For one thing it’s said as a teasing joke rather than a serious question. Additionally the point is that the person you’re asking can’t be 100% certain they are correct in their interpretation of God and/or the Bible. {Even if they say they are}So the question suggests, what if I truly believed God was directing me in a different direction and toward different beliefs. Who should I listen to?
I used to get a lot of, “Well my friend who has studied this for years and years says”
to which I replied, “Lots of people who have studied the Bible for years don’t agree. So who should I listen to?”
"I’d also get “Well you have to follow the Bible and what it says?”
“OKay, according to whose interpretation, because again. lots of Christians who want to follow the Bible don’t agree on what that means?”
“I read a book by a biblical scholar who said” Same answer
Pursuing this the only reasonable conclusion is that a person has to ultimately answer to their own interpretation of Jesus.
I’ve heard it more than once from Christians. Funny that you dismissed it as baseless snark, though, when you follow it up with this:
Y’know, If I wasted my time considering everything that was possible without weighing the available evidence, I wouldn’t be able to get anything done. Do consider, though, that if God put the “God-spot” in the brain for precisely that reason, then he would be subverting our free will.
I dismissed it as baseless snark because it was a snark on something I hadn’t said and was making no attempt to say. I merely pointed out that the existence of a brain centre which when artificially stimulated produces a certain illusionary response does not prove that all such activity is illusionary. That you may have heard the quoted line more than once from Christians does not entitle you to drag it in on this occasion (still less does it actually show it to be false).
Considered. Evaluated. Response follows: your objection doesn’t stand up to thirty seconds of casual criticism, namely this: We’re still at liberty to ignore the bleeps from our hypothesised God-spot, even to explain them away as random activity in some ill-understood area of the brain. Hence our free will is intact.
A classless response to having an obvious flaw in the argument drawn to your attention.
Obvious because it disposes of the apparent paradox with the least multiplication of unnecessary entities.
How do you know it’s a lie? Can you prove it’s a lie? And remember, I’m not asserting anything specific about my own views… I’m simply repeating the word of God as directly revealed to me via my close, personal relationship with Him. And what he told me was that when you talk about religious or spiritual matters, you’re telling lies and trying to lead me astray. So, I repeat, am I to believe you or him?
( I see from Malacandra’s reply that in my original formulation, the phrase ‘everything you are saying is a lie’ can lead to a refutation familiar to anyone who has studied the Epimenides Paradox. So I would modify it thus: “I have a close, personal relationshiop with God and I hear messages from him very clearly. Last night he told me to ignore you, and told me that everything you say pertaining to religion or faith is a lie. Should I believe him, or you?” )
And my reply is a modified version of the previous one: “What I am saying now pertains to religion, as it addresses the question of whether God lies. Either I am lying to you now, or God lied to you, or you have just lied to me.” The implication is left as an exercise or the student. It is possible that you are deluded, in which case this will likely become apparent from your general conduct.
It is true that scientists often differ as to the meaning of a discovery. This is not an example of any such disagreement, since no scientist disagreed with Drs. Smith and Gingerich.
Evolution is based on every single piece of biological knowledge we’ve amassed as a species. Every chunk of DNA sequenced, the placement of every fossil ever found, the result of every experiment with fruit flies support evolution. Nothing ever found disputes it. Look it up, you’ll find it to be the case.
There are those, of who I am one, who might be skeptical about a webpage created by a student at a community college insofar as being the end-all authority on evolution.
On Topic:
I think a good creationist question is, “Prove to me God exists. You can’t use circular reasoning.” I, as of yet have heard no credible answer.
I was going by what you said: that it was a “teasing question.”
I can go back and check your old posts, and see whether they’re compatible with you having the kind of personal relationship with God where God would tell you such things.
Supposing you really did say to me, “I have a close, personal relationshiop with God and I hear messages from him very clearly. Last night he told me to ignore you, and that everything you are saying is a lie. Should I believe him, or you?” and supposing I couldn’t tell from the context or the way you said it that you were yanking my chain. Then I would probably say something like, “Is that true? Did God really tell you that?”
And if you answered “Yes, God did,” in a sincere tone of voice, I might ask you more about your relationship with God and about other things God has told you, in an attempt to find out whether you’re lying to me or whether you sincerely believe what you said—and in that case whether you are deluded, and to what extent, or whether God really has communicated with you.
“Deluded” seems a little harsh, don’t you think? Maybe you meant to say “mistaken” which, by the way, leads me to ask about a possibility you left off your list-that you might be mistaken in believing that God has spoken to you. Do you even consider this to be a possibility?
I see what you are saying, but I object to applying the same broad brush to all Creationists. While there are plenty that are so steadfast in their views that they are immune to reason, but I think some (like the guy that I was talking about) can be challenged enough so that they at least end up consider why they believe what they do. You have to be gentle and non-condenscending with them, though, or else they’ll just become defensive and won’t listen.
I will cheerfully concede to your objection; when painting with a broad brush, one does tend to go outside the lines a little.
Still, I’ve seen the reaction I descibed numerous times; heck, lekatt has it on his speed-dial. So it seemed worth posting as a counter to your “Merely lead them to water, and they might drink” post.
No problem, since we don’t believe in any perfect demigod people. I also doubt you can bring up anything not already covered in the Talmud and the Mishnah. There are commentaries upon commentaries upon commentaries - Jews invented hyperlinks, you know.
You are making the error, common to people who know nothing about evolution and the evidence for it, that fossils constitute the only evidence for evolution. Even if scientists haven’t found a fossil linking whales to land-bound ancestors, the whale’s genes tell the story of their evolutionary history. The fact that the whale gene is encoded for hind legs, and some whales are born with hind legs, is evidence of their descent from land animals. You still have not, contrary to my challenge, given a creationist explanation for why whales would have genes for hind legs and feet. Please give this explanation ASAP.
And I notice you didn’t even touch my question about endogenous retroviruses. So I’m still waiting for a creationist explanation for why we share those with other higher primates. Again, please provide your creationist explanation ASAP.
The point is that this is neither more nor less likely to be true in my case than it is in yours, or in the case of anyone who claims any form of direct relationship with a god or gods, or anyone who ever claims to know what a god or gods thinks or wants them to do. Any attack you can make on my assertion applies equally well to yourself. That’s why it’s a good question to ask anyone whose mind is infected with the god delusion, which includes creationists, which is what the OP was all about.
I don’t think the ‘general conduct’ argument holds much water. It’s a little bit like realtivity theory - just about any conduct can be called ‘deluded’, depending on the point of view of the observer. Eating a wafer you believe to be actual body and blood seems normal to a catholic, somewhat deluded to a non-catholic. You can invent as many examples as you like, addressing every faith and belief on earth.
From my point of view, creationists are deluded, but no more so than anyone else who seriously maintains that they can know a god exists, or know what this god wants them to do or not to do, or know that this god doesn’t want them to eat certain things. But that’s just from my point of view. Other people have other points of view, of course. But I’ve never persecuted anyone for disagreeing with me. Show me a religion that can claim the same.
If I had meant to say “mistaken” then I would have used that word; this is my native language which I have spoken fluently for forty-odd years. I would use the word “mistaken” if I said “I thought it was Harry who I was talking to on the phone, but I was mistaken - it was actually Ben”, but I don’t think it’s possible to say “I thought God was talking to me, but I was mistaken - it was actually Fred”. Hence my choice of words. As for the rest of your point, at no time had I based any part of my argument on the supposition that God has spoken to me, and when I do, it will be time enough to get around to whether I should consider the possibility that I am mistaken.
Ah. I am infected with the god delusion, and your soul is safely in the clutches of Satan, and we understand each other. There’s no reason why I should exert myself to respect your position when you despise mine.
I don’t believe you to be more likely to be deluded than I would be in your shoes, but I am quite confident that you are lying to me, and I know you are, and you know I am, and I need go no further in refuting you. It’s like you bringing a bomb onto a plane and then arguing about what the possibility is of there being a bomb on the plane.
Which being interpreted is: “This has nothing much to do with creationists, but that’s no reason why I should pass up the opportunity to bash Christians.”
Well, I personally would strive for a definition of “deluded” which was not so watered down as to be functionally useless - just as I try to use the word “omnipotence” in some more useful fashion than defining it in terms of creating rocks too heavy for the omnipotent being to lift. And using such a yardstick I wouldn’t find it useful to label a belief in transsubstantiation as deluded - given that the Catholics themselves are quite clear that this doesn’t entail the wafer physically turning into a mouthful of bloody raw flesh. I’m happy to reserve the word “deluded” to apply to something as gross as a belief that God is telling a specific person that some other specific person is wholly untruthful, for no reason at all. I don’t say that something so bizarre could never happen, but I’d be looking for corroboration, and I’d be looking to see if the claimant was talking to trees as well.
You’ve never had the opportunity to persecute anyone, so I shouldn’t make too much haste to claim moral superiority if I were you. I would be very worried about power falling into the hands of anyone who considered large numbers of his fellow men deluded.
We don’t believe in any perfect demigod people either. So I can take it that both you and this smart Jewish lady keep the law of Moses in all particulars? Otherwise I’d have to take it that you thought you knew better than Moses.
