# Questions on Christianity (Again...) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 30, 2010, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952 "2010-08-30T02:13:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/121 "2010-08-31T06:04:36Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > You seem to be suggest that because someone at some time has misrepresented God, then we should be bound by that misrepresentation. > > I can’t admit to saying anything like that in the post you quoted. Perhaps, instead of attempting to summarize my post, it would be better to just answer the questions with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. > > If a man says that there is a 6 foot tall rabbit standing besides him, but that this rabbit has the amazing ability to be invisible, intangible, to make no sound, or otherwise give any bit of evidence of its presence, doesn’t that set of traits seem remarkably set up specifically to make it impossible to disprove the existence of the 6 foot tall rabbit? > > If you met a man who claimed that he could cure the disease that ails you, but after you’ve paid money for him to heal you, he tells you that the only disease in the whole world that truly matters is an impure soul, and he has cleansed yours. Wouldn’t you find it remarkably fortuitous for the man to have cured you of a disease you can’t prove you didn’t have, and remarkably fortuitous for the man that he didn’t have to try and cure an illness which you can prove that you had? > > If you met a man who stated that he had placed a tea kettle on the far side of the Sun from the Earth, out of sight from all instruments that Mankind can bring to bear, wouldn’t you find it particularly fascinating that of all the astonishing places that this man could have placed the tea kettle, that it just happens to be in the one place where we can’t confirm it? The existence of God is at least ‘suggested’ by a number of factors. The existence of an invisible 6 foot rabbit is not. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/122 "2010-08-31T06:10:07Z")
Name one thing that suggests the existence of your sky god. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/123 "2010-08-31T06:32:12Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > The existence of God is at least ‘suggested’ by a number of factors. The existence of an invisible 6 foot rabbit is not. The man who believes in the 6 foot rabbit would say the same thing. In none of my examples is it necessary to think that the person was intentionally lying. Self-deceit is a powerful force and not one that we have control over. If I went around the world, talking to random people, I would meet people who believed themselves to have a plenty of evidence for a variety of gods, mystical creatures, spirits, aliens, and magical spells. I would believe that nearly all of these people believed themselves, regardless of how obviously fictional it may be. Like I said, people have a powerful ability for self-deceit. They focus on “God”, ignoring that the arguments they use work just as well for Thor or Set. They ignore that the personal feeling of a religious experience is shared by people of other religions – including religions who worship aliens. They ignore that they’re subconsciously fiddling with definitions to make sure that what they believe in is always just beyond provability. I don’t think they’re being bad or nefarious. Whole populations of billions of people do it, for all sorts of beliefs. “God” didn’t even come around until after several thousand years of beliefs in thousands of other deities. And I’m sure that for all of that time, in all the corners of the Earth, everyone was quite honest about those beliefs. But good and honest intentions aren’t proof. If the thing that you’re hypothesizing the existence of just happens to be unprovable, I’m not going to give a lot of credence to the idea. And if I can then go and look through history and watch the development of Yahweh from a minor storm deity among a pantheon to what we see today, where all historical information surrounding the “revelation” of the existence of that deity as recorded in the Bible doesn’t match archaeology, and the movement to monotheism happened concurrently with the spread of monotheistic thought from India (I believe it was) at just the time that the Old Testament was written, I’m happy enough to say that it’s a load of crap. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/124 "2010-08-31T06:42:28Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > > > Perfectly? I could come up with far better versions. The existence of extinction events demonstrates that there’s room for improvement. And exactly how many alternatives have you compared against? > > Yes perfectly. And the existence of extinction events does not necessitate an imperfect design. There are moral imperatives for why creation is no longer ‘perfect’, but that is taking us onto a whole different subject. Your average human consumes about 100 watts of power a day, if I recall correctly. That power comes from food, which itself gets it energy from other food or from the Sun. If you follow the chain of power from food to food, eventually you always end up at he Sun: It powers all life on the Earth. Life would prosper by being in sunlight all the time. That would be closer to perfection. This could be accomplished by stretching the Earth into a hollow sphere or a ring that encircles the Sun, with humanity living on the inside. Of course, a shape like that would require direct intervention by a powerful being, rather than a shape that can be formed by the random floating about of particles. Why did God decide to give us half as much potential as he could have? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/125 "2010-08-31T07:09:01Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > On the contrary; you have done then opposite of define it. You’ve just said that your god isn’t made out of anything we understand, which makes it less defined and not more. Mostly you’ve made claims about what your god isn’t.. > > Where did I say that God is not made of anything we understand? God is super-natural. He is not part of or confined by the natural universe, whihc is of course logical since he created it. You said it right there, when you deny that God is made of anything we have any evidence actually exists or know anything about. Unless you want to claim the government has secret stocks of supernaturalium. > [@aigonz](#): > > Explain why God cannot be seperate from, yet interact in, this universe? > [QUOTE=Der Trihs] > Because those two things are opposites. If something interacts with the universe, it’s not separate. > [QUOTE=aigonz] > Nonsense. I can interact with my goldfish tank, yet I am seperate from it. And that is an example from the physical universe. [/QUOTE] [/quote] No, you are NOT separate from it; you affect it in innumerable ways just by being near it, much less by touching it. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/126 "2010-08-31T11:00:56Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > > > Fair enough for now. Just explain to me why the Flying Spaghetti Monster did not create the universe. > > I don’t know what atttributes you ascribe to the FSM, so I wouldn’t presume to argue any such thing. How about: it’s made of spaghetti? > [@](#): > > However it is my opinion that we can infer something ABOUT the designer from the DESIGN, which is why I submit that the God hypothesis is far more plausable than the FSM one. Since you’re not saying anything about the design or about the designer, this is less than persuasive. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/127 "2010-08-31T11:01:24Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > On the contrary; you have done then opposite of define it. You’ve just said that your god isn’t made out of anything we understand, which makes it less defined and not more. Mostly you’ve made claims about what your god isn’t.. > > Where did I say that God is not made of anything we understand? God is super-natural. He is not part of or confined by the natural universe, whihc is of course logical since he created it. If God is made of something we don’t understand,and is supernatural, he would still need a place that was there in existence before Him, so then the question comes up: Who created the space? If God was not in existence then one could say’“God doesn’t exist”. Existence must be the first order of anything. There is no human that doesn’t (or didn’t) rely on the word, writings, or beliefs, of another human, or manufacture them out of their own mind. Belief is not fact. so it all depends on what human thought ,writing, or teaching of some human. Because some human said God said something or told them to write ,or teach something is belief in the human not God! ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/128 "2010-08-31T22:39:13Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Name one thing that suggests the existence of your sky god. The existence of evil…and our recognition of it. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/129 "2010-08-31T22:40:46Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > The existence of God is at least ‘suggested’ by a number of factors. The existence of an invisible 6 foot rabbit is not. > > The man who believes in the 6 foot rabbit would say the same thing. In none of my examples is it necessary to think that the person was intentionally lying. Self-deceit is a powerful force and not one that we have control over. > > If I went around the world, talking to random people, I would meet people who believed themselves to have a plenty of evidence for a variety of gods, mystical creatures, spirits, aliens, and magical spells. I would believe that nearly all of these people believed themselves, regardless of how obviously fictional it may be. Like I said, people have a powerful ability for self-deceit. They focus on “God”, ignoring that the arguments they use work just as well for Thor or Set. They ignore that the personal feeling of a religious experience is shared by people of other religions – including religions who worship aliens. They ignore that they’re subconsciously fiddling with definitions to make sure that what they believe in is always just beyond provability. > > I don’t think they’re being bad or nefarious. Whole populations of billions of people do it, for all sorts of beliefs. “God” didn’t even come around until after several thousand years of beliefs in thousands of other deities. And I’m sure that for all of that time, in all the corners of the Earth, everyone was quite honest about those beliefs. > > But good and honest intentions aren’t proof. If the thing that you’re hypothesizing the existence of just happens to be unprovable, I’m not going to give a lot of credence to the idea. And if I can then go and look through history and watch the development of Yahweh from a minor storm deity among a pantheon to what we see today, where all historical information surrounding the “revelation” of the existence of that deity as recorded in the Bible doesn’t match archaeology, and the movement to monotheism happened concurrently with the spread of monotheistic thought from India (I believe it was) at just the time that the Old Testament was written, I’m happy enough to say that it’s a load of crap. What you are hypothesizing is how you read an historical development of man’s impression of God. Your history is incomplete, and your logic is flawed. Man’s impression of God or gods does not define God. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/130 "2010-08-31T22:41:54Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > Name one thing that suggests the existence of your sky god. > > The existence of evil…and our recognition of it. That’s a silly claim. It doesn’t take gods to commit or recognize evil. Nor is religion useful as a moral guide. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/131 "2010-08-31T22:42:38Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > Yes perfectly. And the existence of extinction events does not necessitate an imperfect design. There are moral imperatives for why creation is no longer ‘perfect’, but that is taking us onto a whole different subject. > > Your average human consumes about 100 watts of power a day, if I recall correctly. That power comes from food, which itself gets it energy from other food or from the Sun. If you follow the chain of power from food to food, eventually you always end up at he Sun: It powers all life on the Earth. > > Life would prosper by being in sunlight all the time. That would be closer to perfection. This could be accomplished by stretching the Earth into a hollow sphere or a ring that encircles the Sun, with humanity living on the inside. Of course, a shape like that would require direct intervention by a powerful being, rather than a shape that can be formed by the random floating about of particles. Why did God decide to give us half as much potential as he could have? And when would we rest? ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/132 "2010-08-31T22:45:30Z")
[quote=“Der\_Trihs, post:125, topic:551952”] > [@aigonz](#): > > Where did I say that God is not made of anything we understand? God is super-natural. He is not part of or confined by the natural universe, whihc is of course logical since he created it. You said it right there, when you deny that God is made of anything we have any evidence actually exists or know anything about. Unless you want to claim the government has secret stocks of supernaturalium. You are confusing three things: 1\> Understand. 2\> Evidence. 3\> Know anything about. These are three different things. We do not fully understand GGod, but we understand some things about Him. We do have evidence for God. We do know some things about God. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/133 "2010-08-31T22:46:02Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > > > Your average human consumes about 100 watts of power a day, if I recall correctly. That power comes from food, which itself gets it energy from other food or from the Sun. If you follow the chain of power from food to food, eventually you always end up at he Sun: It powers all life on the Earth. > > > > Life would prosper by being in sunlight all the time. That would be closer to perfection. This could be accomplished by stretching the Earth into a hollow sphere or a ring that encircles the Sun, with humanity living on the inside. Of course, a shape like that would require direct intervention by a powerful being, rather than a shape that can be formed by the random floating about of particles. Why did God decide to give us half as much potential as he could have? > > And when would we rest? Whenever it was convenient I would assume. Plenty of animals sleep during the day. Ever had a cat? ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/134 "2010-08-31T22:46:44Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > Explain why God cannot be seperate from, yet interact in, this universe? No, you are NOT separate from it; you affect it in innumerable ways just by being near it, much less by touching it. [/QUOTE] Of course I am seperate from it. I am physically a different state. You claim God cannot interact with the universe because He is seperate from it. Support this with argument. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/135 "2010-08-31T22:48:44Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > We do not fully understand GGod, but we understand some things about Him. No, we don’t. There’s no evidence for gods of any kind, so there’s nothing for us to look at about gods to understand them. > [@aigonz](#): > > We do have evidence for God. No, we don’t. And saying that we do over and over doesn’t make it true. > [@aigonz](#): > > We do know some things about God. We know he doesn’t exist. Everything else is just made up. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/136 "2010-08-31T22:49:21Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > The existence of evil…and our recognition of it. > > That’s a silly claim. It doesn’t take gods to commit or recognize evil. Nor is religion useful as a moral guide. 1\> We observe objective morailty. 2\> Humanity is incapableo f developing an objectve moral code. 3\> The objective moral law we observe has come from outside of humanity. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/137 "2010-08-31T22:50:54Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > We do not fully understand GGod, but we understand some things about Him. > > No, we don’t. There’s no evidence for gods of any kind, so there’s nothing for us to look at about gods to understand them. > > No, we don’t. And saying that we do over and over doesn’t make it true. > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > We do know some things about God. > > We know he doesn’t exist. Everything else is just made up. We ‘know’ He doesn’t exist? Surely you understand the illogic of this statement? Saying there is no evidence over and over again doesn;t make it so. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/138 "2010-08-31T22:57:14Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > And when would we rest? > > Whenever it was convenient I would assume. Plenty of animals sleep during the day. Ever had a cat? Many actually, and most sleep alll the time! But I said ‘we’, meaning humans. We need sleep, and we sleep best in darkness. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/139 "2010-08-31T23:01:04Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > And when would we rest? Resting is sub-optimal. It’s an adaptation due to the state of the world. It’s more efficient on a world like ours to specialize as a day or night creature and rest during the off-time. On a planet with a constant light source, we wouldn’t have evolved this way. And of course, that’s if we’re talking about evolution. For a reasoned, goal-oriented creator, adding in random stuff like night, free-floating continents, molten planetary cores, etc. are all needless waste. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/140 "2010-08-31T23:02:56Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > We ‘know’ He doesn’t exist? > > Surely you understand the illogic of this statement? Nothing illogical about it at all. I know gods don’t exist for the same reason that I know Sauron and the Wicked Witch of the West don’t exist; they are fictional characters who violate the laws of physics and have zero evidence for their reality. I find believers in God to be just as silly as someone going around claiming to be a real Jedi Knight with Force powers. > [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > That’s a silly claim. It doesn’t take gods to commit or recognize evil. Nor is religion useful as a moral guide. > > 1\> We observe objective morailty. > 2\> Humanity is incapableo f developing an objectve moral code. > 3\> The objective moral law we observe has come from outside of humanity. What would this “observable objective morality” be? Assuming that there is an objective moral code, it certainly doesn’t come from any gods; if it did, it wouldn’t be “objective”. Nor (again assuming such a code exists) is there any reason to assume we couldn’t discover it on our own just as we’ve discovered all sorts of other objective facts. Nor does religion make people more moral; rather the opposite, religion is a powerful source of amorality and evil. The first rule of moral progress (or any other kind) is to throw out religion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952.md?page=8)