonalising - just for the sake of this argument, mind - again, so what? Why should having depersonalising sex be grounds for forbidding marriage? You do realise that people do not have to prove they love each other in order to get married, don't you?

Why?

So what?

Okay. I don't have the facts at my fingertips here. But let's say you're right for the moment. Let's say that having gay sex can increase the risk of mental disease. Well, so what? Why should that stop them from getting married?

Sorry, I'd like to stay on topic. The question is, how can you justify your own moral stance?
Go back to the arguments above. You say that you can know what goodness is because God tells you, and God is always right because God is goodness itself. Alright, then. So the question then becomes, what does it mean to say that God is goodness? Anything God does is good, right?
In that case, God could do evil, and it would be good. By your own definition.
You can say God would not do evil. But He wouldn't, would He? If He did it, it would not be evil. God could do, or tell others to do, absolutely anything - and under what grounds could you object to it? You already said, if God does it, that's good.
You've tried to get around this by saying God would not change his character, but that's not a logical argument. That's just your opinion. You'll need to do better than that if you're to resolve Euthyphro's Dilemma.

How do you know any of this? Again, it sounds very much like you're just making it up.
Now if only we could get Ed to think through all these logical arguments we throw at him. It's difficult to think of a line of argument that would get through to him.
 
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Ed1wolf

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ed: No, I didnt make it up, it is a rational extrapolation from the texts.

ia: I'm not disagreeing with you. It's just that saying "this is a rational extrapolation" does not mean it is the only possible answer. It's not a ridiculous idea, but when it comes to religion, who says ridiculous ideas are out of bounds? Why, I've even heard there are some people who think that God is three separate gods while at the same time still being one God!
No, see my previous post where I demonstrated it is not a contradiction. Three in person, one in divinity, similar to you and your wife, two in person and one in your humanity.


ed: No, generally most humans have not reached the age of accountability where they can understand good and evil at five years old. Most people dont reach accountability till about 7-10 years old. You can only go to hell after you can judge between good and evil, ie the age of moral accountability. We learn this from Gods other book Nature.

ia: In other words: you made it up. Oh, sorry - it's a rational extrapolation, except that Christians all disagree with each other about it.
No, it comes from the science of psychology which studies God's other book nature.

ed: No, I am not making anything up, everything I have said can be demonstrated from the texts though not always explicitly.

ia: That's quite the understatement. Saying "you're just making it up" is the plain way of putting it.
You have yet to prove it.

Ed: No, it is not unbiblical, maybe a slightly unorthodox interpretation, but nowhere in the bible is the concept disproven.
IA: You could say that about an awful lot of things.
Ed: No, not really.

ia: Yes - really. Your slightly unorthodox interpretations would get you burned at the stake in times gone by. In today's world, let's just note that we can ask ten different Christians the same questions and get ten different answers.

This is the only slightly unorthodox interpretation I have presented. Everything else I have presented has been identical for the majority of orthodox Christians for 2000 years.


ia: It's honest of you to admit that not everyone agrees with your ideas, but the truth is more than that: plenty of people disagree with them, and none of you have any better reason to say you're right than the others.
On other more essential issues it can be demonstrated who is right by using the grammatico-historical context.

ed: No, for the extremely evil it is a terrible place for all eternity. There is nothing to solve, Christianity provides justice for evil doers, in the atheist world, the evil doers often get away with their evil deeds. If there is no God, Hitler basically got away with what he did with no justice being served for his victims. But if the Christian God exists, then Hitler got his just deserts.

ia: You're right. If there is no God, Hitler was never punished. This is not ideal, but the atheist never said it was an ideal world.
If it was an ideal world, Hitler would have been caught, tried for the world to see, and punished for his crimes, presumably by life imprisonment or execution.

If the establishment at the time had been secular humanist they would have no rationally objective basis for punishing him at all however. And if he had very good lawyers, he might well have gotten off. How can you punish someone just for different chemicals in his brain causing him to do these things? Because he has no real free will if matter and energy is all that exists.

ia: But in the Christian's ideal world, Hitler was sent to a torture chamber, and kept there forever and ever and ever. It's good to think that the children (above the age of ten, I'm sure!) who stole a packet of candy were not there with them. But think of it mathematically. Any punishment must be infinitely terrible, if it is continued for an infinite length of time.
Also, I have to point out again, your idea that there are different levels of hell is based on the loosest, flimsiest evidence imaginable, helped along by a generous dollop of imagination. Maybe in one level the pokers are red hot and in the other they're white hot? Who knows?
What I do know is that Christians believe hell to be a place of unimaginable suffering that goes on forever. And that is just plain barbaric.
I disagree. that verse I quoted is not the only verse that teaches different levels of hell. Where do you think Dante got his idea? He got it from the bible.
 
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Ed1wolf

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And yet your whole point is that you can know all about God's morality. Just as FireDragon76 can not know for sure if God can be separated from himself, you cannot be sure that God is the source of real morality.
No, God has not told us explicitly whether He can separate himself. But He has told us that He has created moral laws based on His character so that we can live a happy and fulfilling life in this universe and to protect us both spiritually and physically.

dm: There are three things wrong with saying that whatever God says is moral (or whatever God is) then that is moral. First, you have no reliable way of knowing what God says is moral (or what he is).
I didnt say that whatever God says is moral, I said His moral character is good and His commands reflect that objective character. We know that personal beings act according to their character. Our way of knowing whether He is morally good is exactly the same way you tell whether your wife is morally good. From experience. Just as you would not act against your character, so neither would God.

dm: And even if you did have a reliable way of knowing what he says (and is), you would not know if he is telling you the truth. And even if you did have his words with absolute certainty, and knew he was telling the truth with absolute certainty, you would have no way of proving that it is better to follow the morality that he says (or is) than following any other morality.
We know He is telling the truth because many things in His word have been shown to be true by history and science. Also, we learn that He is telling truth thru experience just like any other personal relationship. Just like we learn to obey the laws of nature by seeing someone jump off a building and flapping his arms to try to fly to violate the law of gravity, we also learn that His laws of morality have serious consequences in this world if we try to violate them. Since God created both laws it is rational to try to follow them.
 
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doubtingmerle

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I said His moral character is good
Define "good". If "good" means "whatever God is", all you are saying here is that his character is what it is.

Our way of knowing whether He is morally good is exactly the same way you tell whether your wife is morally good. From experience.
Define "good". Are you saying that God is whatever God is, or you saying that God conforms to some other standard of goodness?

Just as you would not act against your character, so neither would God.
Ah, so God is not powerful enough to deceive you?

That's odd, I would have thought an all powerful God would be able to outsmart you.
We know He is telling the truth because many things in His word have been shown to be true by history and science.
What about all the things in the Bible that are clearly false, like the claim that the earth had flooded, for instance?
 
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Ed1wolf

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ed: It may sound like it, but it was not the case because even during His incarnation He said I and my Father are one. Since we dont have exhaustive knowledge of God we cant say that just becoming human separated Him from his father.

ia: An obvious problem with short quotes taken out of context: you can't be sure what they mean. So Jesus said he was one with the father. Was he speaking literally, or figuratively? Did he mean they were one in purpose, or one in essence?
You are right, correct interpretation is to use clear verses to interpret the less clear. Other verses show He meant they were both one in purpose and essence.

ia: If we accept, however, for the sake of argument, that Jesus was actually God - or a part of God? This whole Trinity thing is difficult to describe - and became human, it seems obvious that He was separated from divinity, in some sense at least. As you yourself said, he lost His divine powers, at least in part.
Withholding your power does not mean that you no longer have those powers or are no longer who you are. Two men climbing a mountain they both have backpacks, one is thin and appears very scrawny but easily defeats the other man who is strong and muscular, built like a linebacker. But then you look in the backpack. The thin man has a bottle water, the strong man has 200 pounds of rocks. Who would have won in the climb without the backpacks?

ed: Yes, His powers were somewhat limited when He became human but He did still demonstrate some of them including omniscience and foreknowledge when He was human. John 1:48 demonstrated His omniscience and His predictions about His death and resurrection and the destruction of the Temple showed His foreknowledge.
And yet, how is this different from any other human gaining wisdom and knowledge from God?
God never gave a human omniscience.

ed: Since you dont have any knowledge of what happens when a Triune being becomes separated from the other members of the Trinity, you cannot say that He didnt suffer much. The suffering was probably tremendous especially since He actually asked His father for permission to avoid it in the Garden.

ia: In truth, neither of us know anything at all about it! But I think any human being who knew he was doomed to face the most painful type of execution possible could be excused if his faith wavered!
We do know a little, we know how Christ reacted when He knew He was going to have to experience it. He was not just a human being, so His reaction was a little extreme thereby showing that His suffering was probably going to be beyond anything any human could suffer when He was separated from His divine father.
 
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Ed1wolf

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ed: Well it depends on what they think love means. I think it means wanting the best for them. But they may not realize what is best for them. Especially if they base their identity on who they have sex with.

ia: What danger are gay people in that straight people are not in? And how would gay people marrying place them in greater danger?
Because all of the things you've said so far are either dangers shared with straight people that you do not want to ban straight marriage because, or dangers that would not be affected by their getting married.
You see, Ed, after listening to your arguments and giving them full attention, I just don't find any of them compelling, and I am surprised that you do.
Let me recap:
- You think that gay people should not be allowed to marry because they can't have children. But you think that straight people who can't or won't have children should be allowed to marry.
- You think that gay people should not be allowed to marry because gay sex is bad for them in some way. But you don't think that straight people with mental illnesses should be barred from marrying, nor that straight people should be screened for sexually transmitted diseases before being allowed to marry. On top of that, it would seem that letting gay people marry would reduce their problems, since letting gay people who are in love enter into a stable and loving relationship will have a good effect on them, and married people, whether gay or straight, are likely to have a significantly healthier sex life than unmarried people.
- You think that gay people should not be allowed to marry because it's bad for society, since society needs children. Yet you do not consider forbidding marriage to straight people who either plan to have no children or are unable to.
No, it is not just bad for society because society needs children, it is also bad for society in that it undermines morality. By endorsing immoral behavior, it undermines all other morality.


ed: I would hardly call the most rational explanation for the origin of the universe a small mount of evidence.

ia: I would hardly call God the most rational explanation for the origin of the universe. You're committing a logical fallacy known as begging the question.
Believing that something can come from nothing is irrational.


ed: An avalanche is not very complex it is just a simple increase in entropy caused by gravitational forces. It is literally entropy going downhill which is what the entire universe is doing. It is actually overall a decrease in complexity and entropy.

ia: You seem to be unaware of the meaning of the word "complex" and to have ignored the link I posted earlier showing how very complex avalanches are.
True complexity includes information, avalanches dont produce information. Your link didnt prove that avalanches are truly complex.


ed: No, I said without using living things. Living things are complex entropy reducing machines and my argument is that such things have to have an intelligent input to do so. So you have to provide an example of entropy reduction without referring to living things because then you would be assuming what we are trying to prove.

ia: Sigh. Can I bring this unhappy debate to an end and just say: evolution shows that humans evolved from non-human life forms. Therefore, you do not necessarily need a personal being for another personal being to come into existence. You really need to drop this; it's just silly for you to keep on with it. The fact that the universe contains personal beings does not mean a personal being must have created the universe. The answer is evolution. And if you disagree with science that evolution produced humans, then you're just a creationist and not worth listening to.
You failed to provide an example of any non living example of entropy reducing in the natural world, so my statement stands. Life requires intelligent input, irrespective of the process for creating life. Whether it be by evolution or direct creation. Of course, evolution unlikely to be by natural selection as I demonstrated earlier evolution by natural selection is self refuting.
 
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Ed1wolf

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ed: Maintaining longterm, ie millions of years of entropy reduction, requires intelligently directed energy as seen in living things.

dm: How do you know that?
Biology 101. Living things reduce entropy and have been around millions of years, there are no examples of significantly long term energy reduction in the natural world except in cases of intelligent intervention.

dm: I think you just made this physical law up with no evidence to support it.
It is not a law, it is an empirical observation.
 
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Ed1wolf

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Depends.

Some of the later historical books of the Old Testament accord with history.
No, even some of the older historical books do too, as well as the NT.

dm: But Genesis is clearly fable. The earth is far more than 6000 years old, and there was no flood in Noah's day that covered the whole earth.
Contrary to popular belief Genesis doesnt say the earth is only 6000 years old. While not strong because it occurred 2 mya, there is some evidence for Noah's flood.

dm: And no, there are no credible witnesses to the resurrection.

See Are There Credible Witnesses to the Resurrection, Part II .

You never refuted my arguments in that thread about the resurrection. I demonstrated how at least three skeptics contemporary with Christ were convinced that Christ rose bodily from the dead. Your handling of the ancient creed focused only on Peters ancient name, there are other words in that creed that point to a very early date possibly less than 5 years after Jesus death and resurrection.
 
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doubtingmerle

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Biology 101. Living things reduce entropy and have been around millions of years, there are no examples of significantly long term energy reduction in the natural world except in cases of intelligent intervention.
That simply is not true. The sun transfers energy to the earth, increasing the entropy of the earth. But the earth transfer that same energy into outer space, decreasing the net entropy of the earth by more than the amount that the sun increased it. This decreases the net entropy of the earth.

And yes, the entropy decrease is long term. And no, the entropy decrease does not requires intelligent intervention.

It is not a law, it is an empirical observation.
It is a wrong observation. In an open system, such as a planet, there can be continuous long term decrease in entropy without intelligent intervention.
 
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doubtingmerle

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No, even some of the older historical books do too, as well as the NT.
Books like Genesis, Exodus, and Joshua have basically been totally discredited as historical.

Contrary to popular belief Genesis doesnt say the earth is only 6000 years old. While not strong because it occurred 2 mya, there is some evidence for Noah's flood.
Uh, you can trace the dates from Noah to historical events and that yields a result of about 5000 years. Estimates vary a few years because the dates are contradictory, but all attempts to date the earth based on the literal text of scripture come out less than 6000 years. See the bottom of The World: Born in 4004 BC? for a list of verses that show this.

Also Genesis describes a flood that covered the whole earth. A local flood 2 million years ago is not the same as a global flood.
 
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doubtingmerle

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You never refuted my arguments in that thread about the resurrection. I demonstrated how at least three skeptics contemporary with Christ were convinced that Christ rose bodily from the dead. Your handling of the ancient creed focused only on Peters ancient name, there are other words in that creed that point to a very early date possibly less than 5 years after Jesus death and resurrection.
Oh dear, this thread has covered everything from physical pain to slavery to the trinity to the definition of good to homosexuality to the flood of Noah to child abuse to the Declaration of Independence to thermodynamics to Hitler. Rather than drag the resurrection into this mess, I responded to you at the thread you are referring to--Are There Credible Witnesses to the Resurrection, Part II
 
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Ed1wolf

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(shrug) This doesn't count at all on a debating forum. You have to make the arguments yourself. Feel free to quote, if you have good summarising quotes.
Ok Loren Eisely said "In one of those strange permutations of which history yields occasional rare examples, it is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear and articulate fashion to the experimental method of science itself."
 
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Ed1wolf

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Thank you. That will do nicely. You're a creationist, your argument hinges on evolution being wrong, and so you automatically lose the debate.
No, you didnt read my post, I said even if evolution is true it just can't be atheistic because natural selection cannot produce humans that can recognize truth. God may have used evolution to create humans but He didnt use natural selection at least for macroevolution, maybe for microevolution. Unless you agree that you cannot recognize truth. But then that undercuts everything you have posted.
 
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Now if only we could get Ed to think through all these logical arguments we throw at him. It's difficult to think of a line of argument that would get through to him.
Well, I don't think he came to his beliefs through logic, and so it's unlikely he'll abandon them because of logic.
 
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Ok Loren Eisely said "In one of those strange permutations of which history yields occasional rare examples, it is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear and articulate fashion to the experimental method of science itself."
Did he? Okay.
I have a quote from John Smith who said "Loren Eisely was wrong about what Ed1wolf said he said."
In other words, empty claims meaning nothing; you have to provide evidence. Yes, science came about "in the Christian world" because Christianity was the dominant religion at the time that science was invented. But in what way does that show that Christianity caused the invention of science?
 
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No, see my previous post where I demonstrated it is not a contradiction. Three in person, one in divinity, similar to you and your wife, two in person and one in your humanity.
But you didn't demonstrate it. My wife and I may be "one" in our humanity, but we're not one person. Now if you want to say that God the Father, God the Son and Gold the Holy Spirit are three persons who have a relationship with each other, then they would be like me and my wife. But you're not saying that. you're saying that I and my wife are one person, which is obviously untrue.
No, it comes from the science of psychology which studies God's other book nature.
Where in the Bible does it say that children under the age of 7-10 do not go to hell?
You have yet to prove it.
No, you have yet to prove it.
This is the only slightly unorthodox interpretation I have presented. Everything else I have presented has been identical for the majority of orthodox Christians for 2000 years.
Nonsense. You said that there are different levels of hell. Where in the Bible does it say that?
On other more essential issues it can be demonstrated who is right by using the grammatico-historical context.
Then do so.
If the establishment at the time had been secular humanist they would have no rationally objective basis for punishing him at all however. And if he had very good lawyers, he might well have gotten off. How can you punish someone just for different chemicals in his brain causing him to do these things? Because he has no real free will if matter and energy is all that exists.
The establishment at that time was secular humanist. The laws under which Hitler would have been punished had no reliance upon Christianity at all.
I disagree. that verse I quoted is not the only verse that teaches different levels of hell. Where do you think Dante got his idea? He got it from the bible.
Quotes, please.
 
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