Relevance that God exists? WHat do you mean? Eat food or drink water? Not sure what you mean…
**
**
You’re not supposed to eat? What do you mean? Actually, Solomon says in Ecclesiastes that it is good for a man to eat and drink. I just don’t follow, sorry. Maybe try being a little more articulate?
Listen, if you think you are in a position to decide whether an omnipotent and omniscient being is being unfair or changing his ways, go right ahead. But I am not prepared to draw conclusions from what is such a disadvantaged point of view of the whole thing.
Listen Ben, I think it’s pretty obvious we both misinterpreted each others’ posts. I posted my “and” thing and you posted your “profanity” thing.
By the way, get a load of this. You ready? Your statement, broken down, reads like this: *"You yourself have completely failed to:
address many of the arguments posted here, 2) avoid using profanity
behave in a mature fashion overall."*
You said right there that “I [Fuel] failed to avoid using profanity”. That means that I used profanity, doesn’t it? I failed to avoid… a double negative. If you don’t see this, I feel sorry for you. holds back a laugh
I don’t owe any apology for you misinterpreting YOUR OWN POST. When I wrote my misinterpreted post which was an honest mistake, and someone misnterpreted it, at least I didn’t suggest they were a friggin’ pedophile! What a ridiculous thing to say! Hahaha! This is actually entertaining to me, to see a regular SD member screw up this bad. Truly, intriguingly humorous. I feel for you man… Haha. Ok, back to my usual nice guy persona.
And modern pop culture has less significance than a dusty 2,000 year old morality play just how, again?
No, I was not quoting Flanders as a citation of fact. Your quote reminded me of it, and reminded me what I’d thought about when I last heard it, and, while it’s somewhat of a hijack of the current topic, both your quotes can be summed up as “How am I supposed to know I’m right?”
IE, assuming for the moment that a god is supposed to exist somewhere or somehow (and outside the bible, there is precisely zero evidence, and considerable evidence to the contrary) then how do you know, how can any theist know he or she is obeying the “right” god?
IE, the average Christian doesn’t follow the Kosher laws the average Jew does. If the Christian is “right”, the Jew is wasting his time. If the Jew is “right”, the Christian is damned.
Sure, execpt you tend to believe in magic, superstition and the supernatural.
[cheap shot]
Ah, so it’s greed then. I thought that was a sin.
[/cheap shot]
Continuing the hijack- sorry, I can’t argue Greek translations as the others can- what is, exactly, that “better life”?
Using myself as an example, I am totally nontheistic. I own no bible, I have never set foot in a Church during any sort of service, I don’t pray, I don’t thank some supernatural power for a warm sunny day. I am happy, healthy, clear of mind and generally enjoying life.
From what I’ve seen, the Church instills a fear of God (“Worship me or be damned”) and a fear of damnation itself. It demands money, either by tithe or enforced donation (give, or God will frown on you!) and time (every Sunday and often most Wednesdays and all religious Holidays, else you’re not a good Christian!)
And seems to provide little in return, other than the reassurance that, after you die there’s something else, something better. In other words, it sells delusion and fear, and I simply cannot sanction that.
Further, to use a tired axiom, if God made me, why did he make me as I am, unable to believe in him without evidence? He made me so I demand proof, yet will not show himself for that would remove the need for faith, so god designed and made me predestined for damnation.
Somehow that doesn’t sound like an “all loving” God. Why is this “better”?
And further hijacking on my part; Again, how do you know you’re “right”? What if all Christians are “letting down” Allah? What if the Buddhists are “right”? He won’t care, as long as you simply strive to be good and wish to attain enlightenment.
What if the Greeks were right? Zeus might be pretty pissed off we haven’t been sacrificing a goat to him for the past thirty centuries.
How can you know?
Yes, yes, I know, faith. So why is your faith more powerful/more correct than that of the Jew, or the Hindu, or the Shintoist? Why do you see a belief in Ganesh as a mere superstition while your belief in God is The Truth?
Just to be clear, are you asserting that belief without evidence (my definition of faith) is “stupid?” If you believe in God, and belief without evidence is stupid, then you must have evidence for God. Can you tell us what it is?
Throwing Goedel at scientific method is a specious way to defend Biblical inerrancy.
Fuel is the OP, and he is the one who first raised the subject of Q. Since this is his thread, and since he has been participating in the Q discussion I would guess that he is fine with the digression unless he says otherwise. Some “thread creep” is only natural in any long discussion. I think that Q is not totally off topic anyway since the allegation has been made (I think by Fuel, but maybe it was you or Actuary) that the Q theory undermines inspired authorship. I actually don’t believe that it does, but I don’t mind defending the theory if it is contested.
I also think we’ve reached a dead end. **
[/QUOTE]
Well, quote and double-quote are right out, of course, giving us:
’ " = [symbol]’ "[/symbol]
but from the MS Charmap.exe, selecting its Symbol font ’ and ", I get a translation in non-Symbol font to ¢ and ².
Putting ¢ inside [ symbol ] gives [symbol]¢[/symbol].
Putting ² inside [ symbol ] gives [symbol]²[/symbol].
If you announce ahead of time that you are going to use [symbol]¢[/symbol] (¢) for smooth and [symbol]²[/symbol] (²) for rough breathing (or vice versa), you can fudge it with leading breaths.
Fuel, my friend, you have been whooshed. Ben was deliberately posting statements which could be read as rude and gratuitous but were parsed in such a way that direct accustaions were not actually made. He was subtly trying to show you how a post can easily be misinterpreted even if it can semantically be read differently than what it seems to imply. He was proving a point. You were supposed to take those posts as insults so that you could subsequently be shown that technically no insult was made.
If it makes you feel better, I didn’t quite grasp what Ben was doing either. I thought he was being unnecesarily churlish. I almost even said something. Now I feel stupid for not figuring it out from the beginning. I got whooshed too.
Thanks, Tom. I never thought of trying to fudge it with quote marks. I tried parentheses once but it looked terrible. I’ll try your suggestion next time.
Actually, DtC, you got it when I explained it. Fuel didn’t, and to be perfectly honest I assumed he was ignoring my explanation because he wanted to argue in bad faith. After all, he claimed I suggested he was a pedophile, even when I explicitly explained- at length- that I had done no such thing, and was just making a point about his misuse of English and his attempts to blame others for their misunderstanding.
I’m honestly not sure if Fuel honestly misunderstood my lengthy compare-and-contrast, or if he’s just trying to jerk us around.
Doc Nickel All your questions and paradoxes are notable points, albeit old points.
I certainly do NOT know for sure that I am in the right religion. I could be setting myself up for Zues’ wrath for the rest of my eternal life for all I know. But I feel as if I am in the “most right” one. Feel is all one has at this point of religions. An intuitive weighing of different ideas, logic, manuscripts’ validity, life experiences (I have one that is absolutely unbelievably amazing to say the least) and faith leads me to believe that Jesus of the Bible was the Son of God.
Why exactly is my faith more correct? From a logical standpoint, I can’t make a definitive statement on that, of course. I wish I could, but a whole life of studying could not reveal which is more or less correct. All I have is an internal calling, an external faith and a few life experiences.
The whole thing is very illogical, as I have stated in here before. I wish it wasn’t like this, but it is God’s plan. And I am willing to overlook and accept some things (miracles, flood, creation) because it makes sense for me to do so. There is no equation here.
Why did God create you logical if his plan is illogical, so you will never accept it? Relaying what the Bible says, God is just. He is also all-powerful. He can, in the midst of all this perceived unfairness, give you a winning shot at gaining an understanding of him. One educated theory: Logic is kind of a hiding tool for God. Jesus prayed to his Father to hide the truth to the scholarly (the people who think they know all and the people who God decides are not worthy of his gift) and reveal the truth to babes (the truly unprideful and open people). One way God hides the truth from the people he deems unworthy is through logic. God wraps logic so tightly around some poeple’s heads that they inevitably reject his truth and gift. This is God’s sovereign judgement on these supposed prideful/close-minded folks. But to those he loves, he reveals his plan to them so that it makes sense… not logical sense, but intuitive sense, spiritual sense.
***Disclaimer: Keep in mind I am not personally calling anyone prideful or closed-minded. I am speaking in a sort of second person for the Bible. Sort of relaying what the Bible has to say. I am not here to give you my personal opinions, I only am here to represent the Bible’s sayings. I do not personally think that anyone here I have met so far is prideful or closed-minded in fact. I don’t know you well enough to say that.
I just showed you how Ben technically,actually did say I used profanity. Don’t you see this? The double negative. [size=14]Saying that I failed to avoid using something means that I used it… in this case profanity.[/size=14]
I don’t know exactly how you guys operate yourselves around here with periodic “wooshes” or whatever you call them. But when you “woosh” someone, don’t screw it up! And then when someone screws up a woosh, don’t cover for them either (DtC). That’s bad form, ain’t it?!
I have got to print Ben’s statement out and hang it on my wall. Over it I will put the inscription, “The biggest woosh screw-up (Ben), and worst cover-up (by DtC) on SDMB ever”.
Just for my own humor, I will type out his error again, in the hopes that someone will come along and realize his error: Ben:
“BTW, Fuel, how can you go around making accusations that people aren’t of sound mind? You youself have completely failed to address many of the arguments presented here, avoid using profanity, and behave in a mature fashion overall.”
Failed to…avoid using profanity = I used to profanity.
Of course if you say this I am going to ask you why, which I did. And then when you say you never did say that, I will quote you, which I did. Then when you say that your sentence doesn’t say what it actually does, I am going to laugh. Then when you question my motives for it, well… there is nothing I can do at that point but laugh harder.
Just stop for a second and read your sentence Ben. Diagram it if you have to.
Evnetually someone will realize that his statement did indeed insult me by making an erroneous and slandering claim. Apparently he tried to woosh me, tried to write a seemingly insulting statement in order to get me riled up. Sounds cool… even scandalous! I like the idea! However, He said I failed to avoid using profanity. This is an actual insult, not a seemingly insulting statement, an actually insulting statement. And then he is failing to apologize to me for messing up his intentionally non-slandering but actually slandering statement. Good job there Ben.
Ever heard of the saying, “What goes around, comes around?”
The presumption that there is no supernatural need not make for a limited search for the truth OR be narrow-minded. Why presume that the supernatural DOES exist? Especially when the NATURAL has shown time and time again to be utterly mysterious and unfathomable?
Humankind could exist and evolve for millions of years and never come close to exhausting new discoveries in nature. And after these eons have past and we are still only peeking into the edge of the abyss that is the Natural, it will be the Supernatural that will have been completely discarded as an unecessary and unhealthy superstition of primitive humankind.
You don’t need to dream up Supernature when what is Real is mysterious, magical and unknowable far beyond any God(s) we could ever invent.
See what I mean, DtC? He’s just trying to jerk us around. That’s why this thread kept getting mired in misunderstandings and Fuel’s fingerpointing. He says he’s here to learn- and then he declares he’s a messenger from God. He ignores arguments that deal with biblical errancy- and then clucks his tongue at us, saying that it’s just sad that we weren’t willing to discuss biblical errancy. He makes an annoying accusation, covers it up with Terl-logic, and then nitpicks when I point out that he was fooled by the same logic.
And all the while, he openly laughs at how stupid and pathetic he thinks we are- even while he delcares that he’s shocked that anyone could miss the part where he talks about how smart we are.
Fuel, just in case you’re serious, I’ll try one more time. Ben was using a sentence construction which was analogous to the one you used in your statement to Apos. It was a list of three things you had “failed” to do. When it was pointed out that Apos had not failed to do the first two things on your list, you countered that he had not done the third thing and tried to tie all three things together as a set so that failing in one condition was failing the set. Ben did the same thing. He followed your own construction and logic. Yes you had avoided using profanity but you had not avoided using profanity and addressed many of the arguments and behaved in a mature manner. Even if we grant you the third condition (debateable) you still will have failed the set if you have not fulfilled the first condition. Do you get it now? Look at your own sentence to Apos and how you defended it, then look at Ben’s statement to you again. See what I mean?
Ben. I see on preview that you think he’s just jerking us around but I’m willing to give him the benefit of one more doubt. You may be right but let’s see how he responds to this post.
I was following this thread when it began…(seems like a long time ago). but the thread had turned into something resembling a pit thread, so I went on to other topics, despite my interest in the OP.
Tonight I noticed it back on the front page. So, I thought I’d check it out again. Hmmm
Did y’all ever get around to any legitimate debates regarding errors found in the bible? Are “we” still trying to define terms? Has this GD thread become something that needs to be moved into the PIT?
Back on topic…and forgive me if this has been asked and answered. But how does free will work particularly if God knows all things from beginning to end. It seems contradictory to me.
Then there’s the whole incest/no incest deal.
Kill/not kill
2 genesis versions
God created evil/man created evil
Gods promise to never destroy man again/Armageddon
James 1:13- Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
God does tempt!
Genesis 22:1- And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
And why would Jesus ask this, if God tempts no one?
Matthew 6:13- And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
and Leviticus for the most part should never have been included.
or perhaps these aren’t the kind of errors y’all meant. Oh well, it wouldn’t be my first mistake.
Again, sorry if I’m too late to the party…and Fuel I’m no atheist, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Hey !** D/C** long time no speak
We seem to have gotten bogged down in this thread with the “whooshing” tangent. We almost had something going for a while with the Quirinius and Q gospel discussions but that’s been sidetracked now.
It’s really hard to get Biblical literalists to really stick around and defend their position. They tend to get mad and run away. Fuel at least hasn’t run away but he hasn’t been entirely responisve to some of the stronger arguments. It’s been hard to stay on one “error” at a time and really hash them out. I still have no answers to the questions I asked on page one of this thread.
Ok, so now I realize that you guys admit that he said I used profanity. He knows that, I gather. But you (DtC) said in one of your recent posts that he techinically did not insult me, when I gather that he did technically insullt me.
If it is true you meant to write what you did, and you completely understand what you wrote, then I don’t understand the irony, or humor, or joke? Did you get me? DId you expect me to NOT say anything when you claimed I used profanity?
I guess the jokes’ on me here huh? Well, I’m glad you had your (odd) fun. I just don’t understand what a person was supposed to do in my situation to not be “had”. I see the similarity in our statements, but I don’t see how they are exactly the same. I accidentally made a conditional statement that was ambiguous (could have been taken either way). You intentionally made an actual insult, surrounded by other ambiguous remarks. You tried to do the same, but ended up insulting me precisely, not ambiguously. I insulted ambiguously. How is that the same? And how is that sticking it to me?
Haha. Ok, back to my usual nice guy persona.
