LOGICAL PROOFS THAT GOD EXISTS

What is even more hilarious is that, apparently, you thought that constituted a plausible description of those with whom you disagree.

Yet another logical proof of the existence of god: those as deluded as the Bobble thumpers continue to thrive and prosper, and <shudder> reproduce . . .

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Re: LOGICAL PROOFS THAT GOD EXISTS

stlstrike3 wrote:

2. I've also read that miserable volume (once cover to cover, and several times in six-too-many literature classes). So I know what I'm criticizing. Those who tell me "you haven't spend enough time in the word" are relying on tired knee-jerk rhetoric of the faithful.

Wow.

You read it once, eh?

And a few more parts in lit class? Impressive.

btw The statement I made really had nothing to do with 'time spent', stl.

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Setanta wrote:

continue to thrive and prosper, and <shudder> reproduce . . .

Loving every minute of it. Cool

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Setanta wrote:

By the way, that was one of the most pathetic apologias which i have ever read.

Glad to hear it. Especially since everything you wrote confirms it's accuracy.

You mentioned Abraham.

Wouldn't the natural tendency be to cover up the failings of he who one documents as the 'father of the faith' ?

Then you mention Jewish society.

The same thing applies.

If this were a self serving history of the Jewish clan, why is it replete with their corporate failures?

The priestly class comes in for particularly brutal treatment as unfaithful, greedy and lecherous fools and cowards.

And yet they are presumably the ones who would have produced (and benefited most from) a self serving exaltation of Jewish style religion.

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A marvelous demonstration of how little you know of folk histories and the accretion of myth. As i've already pointed out, such an argument is predicated upon an assumption that unless the Bobble were divinely inspired, it would have been a vast conspiracy of venal men over a period of centuries. This is, however, typical of the hopelessly narrow way in which you view the world. Folk histories and myths usually derive from oral traditions, and the internal consistency of the content is less important than the reification of allegories until they take on a false character of historical truth, and therefore will be preserved whether or not they are logical expositions of principles, and whether or not they contradict or are contradicted by other portions of the canon.

So, for example, the Anglo-Saxon chronicles reports that the Saxons invaded Somerset, and destroyed the Britons who were there. A century later, the chronicles report the invasion of Somerset. No one, apparently, bothered to ask why Somerset would be invaded a second time if the Britons had been destroyed in an invasion which took place a century earlier. All the oversimplified contentions you are making demonstrate is the classic folk history/myth character of the Bobble.

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By the way, "self-serving" does not automatically apply to a small class, such as priests and scribes. You fail to make distinctions within even that small group, given that were there no love lost between scribes and preists, there would be little reason for the former to protect the reputation of the latter, and plenty of impetus to make them look fools.

The self-serving aspect of the Bobble is precisely that self-serving interest which theists almost universally display. The desire to make the "chosen people" appear to be important, when patently, they aren't.

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roger wrote:

Somewhere around the 5th grade I was informed that man having one less rib than woman was proof. Many years later, I realized I had been conned again.

Pretend for a moment that you understand the laws of genetics. In your youth you are in a serious accident and have a rib removed from your body or fused together. Later in life you have children. Do they have the same rib problem or not? and why?

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real life wrote:

hi Setanta,

Your alternative, if you don't think that the Bible represents God's word, is to hold that it is a manmade book.

If you were going to write an authoritative religious work, would you prohibit behaviors that you might want to engage in?

Lots of no-no's listed in the Bible that go cross-wise to man's natural tendency to want to do them.

These range from sexual prohibitions, to what can and can't be eaten, to what one may or may not do on certain days (Sabbaths, feasts, etc), prohibitions from engaging in lucrative business (usury) , commandments NOT to utilize the full harvest of one's field, etc.

If you were going to write an authoritative religious work that established you as 'God's representative' (i.e. a priest or prophet, etc) , would you tie yourself down to requirements to perform hundreds of petty regulations concerning washings, specific types of garments, foods you can or cannot eat, time consuming butchering and offering of animals?

In other words , wouldn't you make it easy and fun for you?

If you were going to write an authoritative religious work that established you as 'God's representative' , would you consistently portray God's representatives as backsliding, slimy characters of low morality, two faced, weak willed, unbelieving, etc ?

Wouldn't you whitewash the priesthood and portray all the virtues and none of the vices?

Nope.

I would make the book(uh, Holy Writ) as difficult and mysterious as possible with lots of contradictions that only me and my deeply spiritual and learned brethren could decipher.
(Except for the ones that even we couldn't figure out, then we would inject the Godswill intonation.)
(A loving God creates Rapid Onset Pediatric Leukemia? Uh, Godswill. Mysterious ways, ahem.)

AND I would most especially create lots of very intricate and tedious liturgical ritual arts for me to perform. Full of pomp, chock full of pomp, the more pomp the better to impress the agape crowds of my virtuous and blessedly connected to the Supreme Being (So you better be nice and respectful to me) priestly life.

And all those priests in the book who were bad boys???, those I would use to show how carefully balanced and full of the fear of god one has to be in order to become the wonderful priest, minister, TV evangelist that I am.

(I am going to save you from slipping off the narrow path as soon as you slip me another twenty-five hundred dollars.)

And as for rules for the communicants?? I would write and write and write and never have enough rules for them to fret over. Food, dress, sex, thoughts, music, art ---- I would have rules about everything, but not really clear ones. So, for example, there would be a rule that says "Thou shall not kill." but there would always be some exceptions -- er, war, in defense of home or family, attack by robbers, etc, there would always be some point for my fellow mullahs to argue and point fingers about until the wee hours of the morning. (It's not only the work of the Lord, it keeps us employed.)

Oh and one more thing: for the first 1500 years of it's existence I would make sure that only a tiny few persons ever actually got to read the text and then only in Latin.
Then in the next 500 years I would allow just about anyone to write their own version of the text further creating thousands of opportunities to nitpick about wording instead of looking at the fact that the whole thing is just a tissue of imaginary flights of fancy.

Got it? You've been had.

Joe(you should see the Islamic rules on bathing before prayers. It goes on for pages)Nation

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Tell me RL what ever made you believe all the crap in your bibble.
you should try some really believable books... like Alice in wonderland, for one.

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Joe Nation wrote:

Joe(you should see the Islamic rules on bathing before prayers. It goes on for pages)Nation

Wudhu 101

Now what more logical proof of the existence of god can you need than such clear cut instructions on how to prepare one's self for a groveling session.

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While at Church some years ago, I found myself transfixed by the sight of the local hottie at the altar, receiving Communion. Shameful fantasies engorged my youthful brain and I realised that these sinful thoughts were manifesting themselves in physical form.

I slid to my knees and prayed for release from this embarrassment. At that moment my mother, having partaken on the Host and returning to her seat, tripped over someone's handbag, cracked her skull on the edge of a bench and was killed instantly.

He works in mysterious ways, I tellsya.

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mesquite wrote:

Joe Nation wrote:
Joe(you should see the Islamic rules on bathing before prayers. It goes on for pages)Nation

Wudhu 101

Now what more logical proof of the existence of god can you need than such clear cut instructions on how to prepare one's self for a groveling session.

That's amazing. How did Joe know about all that?

Shocked

Respect.

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Good Morning, McTag: Thank ye for the kind word. I have several Muslim friends and have read Ta'leemul Haq and some other works out of interest in knowing more about Islam. Christian worship has some complex rituals but they pale in comparison to vastly more intricate forms one must follow in order to be a good and devote Muslim. Christians say "love your god with your whole heart, your whole mind and your whole spirit" but Muslims have to do that mindfully several times a day. The effect is hypnotic. I'm sure it makes every Monsignor of the Church a little jealous.
==================
But back to how I would write the Bible:
After the part about how the world came into being,(POOF!) I would have everything between God and man be hunky-dory.

A good novelist knows how to set his characters up for a fall.

Okay, they screw up and there's a breakup. Uh, they listen to an evil snake devil spirit and they eat an apple, get naked, one of their kids kills the other one, later there's some water damage, oy vey, it's the Soprano family but with wandering in the desert and Pharaoh of Egypt thrown in.

So everybody tries to get back in good with God. Lots of yelling about repentance and lots and lots of rules to follow. Nothing works. The Israelites constantly blow whatever connection they've got going with God and HE (loving GODFather that HE is) crushs and smotes them mightily. They lose everything a couple of times and get kidnapped by the Babylonians of all people.
jeesh.
What could fix this?
Who?
Ah, how about a Messiah?
Naturalmente. So I would spend the second half of the first half hinting at who was to come and fix up the goof-ups with God.

Then, guess what happens?

That's right, boys and girls, the Messiah comes and, like every good tale told around a campfire, it's a good story. The story of a heartbreak kid from a small town with nice parents who is only trying to show the way to salvation to the multitudes when he gets caught up in power struggle with the holy rollers already running a salvation scheme down at the temple.

He, the guy that was going to fix everything, gets himself beaten to a bloody pulp and then, holy crap, he is killed in the most hororific manner a human being can think of (Mel Gibson will love love love it)
Depressing, in'it?
But wait! There's more!!

Now here is the ultimate hook, the way any solid writer pulls his characters back from the brink of disaster,

the Messiah comes back from the dead.

(nothing can top that, Muslims, our guy was dead dead dead and he rose up again, so there.)

AND, this is the good part, it was supposed to happen that way. That's right. It was part of the plan. TA DAH! The guy was supposed to get killed. It was the magical and only way to reopen the Gates of Heaven or get up back in the good graces of God. No pun intended. Whew. What a relief to know that all that blood was shed for us on purpose. Makes everyone feel better about themselves too.

So. Oh yeah, baby, he's back and ..... and ...and. he's not pissed at anybody. Wow! He loves everyone and says "if we follow his words" and don't listen to any more evil snake devil spirit whodos then we can be saved, go to heaven, reach salvation, be one again with the really grouchy, mean, but with a heart of gold, God the Father. Hey.

And Christ says 'Head out west, there a place for everyone.' unless that was Jimmy Stewart, it might have been. At the end, he rides off into the sunset ----only Christ does it vertically, right up into the frigging clouds. (roll the credits)

So that's the rest of my answer, real life, if you are going to write a book, a holy book, a novel, whatever--and you should try it, you are good at making stuff up,-- remember to have plenty of conflict between the characters, put your heros up against impossible odds, push the conflict to the point of no return, to the brink, the razor's edge of eternal disaster, then save nearly everyone. Not everyone, no one likes a too clean ending.

Joe(Besides then you can raise the idea of a select. Cool, huh?)Nation

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There are several books, no I can't remember the titles of any right now, looking at what our world would be like if there had been no Reformation, and the power of the catholic church in England had not been broken (Henry VIII, dissolution on the monasteries) and the church still had a stranglehold over all aspects of life.
Similarities with the situation with our friends recently in Afghanistan.

Good for Henry, pity he decided he had to replace one church with another.

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Joe Nation wrote:

real life wrote:
hi Setanta,

Your alternative, if you don't think that the Bible represents God's word, is to hold that it is a manmade book.

If you were going to write an authoritative religious work, would you prohibit behaviors that you might want to engage in?

Lots of no-no's listed in the Bible that go cross-wise to man's natural tendency to want to do them.

These range from sexual prohibitions, to what can and can't be eaten, to what one may or may not do on certain days (Sabbaths, feasts, etc), prohibitions from engaging in lucrative business (usury) , commandments NOT to utilize the full harvest of one's field, etc.

If you were going to write an authoritative religious work that established you as 'God's representative' (i.e. a priest or prophet, etc) , would you tie yourself down to requirements to perform hundreds of petty regulations concerning washings, specific types of garments, foods you can or cannot eat, time consuming butchering and offering of animals?

In other words , wouldn't you make it easy and fun for you?

If you were going to write an authoritative religious work that established you as 'God's representative' , would you consistently portray God's representatives as backsliding, slimy characters of low morality, two faced, weak willed, unbelieving, etc ?

Wouldn't you whitewash the priesthood and portray all the virtues and none of the vices?

Nope.

I would make the book(uh, Holy Writ) as difficult and mysterious as possible with lots of contradictions that only me and my deeply spiritual and learned brethren could decipher.
(Except for the ones that even we couldn't figure out, then we would inject the Godswill intonation.)
(A loving God creates Rapid Onset Pediatric Leukemia? Uh, Godswill. Mysterious ways, ahem.)

AND I would most especially create lots of very intricate and tedious liturgical ritual arts for me to perform. Full of pomp, chock full of pomp, the more pomp the better to impress the agape crowds of my virtuous and blessedly connected to the Supreme Being (So you better be nice and respectful to me) priestly life.

And all those priests in the book who were bad boys???, those I would use to show how carefully balanced and full of the fear of god one has to be in order to become the wonderful priest, minister, TV evangelist that I am.

(I am going to save you from slipping off the narrow path as soon as you slip me another twenty-five hundred dollars.)

And as for rules for the communicants?? I would write and write and write and never have enough rules for them to fret over. Food, dress, sex, thoughts, music, art ---- I would have rules about everything, but not really clear ones. So, for example, there would be a rule that says "Thou shall not kill." but there would always be some exceptions -- er, war, in defense of home or family, attack by robbers, etc, there would always be some point for my fellow mullahs to argue and point fingers about until the wee hours of the morning. (It's not only the work of the Lord, it keeps us employed.)

Oh and one more thing: for the first 1500 years of it's existence I would make sure that only a tiny few persons ever actually got to read the text and then only in Latin.
Then in the next 500 years I would allow just about anyone to write their own version of the text further creating thousands of opportunities to nitpick about wording instead of looking at the fact that the whole thing is just a tissue of imaginary flights of fancy.

Got it? You've been had.

Joe(you should see the Islamic rules on bathing before prayers. It goes on for pages)Nation

Yup that's a conspiracy theory alright. Laughing

I thought someone had said that wasn't the alternative......... Laughing

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Well, it wasn't me how said anything about a conspiracy. It's just moving a product. The Bible is a messy book which tells a good myth well and proves nothing about the existence of a god or, in it's case, the multipersonaliteed wonder portrayed therein.

What it does do is provide lots and lots of opportunities for persons to take advantage of the fear of that many headed godhead. The pathetic idea you raised was that a god wouldn't want his followers and priests portrayed in a bad light, I have shown that it's to the advantage of the present day providers of faith-based pap to have exactly that portrait made so that they can look so much better by comparison.

Religion is not a conspiracy, it's a business. It's got a great product line and bunchs of eager consumers. Manufacturing costs are low, most of the money spent is on the showing off the product, not the product itself. And it's got a killer sell point -- Buy this or burn in hell forever.

Joe(what business wouldn't want that?)Nation

BTW: Every mythical book makes some powerful people look weak. The Bible is not alone in this. I've read many myths, myths were a hobby of mine for awhile. Let me know if you ever want to hear the creation story of the Jacarilla Apache.

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Re: LOGICAL PROOFS THAT GOD EXISTS

real life wrote:

stlstrike3 wrote:
2. I've also read that miserable volume (once cover to cover, and several times in six-too-many literature classes). So I know what I'm criticizing. Those who tell me "you haven't spend enough time in the word" are relying on tired knee-jerk rhetoric of the faithful.

Wow.

You read it once, eh?

And a few more parts in lit class? Impressive.

btw The statement I made really had nothing to do with 'time spent', stl.

Reading the bible cover to cover once puts me way ahead of something like 95% of christians.

And, no, we read GOOD literature in lit class. This was full-on scripture class from grade school through high school.

And the 'time spent' comment was in anticipation of the same-ol' tired come-backs most of the faithful send my way. It wasn't directed at you.

Thanks for playing.

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mesquite wrote:

Joe Nation wrote:
Joe(you should see the Islamic rules on bathing before prayers. It goes on for pages)Nation

Wudhu 101

Now what more logical proof of the existence of god can you need than such clear cut instructions on how to prepare one's self for a groveling session.

Very good point . . . and thank you for contributing to the thread by responding in the spirit of the thread--obvious to many, but not to the bobble-thumpers.

******************************

You know, "real life's" contention that the bobble must be true, because otherwise it would not portray so many in an unflattering light is equally applicable to Greek or Norse mythology. You can beat religious mythologies for the venal, lustful and just plain stupid behavior of the principle characters. On the basis for which "real life" attempts to claim the bobble is plausible, one should just as well believe in Zeus and Odin.

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I would prefer to believe in Ganga, you know that Indian goddess...

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Setanta wrote:

For those like Baddog who just don't get it (which is to say, those who take their superstitions so seriously that they can't imagine that others don't)--this thread has no point, it is an exercise in childish hilarity. Those who posted here first "got it," and it's a sad comment on the theists that they didn't get it. . .

I'm not sure that all believers failed to realize the childish hilarity of your initial post.
But I also have observed not a few non believers to have slipped from childish hilarity to knee jerkiness.

But, I can understand that. After all, if I am correct about free will, then one's decision to accept or reject the sovereignty of a creator is far from hilarious.

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LOGICAL PROOFS THAT GOD EXISTS

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