Atheist looking for religious debate. Any religion. Let's see if I can be convinced.

[Trailblazer]

You misunderstand. Me pointing out where your arguments fail is not me trying to prove you wrong. It is me showing how you prove yourself wrong.

That amounts to the same thing. You pointing out where my arguments fail is you trying to prove I am wrong.

 

[ratiocinator]

There is no logical reason why the message from God should be as easy to find as a vaccine and to compare it to a vaccine is the fallacy of false equivalence because medicine is not equivalent to a message from God.

It is in the way I'm using it.

There are reasons why a vaccine needs to be easy for everyone to fid but there are no reasons why a message from a Messenger should be easy to find.

Assertion.

The main reason is because God does not want to make it easy and since God is the sender of the message God makes that judgment call, humans do not make it. It is highly illogical for any human to think they can dictate how an omnipotent/omniscient God ‘should’ deliver His message.

Irrelevant to my point.

There is no logical reason an why omniscient, omnipotent, just and fair creator god, who has an important message for its creation would make that message clear to everybody and not allow it to be confused with superstition, corrupted or misinterpreted. The logical reason why such a God would not do that is because that God gave man a rational mind and free will to choose.

That's actually a reason to make the message clear and not difficult to find. A rational mind has no reason to think there is a god or a message to look for.

It is your personal opinion and that is ALL it is. God had a message that it is important for humans to recognize and God handed it out to Messengers who were not only human, they were also divine. God allowed the messages to get corrupted by man because God allows free will.

By allowing the messages to be corrupted, god is actually depriving many of making a free will choice to respond or not, because many see no reason to take it seriously in the first place. You're basically saying that your god values the free will of those who corrupt its messages above the free will of many who might otherwise respond to it.

Fair enough, of course there are reasons for the choices we make but since about 90% of our thinking is subconscious I don't think we can always know those reasons although sometimes we might know.

Regardless of whether we know all the reasons or not, either our choices are entirely due to some set of reasons or not, and if not, then some part of choice-making must be random. Minds are either deterministic systems or they aren't.

Why wouldn't it work, if the omniscient, omnipotent creator wanted us to have free will and use it?

Depends. Do you think your god could draw a square circle? If so, then free will (in this sense) might exist, if not, then it's just as impossible.

 

[Tiberius]

That amounts to the same thing. You pointing out where my arguments fail is you trying to prove I am wrong.

No, it is not the same thing.

Me explaining how you are proving yourself wrong is not the same thing as me proving you wrong.

 

[Trailblazer]

No, it is not the same thing.

Me explaining how you are proving yourself wrong is not the same thing as me proving you wrong.

Okay then, how am I proving myself wrong?

 

[Trailblazer]

It is in the way I'm using it.

I know, but that is the fallacy of false equivalence because medicine is not equivalent to a message from God.

Assertion.

No different from your assertion that a message from a Messenger should be as easy to find as a vaccine.

Irrelevant to my point.

But not irrelevant to God's point.

That's actually a reason to make the message clear and not difficult to find. A rational mind has no reason to think there is a god or a message to look for.

A biased mind that thinks it is a rational mind would have no reason to think there is a God or a message to look for.

You are correct that the fact that God gave us a rational mind is a reason to make the message clear and not difficult to find. The message of Baha'u'llah is both clear and easy to find. Moreover, everyone has the capacity to recognize that message because everyone was created with a rational mind. However, having a rational mind is no guarantee that people will use their rational mind.

When I said "there is no logical reason why omniscient, omnipotent, just and fair creator god, who has an important message for its creation would make that message clear to everybody and not allow it to be confused with superstition, corrupted or misinterpreted" what I meant was there is no logical reason why God would make that message clear to everybody, and the reason God is not going to make the message clear to everybody is because God wants people to use their rational mind to try to understand the message. In other words, God does not have to make us understand the message since we all have the capacity to understand it with our rational mind.

However, we have to choose to look for the message and look at the message and try to understand it because God not only gave us a rational mind, God also gave us free will to choose what to do with our rational mind.

By allowing the messages to be corrupted, god is actually depriving many of making a free will choice to respond or not, because many see no reason to take it seriously in the first place. You're basically saying that your god values the free will of those who corrupt its messages above the free will of many who might otherwise respond to it.

No, I am not saying that God values the free will of those who corrupt its messages above the free will of many who might otherwise respond to those messages. I am saying that God allows free will, period, so that is why the messages were corrupted by man.

It does not matter what was corrupted in the past because the past is behind us and now we have a new message from God, so rational people would not look to the older messages from God that have been corrupted, they would look at the new message that has not become corrupted. The message of Baha'u'llah is not subject to being corrupted by man because God put a written Covenant in place to prevent man from corrupting it. Why God did not do that in the past was because humanity was not spiritually evolved enough to adhere to a written Covenant. Man had to evolve spiritually over time just as everything evolves over time.

Regardless of whether we know all the reasons or not, either our choices are entirely due to some set of reasons or not, and if not, then some part of choice-making must be random. Minds are either deterministic systems or they aren't.

I agree that there are reasons why we choose what we choose, I do not believe that any choices are random.

What we call free will is simply the will/ability to make choices based upon our desires and preferences. Our desires and preferences come from a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances. How free they are varies with the situation. Certainly what we refer to as “free will” has many constraints such as capability and opportunity.

Depends. Do you think your god could draw a square circle? If so, then free will (in this sense) might exist, if not, then it's just as impossible.

Why is it impossible for free will to exist if a omniscient, omnipotent creator exists? What is the contradiction?

 

[Tiberius]

Okay then, how am I proving myself wrong?

By flip flopping back and forth between two mutually exclusive claims. Ratiocinator gave an example of you contradicting yourself in this way in post 3814.

 

[Trailblazer]

By flip flopping back and forth between two mutually exclusive claims. Ratiocinator gave an example of you contradicting yourself in this way in post 3814.

Sorry, that is not helpful. I am not going to go back and read what he wrote and try to figure out what you are referring to. If you don't have time to explain what you mean ta ta for now.

 

[ratiocinator]

I know, but that is the fallacy of false equivalence because medicine is not equivalent to a message from God.

You really do need to understand stand how analogies work. The only way in which they are, or need to be, similar, to make the analogy work, is that they are messages that it is important for people to receive for their well-being. You don't hide "Danger - high voltage! " signs in puzzle boxes.

A biased mind that thinks it is a rational mind would have no reason to think there is a God or a message to look for.

In all the many, many, many messages we've exchanged, I have yet to read even the merest suggestion of the first hint of the tiniest scintilla of a rational reason to take your god-concept at all seriously. Every time you go into it, you collapse into circularity and assume your own religion.

The message of Baha'u'llah is both clear and easy to find.

But not clearly a message from a real god.

There is no prima facie reason to think that there is a god at all, and, even if one thought there might be, there is no reason to think that Baha'u'llah is the right place to look. And, no, it doesn't make sense to look at the newest faith unless you first assume a series of messages, which would be assuming Baháʼís are right about that, which is circular.

...so rational people would not look to the older messages from God that have been corrupted, they would look at the new message that has not become corrupted.

Right on cue, the circular argument again.

What we call free will is simply the will/ability to make choices based upon our desires and preferences. Our desires and preferences come from a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances.

Exactly, and either all of those things combine to make our choices in any situation inevitable, which would mean we are basically deterministic and all our choices would have effectively been made at the moment of creation, or they don't, and there is something about our choice-making that is random, because it happens for no reason. Randomness can't give us freedom, nor can we be held responsible for it.

Neither can give you 'free will' with respect to an omnipotent, omniscient creator.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

In all the many, many, many messages we've exchanged, I have yet to read even the merest suggestion of the first hint of the tiniest scintilla of a rational reason to take your god-concept at all seriously. Every time you go into it, you collapse into circularity and assume your own religion.


...


Right on cue, the circular argument again.

...

I agree with you in that in effect God is a matter of belief and nothing else.
But there is a problem. If I were to ask for to justify your belief in rational you would also run into problems, because your version of rational is a belief and there are other beliefs possible about what make a rational reason.

So we end here. In a limited sense we can believe differently and that is not just unique to religion.

What you have done, is this: Münchhausen's Trilemma. But that applies to all humans in a limited sense and not just religious humans.

 

[ratiocinator]

What you have done, is this: Münchhaussen's Trilema.

Firstly, I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm talking about a rational approach to the available evidence.

To recap (and hopefully avoid repeating a discussion we've had before), it is based on pragmatically accepting the 'real world' because it is qualitatively different to all our other experiences, and it and its rules are inescapable. In other words, if it's not reality, it might as well be.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Firstly, I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm talking about a rational approach to the available evidence.

To recap (and hopefully avoid repeating a discussion we've had before), it is based on pragmatically accepting the 'real world' because it is qualitatively different to all our other experiences, and it and its rules are inescapable. In other words, if it's not reality, it might as well be.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick

Yeah, and I use a different subjective stand for rational that you in all likelihood.
We agree that there is an objective element to reality. We just disagree about some cases of objective versus subjective.

And no, I don't believe in your reality.

 

[ratiocinator]

And no, I don't believe in your reality.

When you can fly unaided just because you don't believe in gravity, I'll take you seriously.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

When you can fly unaided just because you don't believe in gravity, I'll take you seriously.

That is not all of the everyday world. If I do something differently than you, then doesn't in all cases get me killed. But here is the evidence for God. I deny the universal application of your example and thus I am dead. Since I am dead, yet still communicating with you, that is proof of God. Your example is absurd for how all of the world works.

I can think, feel and act differently that you in some cases and that doesn't get me killed. It is called relativism and it has its limits, but it is a part of the world.

 

[ratiocinator]

But here is the evidence for God. I deny the universal application of your example and thus I am dead. Since I am dead, yet still communicating with you, that is proof of God.

How did you cram so many non sequiturs into so few words?

I can think, feel and act differently that you in some cases and that doesn't get me killed. It is called relativism and it has its limits...

And those limits are the borderline between the 'objective' (intersubjectively verifiable) and the subjective.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

How did you cram so many non sequiturs into so few words?


And those limits are the borderline between the 'objective' (intersubjectively verifiable) and the subjective.

Yeah, so there is your example with gravity, and I had to force you to admit that is more. The God of the Gaps is not really religious. It is that we can in some cases think, feel and act differently.

 

[ratiocinator]

Yeah, so there is your example with gravity, and I had to force you to admit that is more.

No idea what you think you've forced me to admit.

The God of the Gaps is not really religious. It is that we can in some cases think, feel and act differently.

Who mentioned the god of the gaps? Don't know what you're really trying to say here.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No idea what you think you've forced me to admit.


Who mentioned the god of the gaps? Don't know what you're really trying to say here.

You make an example of something universal to all humans. I point out that it has a limit and you then admit that. That limit in the intersubjective is what allows the God of the gaps.

 

[Tiberius]

Sorry, that is not helpful. I am not going to go back and read what he wrote and try to figure out what you are referring to. If you don't have time to explain what you mean ta ta for now.

Yes it is helpful, as I gave you a direct link to the post I was talking about, a post which shows the two statements that you made that are contradictory. If you had bothered to click on that link you would have seen it.

 

[SkepticThinker]

You cannot tell me what I know because you are not me. I do know it. What I know is built upon existing knowledge, not upon belief.

"If you can't show it, you don't know it."
-Aron Ra

 

[SkepticThinker]

That's easy, if they talk sh*t they're a crackpot "christian" cult..

Hmm, well you've talked a lot of sh*t so far in this thread so ....