tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182570333542444044.post7948963579713100663..comments2011-08-20T12:06:09.214-07:00Comments on The Believing Agnostic: Shane Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05459626233009798112noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182570333542444044.post-59959334867270806152010-05-13T19:14:50.863-07:002010-05-13T19:14:50.863-07:00The whole problem with Christianity is that the wh...The whole problem with Christianity is that the whole thing is based on faith that Jesus was God. Both the Old and New Testaments are claimed to be inspired by God, but no one can prove this. Again, we have to base it on faith. So, in essence, those who worship this God are doing so on faith that this God actually exists and that this God is as described in the Bible. How about altering Paley's Wager? Let's just for fun call it Wayne's Wager. Here goes. You can worship the Christian God, and if you are right, you will go to heaven and me perhaps to Hell, however if you are wrong, then you wasted many a beautiful Sunday morning in church whereas I spent it riding my bike or hiking in the woods. :-) However, with all the research I have done, I have become convinced that the Bible is man-made, so I am really not concerned about the Hell aspect.wdunlapnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182570333542444044.post-9985234246791836732010-05-12T21:23:29.468-07:002010-05-12T21:23:29.468-07:00p.Coyle
Oh, I wasn't suggesting that a god doe...p.Coyle<br />Oh, I wasn't suggesting that a god doesn't exist if it hasn't come forth, so we both agree on that.<br />You know, I didn't know that the definition of lower case as well as upper case god was a being requiring worship. That said, I normally refer to this entity as a creator. For some reason, I used creator god this time. Thanks for the correction.wdunlapnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182570333542444044.post-62875449254991696852010-05-12T08:27:44.748-07:002010-05-12T08:27:44.748-07:00Wayne:
One more thing, though, the fact that a go...Wayne:<br /><br /><i>One more thing, though, the fact that a god has not come forth to be worshipped, does not mean this god doesn’t exist.</i><br /><br />The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines "god" (lower case) as "a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship...."<br /><br />You should stop referring to your hypothetical creators as gods if they haven't "come forth to be worshipped." It ain't good English.<br /><br />If I get some time, I might share some additional thoughts about Pascal's Wager. Or not.Northlanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00769117142960558423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182570333542444044.post-74527270251432493392010-05-12T08:26:25.734-07:002010-05-12T08:26:25.734-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Northlanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00769117142960558423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182570333542444044.post-83681324943531531662010-05-11T21:17:39.685-07:002010-05-11T21:17:39.685-07:00Autumnal and P.Coyle,
At last, something we can a...Autumnal and P.Coyle,<br />At last, something we can agree on. I still feel that we cannot prove or disprove a creator god, but I feel we can disprove Christianity. Jesus proved himself a failed prophet when he stated in the oldest Gospel of Mark that there will some there still standing when his Father arrived in glory in his Kingdom, i.e., it was supposed to have happened back then, not millenniums later. Even Paul, when asked about helping the poor by his churches, responded that it wasn’t necessary. Why, because they would soon be elevated to God’s coming Kingdom. He believed that it would happen in his life time. It makes sense. Why on earth would Jesus be fervently preaching that you must prepare for the coming Kingdom, when it wasn’t going to come until Millenniums later. It simply makes no sense.<br />Jesus preached that what was important was your works. After his death, the Christian scrambling to make sense of it all decided that Jesus had died for our sins. Suddenly, the Gospels are telling us that works are worthless, that excepting Jesus as your savior is the only thing that is important. <br />Cardinals goaded by Constantine were forced to determine if Jesus was born divine or later became divine. Most believed he was born human and later became divine. An especially charismatic Cardinal talked them into agree that he was born divine. Since Constantine was breathing down their necks, they went along with it, but afterwards went back to teaching that Jesus was not born divine, but later became so. Again, all speculation when a god could have settled it once and for all. <br />Ironically, Jesus stated that those who were going to make it to God’s Kingdom were the poor and downtrodden. Sounds a bit like most people in the US worshipping him today are in trouble because they are too wealthy to make it to this Kingdom. Jesus even went so far as to state that you should make like a slave to enhance your chances.<br />Revelations states that a beast with the number 666 would be mortally wounded, but would come back to rule once again. Well, the alphabet was also used for numbers, and the numbers in the name of the hated Roman Emperor, Nero, totaled up to 666. Also, Nero died, but there were Jews who believed he was going to come back to life and rule once again. Also, there were documents later found that said the number of the beast was 665. Well, it so happens that Nero’s name was spelled two different ways, and the other way totaled 665. So, the beast was not Ronald Regan or some other name someone has come up with throughout time. It was all supposed to happen back then.<br />If a god exists, and he wanted people to worship him in a certain way, wouldn’t it make sense that an entity, who could create the vast universe, would find it very easy to get his wishes across without any question as to what those wishes were? Instead, we have many different religions and even within the Christian religion, there are so many differing beliefs. So, according to Christianity, it seems that if you guess wrong, you could end up going to Hell. Simply does not make any sense. I had a Christian friend hit me with Paley’s wager by stating that when we both die, and he is right, he will go to heaven and I to Hell. The big fallacy in this reasoning is that Christianity might be the wrong religion. Muslins believe that worshipping Jesus as a god is a mortal sin. One more thing, though, the fact that a god has not come forth to be worshipped, does not mean this god doesn’t exist.wdunlapnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182570333542444044.post-55835927757276752452010-05-10T07:28:50.085-07:002010-05-10T07:28:50.085-07:00Shane:
You write:
I contend that we can’t believ...Shane:<br /><br />You write:<br /><br /><i>I contend that we can’t believe in God if God’s existence is an absolute certainty. If that were so, we would be knowers, not believers, and our religion would be a body of knowledge, not a faith.</i><br /><br />You believe in a god who, on the one hand, obviously doesn't want you or anyone else to <b>know</b> that he exists, but who, on the other hand, absolutely demands (at least according to many Christian theologies) that you and everyone else <b>believe</b> that he exists. I am reminded of the title of a movie from a few decades ago: "The Gods Must Be Crazy."<br /><br /><i>When in the gospels Jesus urged people to believe, he was asking them to hold as true something unproven – often something that seemed incredible.</i><br /><br />Whatever Jesus urged people to believe, he didn't urge them to believe "in the gospels." Jesus wrote no gospels. He did his urging in person, by wandering around Galilee and Judea. At the time of his death, only a tiny portion of the people on the planet had even heard of him. The number of people on the planet who had at least heard of the Jewish god would have been larger, but still would have amounted to no more than a very small minority. Through my veins, and likely yours as well, flows the blood of people who would not hear of Jesus for many hundreds of years after he had come and gone.<br /><br />So the puzzlement deepens. Here we have a god who demands (or not?) that everyone believe that he exists, yet at the same time not only does not want them to know that he exists, but is apparently is rather unconcerned about whether they are even aware of the possibility that he might exist. Yet without any awareness of such a possibility, they could not possibly believe that he exists and thus fulfill his demands.<br /><br />A most peculiar god you seem to believe in.Northlanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00769117142960558423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2182570333542444044.post-53852454544069298522010-05-09T10:13:16.289-07:002010-05-09T10:13:16.289-07:00"That challenging fusion of belief with uncer..."That challenging fusion of belief with uncertainty is what makes faith a virtue."<br /><br />Why is this a virtue? Normally holding a belief and acting on that belief, when there's insufficient evidence for it, is considered an error in judgment, not a virtue.Autumnal Harvestnoreply@blogger.com