the right religion

[1robin]

Another pathetic distortion of what I wrote, namely that only a small percentage of people in one small area of the world at a very late date were exposed to the teachings found in Judaism and Christianity. BTW, I read a remark of a Christian theologian who's familiar with China who said that probably 2/3 of the Chinese population couldn't give you a simple definition of who Jesus was.

Therefore, the point I made is very much valid, namely that most of the world's population historically probably had no clue who Jesus was, plus there's undoubtedly so many others today who probably know little to nothing about him.

I commented on every claim you made in its proper context.

Let me break it down in a better and more simple way.

There are two groups. The less than 10% that existed before Christ's message, and the 90% (or more accurately) over 95% of those that have existed after his message was provided. Group A was commented on by me but I would find a scholar to provide a comprehensive explanation for that group. I can and have dealt with the latter group. They either have been exposed to the message (by far the majority) or are only judged on what they have been exposed to. That takes care of 100% of the group that contains 95% of the human population in totality. What part of that latter group have I not accounted for?

 

[metis]

As for your numbers. I had watched every debate on evolution versus theology that either Utube or google video had available. I have transcripts to many. I have read quite a number of books on the issues. Every single person from your side who has had to answer the question of how long Humans (us) have lived uses the same numbers. These: The emergence of modern humans

Fossil evidence suggests that modern humans evolved in East Africa around 200,000 years ago, since fossils more than 150,000 years old are known from Ethiopia and Kenya. However, genetic data from recent African populations suggests that other regions may also have been important.
How long have we been here? | Natural History Museum

If you check back with what I wrote, my figures did not say "modern humans" but just "humans as humans". Maybe you should read more and write less.

 

[metis]

It was an attempt to separate two things you threw together.

You threw what was true of Israel's and/or Abraham's people at times into what was true about God's revelation in the OT. Israel being made up of fallible people, were often corrupted by pluralistic theological systems of either their ancestors or their neighbors. God's revelation had neither pluralistic influence nor grew out of it. It flat denies it. It was the common tactic of condemning a faith for the actions of the adherents of it who do not practice it. You cannot blame a book the prohibits murder for murders done by the crusaders for example and you cannot suggest a book that emphatically condemns polytheism grew out of it even if some its followers periodically were influenced by polytheism. You judge a teacher by those that show up and practice the lessons not by those who do neither.

Yep, it's a reading comprehension problem you have.

 

[1robin]

The above is simply one assumption on top of another on top of another, and you simply show no ability whatsoever to differentiate belief from fact as they simply are not necessarily one and the same. A devout Muslem could pretty much run a list such as the above as could people in some other faiths.

Most of those were facts so well established as to be commonly granted by even atheist textual scholars like Ehrman. The rest are true if Christianity is true. Which is the same as saying 2 + 2 = 4 if we assume we can trust our cognitive faculties and are not brains in a vat somewhere being fed false math. I debate Muslims all the time and they do not make a single textual claim I made, and only a couple of the theological ones. I can grant that in the absence of Christ and the Bible they could make the greatest case of any group but it would not include the same claims I had made. On almost every list or poll of the most influential people ion history Jesus is no.1 and Muhammad is no.2 for example.

Since that can't be the case because I invented all those out of this air then I have an easy test for you.

1. Supply a person in history that has had a greater impact that Christ on the world.
2. Supply any character of ancient history that has greater textual; attestation.
3. Supply any work of ancient history that is more textually accurate than the Bible.
4. Prove that another theological system or world view has succeeded greater given less of an advantage than Christianity.
5. Find another faith significantly present in all the nations on earth. I think significantly is unnecessary because no other faith exists in all other nations but added it as reasonable.
6. Give me a better explanation for our having a universal core intuition about moral truth than God.
7. Prove that the evidence is better that the Holy sprit does not exist than that it does.


There exist no claim in any subject that is a pure certainty. All of them contain faith and assumptions. Even your existence is an assumption about the truth of your sensory inputs and that reality was not made 5 minutes ago with the appearance of age. None of us amplify slight uncertainties in reliable claims and cry they are faith claims masquerading as truth claims in any other area. Why are you doing so only for theological claims and not everything else?

I make two types of claims but do not always specify them.

1. Claims that are true concerning the concept of God and Christianity.
2. Claims true or reliable concerning the natural world.

Both are not only valid but absolutely necessary to discuss either.

 

[1robin]

And exactly why is that, especially in light of the concept called "collaboration"?

You never multiply agents beyond necessity as rule. An omnimax God has no need of another being. All other beings would be inferior and unnecessary or redundant and unnecessary. I did not say it was impossible, I said it was in keeping with the best philosophy to posit only one omnimax being. Actually there is a whole lot of rigorous philosophy that makes more than one Omni-max God impossible, but I tend to stay out of the deep end of academia unless it is required.

 

[metis]

I commented on every claim you made in its proper context.

Let me break it down in a better and more simple way.

There are two groups. The less than 10% that existed before Christ's message, and the 90% (or more accurately) over 95% of those that have existed after his message was provided. Group A was commented on by me but I would find a scholar to provide a comprehensive explanation for that group. I can and have dealt with the latter group. They either have been exposed to the message (by far the majority) or are only judged on what they have been exposed to.

OK, thanks for at least clarifying your position on that, although it still does not in any contradict what I wrote. You still do not deal with the simple fact that your "God" came only to one people in one small area of the world much less than 1% of the time humans as humans have been on Earth.

Because of that fact, having p.c. beliefs in order to get into "heaven" simply makes no sense to me and even most Christians, according to polls, even if there's an exemption supposedly for those who have never heard "the word". To me, if there is a "God", there must be something that permeates throughout human culture and maybe even human psyche that's pretty much universal. An absolutely excellent book that does that, btw, is "Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World's Religions Can Come Together" by the Dalai Lama.

 

[metis]

Most of those were facts so well established as to be commonly granted by even atheist textual scholars like Ehrman. The rest are true if Christianity is true. Which is the same as saying 2 + 2 = 4 if we assume we can trust our cognitive faculties and are not brains in a vat somewhere being fed false math. I debate Muslims all the time and they do not make a single textual claim I made, and only a couple of the theological ones. I can grant that in the absence of Christ and the Bible they could make the greatest case of any group but it would not include the same claims I had made. On almost every list or poll of the most influential people ion history Jesus is no.1 and Muhammad is no.2 for example.

Since that can't be the case because I invented all those out of this air then I have an easy test for you.

1. Supply a person in history that has had a greater impact that Christ on the world.
2. Supply any character of ancient history that has greater textual; attestation.
3. Supply any work of ancient history that is more textually accurate than the Bible.
4. Prove that another theological system or world view has succeeded greater given less of an advantage than Christianity.
5. Find another faith significantly present in all the nations on earth. I think significantly is unnecessary because no other faith exists in all other nations but added it as reasonable.
6. Give me a better explanation for our having a universal core intuition about moral truth than God.
7. Prove that the evidence is better that the Holy sprit does not exist than that it does.


There exist no claim in any subject that is a pure certainty. All of them contain faith and assumptions. Even your existence is an assumption about the truth of your sensory inputs and that reality was not made 5 minutes ago with the appearance of age. None of us amplify slight uncertainties in reliable claims and cry they are faith claims masquerading as truth claims in any other area. Why are you doing so only for theological claims and not everything else?

I make two types of claims but do not always specify them.

1. Claims that are true concerning the concept of God and Christianity.
2. Claims true or reliable concerning the natural world.

Both are not only valid but absolutely necessary to discuss either.

All of the above is simply just a continuation of your own beliefs based on the bias that only Christianity makes sense, which strikes me as being terribly narrow-minded and completely nonsensical.

 

[metis]

You never multiply agents beyond necessity as rule. An omnimax God has no need of another being. All other beings would be inferior and unnecessary or redundant and unnecessary. I did not say it was impossible, I said it was in keeping with the best philosophy to posit only one omnimax being. Actually there is a whole lot of rigorous philosophy that makes more than one Omni-max God impossible, but I tend to stay out of the deep end of academia unless it is required.

That's a logically-terrible answer above, and to call it "best philosophy" is highly subjective, along with your statement that "rigorous philosophy" makes polytheism "impossible". It's ludicrous because it implies you know "the answers" to the point that you can you know exactly how the universe works and got put together.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I sometimes make comments about motivation. I try hard to always say the evidence from my point of view adds up to your motivation being X. I try not to say the only reason you did Y is X. It is an apprehension versus nature issue. If you accuse me of lying you are saying you know for a fact what my intent was and you most certainly do not. If you claim I am disingenuous you would have to know that I was purposefully misleading you and you mostly certainly do not. Quit claiming to know what you can't possibly know. Instead tell me why it looks that way to you, that is if honor is important to you.

Oh, boy. You can't even keep up with who said what, frequently confusing me with other people and accusing me of saying things which I've never said.

Have you ever considered that we are all ambassadors for our religous paths? And that if we behave badly while calling ourselves Baptists, we may be doing Baptists more harm than good?

Just something to think about.

 

[1robin]

If you check back with what I wrote, my figures did not say "modern humans" but just "humans as humans". Maybe you should read more and write less.

I am sure that is true. However I think as many biblical scholars, have interpreted that Adam was not the first humanoid. He was the first human with a soul. It is almost a certainty that human like creatures existed prior to Adam but were simple animals as far as God is concerned. There is no way to know, but the most common and reasonable assumption is that the arrival of Adam corresponds with modern human who show a massive increase in capacity to form tools, cultivate, harvest, store grain, bury their dead, ect......

Long before the word human, humanoid, primate, or any other arbitrary category existed God called Adam's species man. We have since then taken the term man or human and arbitrarily slapped it on a group of primate type animals without reference to what God meant by man. This would of course result in ambiguity between what God calls a being and why verses what we call them and why. The accepted best guess at the correlation places biblical man as equal to modern humans. The only thing I am certain of is that you cannot simply apply anything arbitrarily assigned the label of Human and consider that Adam.

Ambiguities like this are why I primarily debate from books after the Pentateuch. Pre-history is hard to riddle out unless you have known principles that would apply across the board. I gain so much confidence from the later books because history exists to cross check them by, that I can grant the same author did not go insane in the first five books and was as accurate there as he was in the rest of what can be verified.

Matter of fat, If anyone was actually interested in knowing the truth would do the exact opposite from what you have. Anyone honestly wanting to know would have started with the part of the bible that contains the greatest historical corroboration and from a time when the type of languages used became very well understood. I would start there and work your way towards the more ambiguous and less corroborated claims. The man who only wished to by any means necessary to dismiss a text he was not fond of would have done as you did. Find the absolute worst passages to be able to establish anything with certainty, amplify uncertainty into impossibility based on your personal opinion about what you think God should have done, call foul, then condemn a book of 750,000 based on some uncertainty in a few thousand of them existing in the most inaccessible part of the text. One way seems consistent with honestly weighing the evidence and the other with condemning something and afterwards look of reason to justify it. I only mention what this looks like, not what your motivation actually is because I have to access to your mind and can't make than call.

 

[1robin]

Yep, it's a reading comprehension problem you have.

Whatever.

1. If you were saying the Religion of the Jews (Judaism) in it's original form grew out of paganism, polytheism, or any other pre-existing ism I disagree and so does history.
2. If you say paganism, polytheism, or any other ism made it's way into the bible in any significant fashion I strongly disagree.
3. But if your saying that the people who practiced Judaism were influenced by their neighbors and occasionally sacrificed their devotion to God and practiced "unclean" actions for other Gods. Then I can certainly agree.

I thought and still think you were attempting to dismiss Judaism and the Bible by saying it have so many ties to paganism that it could not be from one true God. There are only two things you could have meant here. I chose the one above because that is the only one that is relevant. The other alternative is that your simply saying those that practiced Judaism formerly practiced paganism, this is complete true and completely irrelevant. I do not defend the practice of religion in most debates. I defend revealed truth. If I "comprehended wrong" it was because I thought you would have meant what you said in a relevant way instead of a meaningless sidebar kind of way.

 

[1robin]

OK, thanks for at least clarifying your position on that, although it still does not in any contradict what I wrote. You still do not deal with the simple fact that your "God" came only to one people in one small area of the world much less than 1% of the time humans as humans have been on Earth.

This is not accurate. If you read Genesis and the next four books you find that God had seen the world completely reject him. In order to get it back on track he searched for a man who would lead a group of people back to him. So the entire world (or at least the bulk of it) was marching straight to the Hell they had chosen. God not desiring this looks for a man to follow him and restore things. It is not specific but you get the impression he had failed to persuade many other men before he arrive at Abraham. Abraham believed God and would do as tasked to do. The entire world was condemned at this point but God said that because Abraham believed and followed God he would bless him with a nation. That nation he would use to reveal himself through and by that message save the rest of the world if they would believe. Good for us, bad for us, unfair to us, fair to us, inconvenient, or even unwanted this is a perfectly just action. If you have faith you have God, if you deny faith you do not, even yet God is probing darkened hearts and minds hoping for repentance and change. You must draw what was going on not just from what God specifically says about but also his general methodology. I am quite sure that God was working in all people to turn them around. Yet in their darkened rebellious hearts they extinguished the spark of faith and the instant it appeared in their conscience. This is what is referred to a searing your conscience. It then becomes like a firewall against truth and light. I have been very general there but I can give specific examples by the ton to justify my claims.

Because of that fact, having p.c. beliefs in order to get into "heaven" simply makes no sense to me and even most Christians, according to polls, even if there's an exemption supposedly for those who have never heard "the word". To me, if there is a "God", there must be something that permeates throughout human culture and maybe even human psyche that's pretty much universal. An absolutely excellent book that does that, btw, is "Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World's Religions Can Come Together" by the Dalai Lama.

Your side makes claims I disagree with but understand, makes the occasional correct claim, and makes many I just do not get at all. How in the world do you PC views as being necessary for heaven. There is nothing PC about Christ's message. It ran counter to everything known even among his own people. To be a Christian even in a Christian country you must realize you are stepping into a void that will separate you "in a sence" from other, at times making you an outcast, and in other country's possibly losing your life.
That is the diametric opposite of PC.

You are setting up another false optimization fallacy. You say must meet your standards to exist. Why? The intuitions of a terribly fallible race have no relevance to a perfect God. There is no scientific explanation for earth's moon. There is no rational way to claim dark matter is attracting everything to it by gravity yet cannot be detected by anything in existence, it is reasonable to assume evolution placed the ability to murder a parson in our hearts, it is completely irrational to think about killing every person on earth yet we all believe in all these things. God by his very nature will not even be theoretically fully conceivable to finite and faulty creatures. He is infinite, our minds cannot even grasp a tiny fraction of the finite. God could still be just as real if he killed us all, and been perfectly just in doing so. He could have made another creature to interact with, he could have made no life at all or no universe at all and remained just as much God as he is now. There is no justification unless you can find it from direct revelation which would allow you to set a bar someplace and fail any God below it. It is an exercise in futility. I wish God was personally tailored by my and my standards but I have no reason to think that makes a rational criteria for his existence.

A false optimization works like this. You begin by taking a position against the existence of something usually based in preference. You then gather the evidence for it and then add at least on requirement beyond what has been provided and yell failure whether you criteria have any justifications or not. The absurdity of this can be seen if we carry this out to its logical terminus. God must only do or produce perfect things as defined by you. That makes you God to start of with and render the actual God limited to only producing redundant perfect God's like himself.

Please review divine command theory for exhaustive technical reasons why your criteria is invalid to determine God's existence.

 

[Quirkybird]

If the deity exists, and is as portrayed in the Bible, it was using its 'creation' as a toy for its sick gratification!

 

[1robin]

All of the above is simply just a continuation of your own beliefs based on the bias that only Christianity makes sense, which strikes me as being terribly narrow-minded and completely nonsensical.

So I take it that was a "NO" on being able to supply the easy to find evidence proving I was wrong if in actuality I was.

Your complaint used in place of your counter evidence is not even correct. If I was actually doing what you said I would have said no one else has made such an impact on humanity concerning Christianity, and since Christianity is true that means he has by default the biggest impact of all.

What I actually did say was Christianity neutral. I said Christ has had more influence that any other philosopher, scientists, humanist, charity organization, moralist, military leader, wise man, teacher, etc......... That is true even if Christianity was a lie.

There would have been narrow mindedness if I did like others and say science is the arbiter of all truth so only scientists have really changed history. That would be narrow minded. Or if I had said the test for God's existence is if he does exactly as Metis (in his omniscience) has mandated he must. That would be narrow-minded and just plain silly. Or what maybe the king of them all by

David Hume ( the atheists messiah):


"If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, let us ask this question: does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? NO. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact or existence? NO. Commit it then to the flames for it can be nothing but sophistry and illusion." ~ David Hume

If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, this very statement, for instance, let us ask this question: does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? NO. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact or existence? NO. Commit it, this statement, then to the flames for it can be nothing but sophistry and illusion. This statement by David Hume is a statement of the self-refuting philosophy known as Scientism, stating that only that which can be backed up by mathematics and scientific observation is valid. However, Hume's statement refutes itself since that statement cannot be proven by mathematics and scientific observation. Does the substance of this quote by David Hume contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? NO. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact or existence? NO. Commit it then to the flames for it can be nothing but sophistry and illusion. David Hume's quote and philosophy of religion is neither mathematical nor scientific. Hume lived a life following a self-refuting philosophy. "[Hume's] test for meaning fails its own test." Ravi Zacharias


Now that is narrow-mindedness, silly, self condemning, and hypocritical.


My claim is about the broadest possible. The man who influenced man in totality more than any other person in any other subject was Christ. Quite unexpected from a God who only favors a single tribe from the backwater of the Roman empire.

 

[1robin]

That's a logically-terrible answer above, and to call it "best philosophy" is highly subjective, along with your statement that "rigorous philosophy" makes polytheism "impossible". It's ludicrous because it implies you know "the answers" to the point that you can you know exactly how the universe works and got put together.

For crying out loud it is one of the most coherent, rational, and common methods in philosophy. Never heard of Occam's Razor. This is simply it applies to causality. Unless you have compelling reasons to do so (and all the compelling reasons suggest not doing so) a philosopher, a scientist, and just about every other discipline are instructed to assume no more complexity than necessary. Do not multiply causes beyond necessity, do not multiply agents beyond sufficiency, do not look for addition cause once a sufficient one is found. This is philosophy 101.

Not only is that a universally practiced principle but you practice it constantly. If you are going down a small road at night and pass a car that was in the ditch with bashed in passenger side doors. Which cause would you assume was true.

1. He was probably hit by another car or vehicle.
2. He was first hit by a chicken, then a deer, then a cow, and finally by a car. He then Got mad and kicked the dents in a little deeper.
3. He went blind, slid on some military frictionless slime and was blown into the ditch by a micro burst, called for help, his signal was intercepted by the aliens you know are circling the earth, they came down to probed him when a ww1 came out of a worm hole and attempting to crash into the aliens missed and hit the car, and all this occurred leaving no evidence at all.

All are theoretically possible but using Occam's Razor we can pick the one that is by far probably true. Yes more than one cause occurs. They usually leave evidence or are necessary to explain the result. However Occam's razor is correct almost an infinity of time more than wrong.

 

[1robin]

Oh, boy. You can't even keep up with who said what, frequently confusing me with other people and accusing me of saying things which I've never said.

Have you ever considered that we are all ambassadors for our religous paths? And that if we behave badly while calling ourselves Baptists, we may be doing Baptists more harm than good?

Just something to think about.

If your name is ambiguous then that sort of justifies confusing you with others. I think it is in the Geneva convention. This discussion was not worth going back and looking it up. If I made a mistake just ignore it.

Of course I think we all bring discredit to what we stand for. I do not think that over all I have bad things than good things to my credit. Even if I did perfection comes by experience and most of experience is making mistakes.


Are you suggesting only those of us that are perfect are allowed to do what this verse says:

15 but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; 1 Peter 3:15 - But in your hearts revere Christ as - Bible Gateway

(the ones he was speaking to certainly were not).

 

[1robin]

If the deity exists, and is as portrayed in the Bible, it was using its 'creation' as a toy for its sick gratification!

Is that why the book that contains creation is the most beloved book in human history? Exactly how horrible is it to be given freewill, and to in the end receive exactly that which you chose. Anarchy, Anarchy, Anarchy,.....

I think people would consider evil any text that suggests they are ultimately accountable.

 

[Quirkybird]

Is that why the book that contains creation is the most beloved book in human history? Exactly how horrible is it to be given freewill, and to in the end receive exactly that which you chose. Anarchy, Anarchy, Anarchy,.....

I think people would consider evil any text that suggests they are ultimately accountable.

Most beloved book in human history? It wasn't compiled that long ago in terms of human history. How many people actually believe it to be literally true? I don't think the vast majority of Christians believe it to be so.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

If your name is ambiguous then that sort of justifies confusing you with others. I think it is in the Geneva convention. This discussion was not worth going back and looking it up. If I made a mistake just ignore it.

If I see a debater here make a false accusation against another debater, and then refuse to apologize or even acknowledge it, then I think a little less of that debater's religious path.

If you really want people to accept Christ, make your behavior appealing.

Of course I think we all bring discredit to what we stand for. I do not think that over all I have bad things than good things to my credit.

As I've said several times, I wish you could see yourself as others see you.

Even if I did perfection comes by experience and most of experience is making mistakes.

We only learn from our mistakes if we acknowledge them and study them. Forgive me saying so, but you seem to just bull your way through your mistakes.

Are you suggesting only those of us that are perfect are allowed to do what this verse says:
15 but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you;

I think that every debater here defends his theology. It's why we're here.

But some do it with tact, with finesse, with an open heart.

Others bull their way through the china shop, so absolutely certain are they that the Bull God is the one and only truth.

 

[Ouroboros]

Is that why the book that contains creation is the most beloved book in human history? Exactly how horrible is it to be given freewill, and to in the end receive exactly that which you chose. Anarchy, Anarchy, Anarchy,.....

Harry Potter contains a creation story? Didn't know.