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skeptic griggsy
Skeptic Friend
USA
77 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2007 : 08:45:51 [Permalink]
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 With better lives, people are living more without God. More atheists are writing books.It is up to atheists to get producers to put atheists on the air.Why doesn't someone start a movement to get signatures for such an effort? I appreciate Jim Wallis for trying to get evangelicals to favor my Democratic Party, but I want such as Paul Kurtz to get their say before people for seculars. Why should we not give voice to both parties that we are here to stay and will make our voices heard? Why shouldn't we voice our concerns! Could we answer that demagogue Bill O'Reilly about his straw man secular progressives? |
Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. Logic is the bane of theists.Religion is mythinformation. Reason saves, not a dead Galilean fanatic. |
| Edited by - skeptic griggsy on 06/06/2007 08:48:27 |
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Rankdiz
New Member
5 Posts |
 Posted - 06/19/2007 : 09:19:26 [Permalink]
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The Nightline Debate was interesting to me. However, the fact that the atheists could give nothing more than insults and slams to back up their claims would turn anyone off. At least it should anyway. They just seem bitter and hateful. If that is the face of atheism what would compel anyone to be apart of that?
With the woman and her cancer question. She asked a very emotional and heartfelt question. Ray's response was a little shaky and rightfully so. It's a hard question to answer, but his answer I think was misunderstood. When God made the world it was PERFECT. No doubt in my mind. However, man was put on this earth with the ability to make choices. We can all agree with that. Man made the CHOICE to disobey God and eat the fruit. Gen 3. After they made that choice sin and judgments were inflicted on the earth and all its creation. Death, sickness, natural disasters, and everything else that is bad.
To say that God is a bad designer is the wrong way to take this argument. The best building designer can't stop someone or people from destroying his building. If someone destroys it does that make the designer a bad designer? NO it makes the person or people bad. Man in themselves have a natural tendency to be bad, rebel, or just plain evil. Its human nature and humans brought it on themselves when they CHOSE TO disobey God. God does not create robots; we can make decisions on our own. We will have to give an account for those decisions one day! Will you have an excuse on that day? Or will you have an answer? The answer is Jesus Christ as your savior!
Sorry for the length but it had to be said.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2007 : 09:54:42 [Permalink]
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Welcome to the SFN, Rankdiz.Originally posted by Rankdiz
With the woman and her cancer question. She asked a very emotional and heartfelt question. Ray's response was a little shaky and rightfully so. It's a hard question to answer, but his answer I think was misunderstood. When God made the world it was PERFECT. No doubt in my mind. However, man was put on this earth with the ability to make choices. We can all agree with that. Man made the CHOICE to disobey God and eat the fruit. Gen 3. After they made that choice sin and judgments were inflicted on the earth and all its creation. Death, sickness, natural disasters, and everything else that is bad. |
All those bad things, created by God and inflicted by God upon all people forever in retribution for the sin of a single man wishing to be like God.| To say that God is a bad designer is the wrong way to take this argument. The best building designer can't stop someone or people from destroying his building. If someone destroys it does that make the designer a bad designer? NO it makes the person or people bad. Man in themselves have a natural tendency to be bad, rebel, or just plain evil. Its human nature and humans brought it on themselves when they CHOSE TO disobey God. |
Human nature, as created by God. God created Adam with a tendency to be bad.| God does not create robots; we can make decisions on our own. |
The scary thing is thinking about what God's "gift" of free will really means. Analogously:Father: Okay, son, you can either get a haircut, or go play XBox with your friends. You get to pick.
Son: XBox! XBox!
Father: You're grounded. Forever. That sort of choice isn't really "free." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2007 : 12:56:19 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Rankdiz
...Man in themselves have a natural tendency to be bad, rebel, or just plain evil. Its human nature and humans brought it on themselves when they CHOSE TO disobey God. God does not create robots; we can make decisions on our own. We will have to give an account for those decisions one day! Will you have an excuse on that day? Or will you have an answer? The answer is Jesus Christ as your savior! |
The fruit of knowledge: ancient pre-Christian pagan myths adopted and modified by relatively recent fundamentalist Christianity. These myths served as metaphors for the trade-off we as humans are willing to pay for acquiring new knowledge about the world around us. Metaphorically, we are happy in the womb without fear or knowledge, but we need knowledge to survive and grow and so being born (not born-again) is a shock to us, and we cry for a while. But there are benefits too. So it's a trade-off, as expressed in the line from the play "Inherit the Wind" by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee: "Yes you may fly, but the clouds will smell of gasoline."
There is no sin in symbolically eating the apple except in the pseudo-religious mind. Eating the apple is a metaphor. Statements such as the preaching posts of Rankdiz stem in my view from a sadistic need to say figuratively to the human race: "I told you so" while smiling smugly in the weird belief that human beings who don't happen to conform to certain dogmatic religious notions will burn forever in the hell of a sadistic god. The ironclad and unquestioning certainty of literal belief in a fairy tale legend without the (forbidden) knowledge of its metaphor provides structure and god-endorsed justification to the sadist.
Jacob Bronowski, standing in the muddy field of what was once a concentration camp where the ashes of his relatives were dumped, has warned us about the ultimate end of this monstrous certainty. He reached down and gripping soil in his hand, said: "We have to reach out and touch people."
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2007 : 13:25:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Rankdiz
To say that God is a bad designer is the wrong way to take this argument. The best building designer can't stop someone or people from destroying his building. If someone destroys it does that make the designer a bad designer? NO it makes the person or people bad. |
To design a building so that it catches on fire and collapses if someone fills up their mug at the wrong watercooler is indeed a result of bad design. Even if the watercooler was marked with a big sign that read: "Danger--Do Not Use!," it would still be incompetant design to have such a fatal flaw able to be exploited by any dope that ambles along.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 06/19/2007 13:31:29 |
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Boron10
Religion Moderator
USA
1266 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2007 : 17:30:15 [Permalink]
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I will second Dave W.'s welcome. Your post seems well thought-out, Rankdiz, I sincerely hope you remain to continue this discussion. Originally posted by Rankdiz
The Nightline Debate was interesting to me. However, the fact that the atheists could give nothing more than insults and slams to back up their claims would turn anyone off. At least it should anyway. They just seem bitter and hateful. If that is the face of atheism what would compel anyone to be apart of that? |
This is an excellent point. Since I did not watch this debate, I can only speculate: perhaps their motivation was not to "compel anyone" to become an atheist; perhaps they only wanted to point out the error in certain kinds of thinking. .
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When God made the world it was PERFECT. No doubt in my mind. However, man was put on this earth with the ability to make choices. We can all agree with that. Man made the CHOICE to disobey God and eat the fruit. Gen 3. After they made that choice sin and judgments were inflicted on the earth and all its creation. Death, sickness, natural disasters, and everything else that is bad. |
How can there be no doubt in your mind? The word perfect only shows up in the Five Books of Moses once:Deuteronomy 32:4
He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he. |
I suppose by this a case can be made that Earth was created perfect; however, doesn't that also imply that man was created perfect? If not one, why not the other? Back to Rankdiz
To say that God is a bad designer is the wrong way to take this argument. The best building designer can't stop someone or people from destroying his building. |
You are judging God as if he were a man. By assuming God has the same limitations that people have, you are committing a very serious act of hubris. (Please note I am using Christian convention in referring to God, since Rankdiz appears to be Christian.) Where did you get the idea this limitation would apply? According to your belief, God is perfect. How does a perfect God build something that a mere human can foul? | If someone destroys it does that make the designer a bad designer? |
No, it just makes the designer limited by natural constraints. A perfect being should be able to build a construct that can withstand the actions of a man, a woman, and a snake. | NO it makes the person or people bad. Man in themselves have a natural tendency to be bad, rebel, or just plain evil. Its human nature and humans brought it on themselves when they CHOSE TO disobey God. God does not create robots; we can make decisions on our own. We will have to give an account for those decisions one day! Will you have an excuse on that day? Or will you have an answer? |
My answer, if I ever meet God, would be something to the effect of, "you exist! I wish you had made that clear to those of us on the SFN." | The answer is Jesus Christ as your savior! |
How do you know? Will you please convince us? | Sorry for the length but it had to be said. |
Not a problem: your post was just long enough. Now it is my turn to apologize for the length of my reply, but I had some questions, requests, and comments for you that had to be said. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2007 : 19:16:22 [Permalink]
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Rankdiz said:
| Its human nature and humans brought it on themselves when they CHOSE TO disobey God. |
Well, if god created man with free will, and god is omnipotent, then god must have known what man was going to do. (we'll ignore the fact that an omnipotent god mutually excludes any of its creations from having free will).
But the whole inane Eden story very nicely illustrates the choice religion offers people. It glorifies ignorance and punishes knowledge.
Which always makes me wonder, what kind of institution wants to keep its members ignorant? One that seeks to control them, rather than allow them to express their free will.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2007 : 20:37:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Rankdiz
The Nightline Debate was interesting to me. However, the fact that the atheists could give nothing more than insults and slams to back up their claims would turn anyone off. At least it should anyway. They just seem bitter and hateful. If that is the face of atheism what would compel anyone to be apart of that? |
My response to this is twofold: 1) Though I haven't since this particular debate, I doubt very much that all the atheists had were insults and slams. They usually have things like logic and history to back up their arguments. What you may be responding to is the fact that they poked holes in your favorite myth, causing you to be angry, which you then misinterpreted as aggression. It isn't uncommon, and leads me to my second point: 2) Why aren't you skeptical of someone telling you only what you want to hear? If the atheists didn't warm the cockles of your heart, it's probably because they weren't trying to. They're trying to appeal to your intellect. Beware of those who tell you nice, fuzzy, warm tales that have absolutely no evidence to back them up. (Hint: that would be the creationists.)
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2007 : 20:50:32 [Permalink]
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Is it me, or is that post jumping around in the thread?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2007 : 22:39:19 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Is it me, or is that post jumping around in the thread? |
I believe it was the second post on page 4 when I first replied, as it is now. Is that what you meant? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Jarrid
Skeptic Friend
101 Posts |
Posted - 06/22/2007 : 16:42:39 [Permalink]
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Filthy,
Unfortunately, you are right about the tactics of people such as Kent Hovind. If you aren't prepared, it IS very hard to keep up. As you probably remember, one of my first posts was in regard to Mr. Hovind (about three years ago). It's all a bunch of junk, just like the crocoduck or the allimandog or something of that nature. But it's REALLY easy to buy into if you aren't prepared and if you are surrounded by a bunch of other people eating it up. Thank "god" for this site, lol! |
I don't have to go swimming through an outhouse to know I wouldn't like it." |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2007 : 06:02:45 [Permalink]
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Thank you very much for your comments, Jarrid.
As for Kent Hovind, his influence will get less and less over time as he is not able to reach as many people as before from the prison cell. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Jarrid
Skeptic Friend
101 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2007 : 16:14:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Thank you very much for your comments, Jarrid.
As for Kent Hovind, his influence will get less and less over time as he is not able to reach as many people as before from the prison cell.
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Mabuse,
Prison Cell? Did I miss something? How exciting! lol |
I don't have to go swimming through an outhouse to know I wouldn't like it." |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2007 : 23:13:42 [Permalink]
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Dave_W said:
| I believe it was the second post on page 4 when I first replied, as it is now. Is that what you meant? |
There was a post by rankdiz, it was just a quote of another person with no actual reply from rankdiz, and it kept changing position in the thread every time I opened up the thread.
Was weird.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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ABC Nightline Debate
