For gods’ sake, man, you are not using a fricking typewriter. Let the word wrap do its job. Your pointless returns are highly annoying and reduce the readability of your posts.
Thank you for the information.
One would think that a little chariot would be no obstacle to a power
capable of parting the waters of the Red Sea. I am afraid I can offer
no help in explaining Biblical inconsistency and contradiction.
I wonder how such towering figures as Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and
Calvin cope with these issues. I think one freely employed tactic is recourse
to literary device: when some scriptural passage looks fishy they just say
“allegory” or “metaphor” or “symbolism”, and presto, it is all taken
care of. I have to admit to not having read any theology, so maybe I am
underestimating the ingenuity of its masters.
I format my posts to suit myself, and I operate on the assumption
that anyone who is distracted is probably not interested in giving
much serious thought to the discussion anyway.
PS anyone who identifies with rhyme (viz poetry) should if anything
be receptive to lines of 10-15 words or even less.
I’m not sure about the others, but I do not think that Augustine would suffer much loss of sleep over these things. He would probably say that they were metaphor or allegory. I seem to recall he said something like this with regard to Genesis.
That’s not profound, that’s just a misunderstanding of the word faith:
It’s simply a misuse of the word faith to claim that someone who doesn’t believe things happened as the bible says they did is doing anything based on faith.
I wonder if, in the interests of consistency, you believe in supernatural claims from other books written thousands of years ago?
You again. Sigh.
It should not overexercise anyone’s critical facilities to see that definitions
2b and 3 accord with what I intended to convey.
I do not believe in any supernatural claims from any source, and have
not expressed any such belief.
Nope.
MrDibble’s point was that he doesn’t believe the biblical account. Quite the opposite of definitions 2b and 3.
Then one must wonder - why disagree with someone who says there may have been some carpenter in Palestine 2000 years ago named Joshua, but that he doesn’t believe there was anything supernatural about that person?
You really are not getting it at all.
I thought I would check your profile to see if there might be something there to explain
your complete inability to comprehend stuff.
Do you think you might need to spend more time in the decompression chamber?
The purpose of conventions in communication, colonial, is to make the reader’s task easier. The way you format your posts draws attention to itself and away from your message. It is the very opposite of clarity.
Personal insults aren’t allowed in this forum, so you need to adopt a more civil tone immediately. Don’t do this again.
This isn’t intended to be personal, colonial, I’m just not clear on why someone would reject supernaturalism yet argue that supernatural events or entities in the bible should be accorded belief.
Perhaps I’ve summarized your views incorrectly - could you lay them out more explicitly?
For the last time, I have not said that any supernatural event should be
accorded belief. Accepting the historical existence of people as Moses
and events such as the Jews’ escape from Egypt does not create obligation
to accept supernatural attachments concocted by those of supernaturalist
persuasion.
Our disagreement began when I felt obliged to point out that supernaturalist
belief is a brute fact of utmost significance in the life of the human race,
like it or not. You wish it would go away? Me too. Too bad for us.
I specifically asked you about your comments relating to MrDibble’s lack of belief in events described in the Gospels, not in Exodus.
Huh? That doesn’t make any sense at all. I’m saying that supernaturalism does not reflect the common experience of objective reality we share. I haven’t said anything about whether people actually believe in supernaturalism or not (obviously they do or they wouldn’t pray.)
Are you responding after having read some of my posts? If so, could you quote the ones you’re responding to?
Not in your last post you didn’t, but if you had read all my posts with any
care you would not have needed to ask because it is obvious that my
replies pertain to the existence of Christ as well as Moses. Everything
supernatural is by implication addressed.
Your first reply to this thread, post #7 on page one, affected ignorance of
the topic where the topic was in fact clearly understandable. I feel that such
a potent force, defended in detail by several of the most potent intellects
ever known, should be accorded its full due whether you and me agree with
it or not.
Now, I really am tired of this conversation, and do not intend to pursue it
further. You seem like the kind’ a guy who can’t be happy unless he has the
last word on everything, so go for it, Bubba.
I see what the problem is, colonial.
You may not be aware of a fallacy of logic known as argumentum ad populum, which you can read about, but in short says that just because an idea is popular, does not mean that idea is more likely to be correct.
In all my posts in this thread, I have been discussing the truth value and logical status of supernaturalism vs. naturalism.
That’s why I’ve replied to you that your repeated appeals to the popularity of supernaturalism:
Are not relevant, because it is an argumentum ad populum, and popularity has nothing to do with truth value. You should re-read the OP; it’s not about how popular naturalism or supernaturalism is, it’s about logical consistency in the pursuit these philosophies.
Maybe you missed that the issue is whether Jesus existed as depicted in the Gospels or not? Despite that a lot of people believe in the Gospels, adhering to a Gospel-defined description of Jesus accepts supernatural events that you say you don’t believe in, so why accept a Gospel-defined description of Jesus?