The Paradox of Atheism and God

[viole]

Define pagan. If you do, I will show you it is false. That will be a nice little triple defeat for you.

Pagan mean believing in a God like Thor.

So, any defeater of that which is not question begging is welcome.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

Pagan mean believing in a God like Thor.

So, any defeater of that which is not question begging is welcome.

Ciao

- viole

 

[soulsurvivor]

My logic is not impressive at all. People sometimes erroneously think I am somewhat smart, but what I am doing here is the intellectual equivalent of stealing lolly-pops from little children.

Sorry to make the mistake to think you are smart.

You claimed that God does not care if we believe in Him, or we obeyed him, while still wanting something from us.

How is that logically possible?

I do not care if you believe in me and I definitely don't want you to obey me. But I still want you to be good to poor people. Which means I want you to vote for people who will take care of the poor (if you yourself donate to such causes that would also be nice). It may not seem logical to you for some reason, but that is what I want.

 

[soulsurvivor]

Atheists do not believe in any reality where gods exist. Some of them are also philosophical naturalists. Philosophical naturalists do not believe in any reality except what we can observe physically.
I am an atheist (by colloquial definition) and I believe in the existence of realms beyond the physical (though I don't call those "real").
Mathematics (the realm of shapes and numbers) has a remarkable internal consistency and is a valuable tool to describe the natural world.
Gods could theoretically also be part of that realm or they could have their own but nobody has as yet found any god that has internal consistency or relation to the real world.

Very interesting! You say those other realms exist, but they are not 'real' and yet you believe in them? So, you believe in non-existent things that you cannot see, but you are absolutely sure those non-existent things do not contain any gods. I need to think over this. Thanks

 

[dybmh]

Thor does not need my definition to exist.

You need to define it, since you have been repeatedly trying to use it in a argument. If we go with the conventional defintion, you automatically lose.

He is the god of gods, the king of kings,

OK. An arbitrary non-standard definition of Thor. Not Thor with the hammer. That explains why you kept asking and not acccepting my answer. You were using a NON-STANDARD definition. Not the God of Thunder.

Well, what you brought is a fail. King of Kings is a pagan moniker. More support that atheists don't know the bible. And this is a "gnostic" atheist.

Here are the Kings of Kings:

​

For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will bring upon Tyre Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.​

You [Nebuchadrezzar], O king, are a king of kings; to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength, and the glory.​

​

Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of heaven, perfect peace,​

​

your God is nothing but a manifestation of Him.

That does not match what is written in the Torah. Are you assuming there is no Torah for this hypothetical?

Why do you care of the manifestation of God that your religion expects?

That is the manifestation that was intended for me. That is how God is expressing itself to me. I was born as a Jewish person, in a Jewish home, with Jewish parents who raised me Jewish.

If God wanted me to worship using different names, in a different way, to a different god which is in the form of a "King of Kings" then I would have been born in a different family and raised differently.

 

[viole]

Sorry to make the mistake to think you are smart.

I do not care if you believe in me and I definitely don't want you to obey me. But I still want you to be good to poor people. Which means I want you to vote for people who will take care of the poor (if you yourself donate to such causes that would also be nice). It may not seem logical to you for some reason, but that is what I want.

Yet you still failed to justify your position.

You said,

1) God does not care if you believe in Him or obey Him
2) God wants to do this and that

Both points are easily traceable to your posts.

Can you please explain to us how those two position are logical compatible?

Ciao

- viole

 

[dybmh]

Pagan mean believing in a God like Thor.

That's an arbitrary non-standard definition.

He is the god of gods, the king of kings,

That cannot be the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.

Here are the Kings of Kings:

​

For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will bring upon Tyre Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.​

You [Nebuchadrezzar], O king, are a king of kings; to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength, and the glory.​

​

Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of heaven, perfect peace,​

​

welcome to the pagan world

Nope. Like I said. Once you define your terms, you lose. The score is 3 and 0. What do you want to talk about now?

 

[soulsurvivor]

Yet you still failed to justify your position.

You said,

1) God does not care if you believe in Him or obey Him
2) God wants to do this and that

Both points are easily traceable to your posts.

Can you please explain to us how those two position are logical compatible?

Ciao

- viole

You are way too smart for me to argue with. Can you instead explain to me why I would want you to be good to poor people?

 

[dybmh]

Yet you still failed to justify your position.

YOU failed to justify your position. Typical hypocrisy and double standards. I'm loving this.

If I pray to Thor, and you pray to Jesus, then it follows that at least one of us is worshipping something that does not exist. Ergo, one of us is deluded. Necessarily so

Nope the only delusion is that you know what you're talking about when it comes to the theism. You are assuming that God cannot reveal itself to multiple people in multiple different ways at different timees, places, andd for different reasons. This is the famous "blind-men-and-the-elephant" story.

You are in front of the trunk, so you see the trunk. Some one else is on the side, so thet see the side. It's still one big elephant, but you can only see the part that is facing you.

How can you be a "gnostic" atheist of you don't KNOW the story of the blind men and the elephant?

Blind men and an elephant - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[dybmh]

You said,

1) God does not care if you believe in Him or obey Him
2) God wants to do this and that

Both points are easily traceable to your posts.

Can you please explain to us how those two position are logical compatible?

Not true. The claim was stated and clarified. You are not quoting it properly. Here is the claim then I will answer it:

"He just wants you to take care of the poor and asks that, no requirement at all."

This is called benevolence. A benevolent god would want to create beings that would nurture and support each other by choice not by force. If it was forced; it would not be benevolent. No one can be forced to be kind. This is simple english language. Hopefully you can understand. Hopefully "benevolence" is not beyond your comprehension.

You asked for a logical compatiblle answer. If God is benevolent, then it will want its creation to choose to nurture each other. Easy.

 

[PureX]

So the problem is that I'm not seeing the evidence
that you're not presenting.

It's not my responsibility to present you with any evidence.

That's your "evidence"?
That's not reasoning.
Just rationale for belief.

Something is true because someone you
call a "great mind" said so. They're inerrant, eh.

Evidence is evidence, not truth. We will never know the truth of God. But we can seek out and consider the evidence.

Logical Fallacies: Appeal to Authority

Appeal to Authority: A fundamental reason why the Appeal to Authority can be a fallacy is that a proposition can be well supported only by facts and logically valid inferences. But by using an authority, the argument is relying upon testimony, not facts. A testimony is not an argument and it is...

www.thoughtco.com

Why not believe other great minds who don't
believe in such malarkey?

Why believe any of them when none of them can know the truth? Why not seek out and consider the evidence and then choose for ourselves?

You keep telling me what I want.

Ad Hominem Fallacy | Definition & Examples

Ad hominem fallacy (or ad hominem) is an attempt to discredit someone’s argument by personally attacking them. Instead of discussing the argument itself,

www.scribbr.com

Goodness gracious.
Such hostile statements.
I begin to sense fanaticism.

Oh you poor fragile snowflake, all emotionally scarred, now, by mean ole PureX!

 

[viole]

Nope the only delusion is that you know what you're talking about when it comes to the theism. You are assuming that God cannot reveal itself to multiple people in multiple different ways at different timees, places, andd for different reasons. This is the famous "blind-men-and-the-elephant" story.

Well, that is not my point. I am actually conceding this, for the sake of discussion.

But if we assume that, the question is: how do you know you are not worshiping Thor, instead?

If God, or Gods, can reveal herself, or themselves, to multiple people in multiple different ways at different times, places, and for different reasons, how do you know that the God Who inspired your Scriptures is not, in fact, Thor? And that Thor is, indeed, the true God manifesting Himself in different forms?

It could be that He decided, for one of those different reasons, to manifest Himself to the ancient Hebrews as the God you know, inspired their Scriptures, and made them believe that there is only one God, instead of many in Valhalla.

So, how do you know?

Ciao

- viole

 

[metis]

Please define Thor.

Some days I'm very Thor.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Ok. Let's put that to the test. Let's see how well you studied, and/or, if you are resourceful. What is the reason the so-called unholy nations were to be exterminated from the "land"?

You're quizzing me? Sorry, but I've been uninterested in the Bible for decades now. Why would I care about the answer to that? Did you think I claimed to have retained biblical trivia? I have to a great extent. I do very well on Jeopardy: Who was Rachel? Who was Benjamin? Who was Jonathon? But that's just leftover from the past and has no other value to me than in trivia contests: What is the Land of Nod? Who was Miriam? What is the Golden Calf?

You seem to be interested in a topic of no interest to me - whether unbelievers know as much biblical detail as believers. They don't.

What I claimed is that I am very familiar with biblical scripture and do not defer to self-proclaimed biblical experts about the meaning of text or whether biblical prophecy has been fulfilled or what the six days of creation and one of rest refer to, etc.. Perhaps you'd like to address that. Do you think I should?

It's not my responsibility to present you with any evidence.

It is if you wish to be believed by a critical thinker. If you don't mind your ideas being dismissed as unsupported opinion, you're good as you are.

Don't forget that you are providing evidence regarding your beliefs and how you arrive at them. You advocate a certain mindset and decry "materialists" and "scientism" as myopic, but then can produce nothing of value from whatever method you use to "see further" beyond claims like the one above - 'It's not my job to convince you.' But you have convinced me - just not what you thought you convinced me of.

I've suggested to you and many others to step outside of yourselves and try to see yourself as others do if you care about how you are perceived, which is very relevant to whether you are considered credible or to be taken seriously. Those are things I care about a lot. I made a logical error in a thread earlier this week and am still kicking myself for it. It was a baseball thread, and I wrote, "I have a question about these numbers. Every team seems to have less than a 50% chance of winning the World Series if it gets there (divide Make World Series by Win World Series). That can't be right, can it?" It was just the American League, and the National League is favored to win the Series against any American League team, since the Dodgers and Braves, both National League teams, are number 1 and 2 these days. Not like me, and I was embarrassed:

We will never know the truth of God. But we can seek out and consider the evidence.

Done long ago. I was and still am an agnostic atheist. How long should I dwell on what that evidence reveals? How long does it take to come to that tentative conclusion, and what new evidence would change that? Another claim to have located Noah's ark or another chariot in the Red Sea? And unexplained phenomenon such as a "miracle" healing?

There seems to be an attitude among many that searching for the same answers all one's life is a virtue. I'd say that they're confusing that with learning over a lifetime, which is a virtue. Looking for gods for decades seems like a poor use of time. One can decide that the question is undecidable and move on to other matters, or he can keep looking in vain forever.

 

[PureX]

Well, that is not my point. I am actually conceding this, for the sake of discussion.

But if we assume that, the question is: how do you know you are not worshiping Thor, instead?

If God, or Gods, can reveal herself, or themselves, to multiple people in multiple different ways at different times, places, and for different reasons, how do you know that the God Who inspired your Scriptures is not, in fact, Thor? And that Thor is, indeed, the true God manifesting Himself in different forms?

We don't know. God is not knowable. God is beyond the grasp of human knowing. God is the source, sustenance and purpose of all that is. And that is not something we can know, or understand, or manipulate. God is beyond that.

So we can only trust and hope in that great mystery. Or not.

It could be that He decided, for one of those different reasons, to manifest Himself to the ancient Hebrews as the God you know, inspired their Scriptures, and made them believe that there is only one God, instead of many in Valhalla.

So, how do you know?

Why do you keep insisting that we must know? There is much we humans don't know. There is much we humans can't know. And will never know. Surely you understand this. So why are you insisting that we must know God's nature, name, and intent? Or to whom and how God chooses to express itself?

 

[Muffled]

That's OK. It is wrong but you have a right to be wrong.

I believe you can say that all day and twice on Tuesdays but without a rational it is just blowing smoke.

 

[Revoltingest]

It's not my responsibility to present you with any evidence.

I really don’t want any from you.
But with your repeated claims of evidence
for gods existing, & that atheists are unreasonable
for not believing them, an honest poster would
at least try to support the claims.

 

[dybmh]

But if we assume that, the question is: how do you know you are not worshiping Thor, instead?

Asked and asnwered. Your definition does not match what is written about the god I worship.

I asked a follow up question which appears to have been ignored. Answering the question will move the conversation forward.

Continuing to crash-reboot and ask the same questions repeatedly will end this conversation.

Question: Are you assuming there is no written Torah in this hypothetical??

If God, or Gods, can reveal herself, or themselves, to multiple people in multiple different ways at different times, places, and for different reasons, how do you know that the God Who inspired your Scriptures is not, in fact, Thor? And that Thor is, indeed, the true God manifesting Himself in different forms?

Because you did not define Thor is this way. I did not say ANY GOD can do what you are describing. If you define Thor, arbitrarily, using a non-standard ddefintion, so that it automatically matches the description in the Torah, then, it is the same god, different name. That's semantics.

If you arbitrarily define Pagan, such that it matches Judiasm. Then that is the same theological position with a different name. That's semantics.

Are you defining "Thor" and "Pagan" in this way? If not, then it's not the same god, not the same theology.

 

[dybmh]

You're quizzing me? Sorry

You made a claim that you studied tthe bible, both the OT and NT for years. Yes, your claim, your burden. If you can't answer a simple question, that is yet more and more evidence that online-atheist's do not know the bible eventhough this more complete knowledge is part of their theology.

Why would I care about the answer to that?

Because you made a claim, and you clearly can not support it. Whatever "study" you did has not produced any command of the subject matter.

Therefore, any confidence you have in theism, is woefully exaggeratted. Typical.

 

[viole]

uestion: Are you assuming there is no written Torah in this hypothetical??

I am asking you what makes you think the Torah has not been inspired by Thor, instead. I mean, they are almost one the anagram of the other. A possible sign, LOL.

If God likes to take different forms, to different people, and for different reasons, then, well, why not? How do you know?

Because you did not define Thor is this way. I did not say ANY GOD can do what you are describing. If you define Thor, arbitrarily, using a non-standard ddefintion, so that it automatically matches the description in the Torah, then, it is the same god, different name. That's semantics.

Ok, can you name me an alternative God what could have done that? Shall we go with Allah, instead, or do you have a better candidate?

Ciao

- viole