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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[TD1]

Many Christian arguments are a priori. Though, of course, a lot of the "logic" is suspect...

Oh, and a small edit-question. Arx, given your description of the trinity (which seems to show rather big distinctions between their characters) why do you believe they are all one person, or is it just because the bible says it?

Not trying to insult - just curious.

[origamiscienceguy]

Rolan, I've done research and asked some people about:

"Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."

I believe your question was regarding the implications of an unforgivable sin in the bible. First of all I must point out that the verse says, "...but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven..." speaking against the Holy Spirit is to deny its existence or its effect on the world and people. And since the Holy Spirit is God the Son, and the only way to be forgiven is to

"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved."

speaking against the Holy Spirit is denying yourself the only method of forgiveness. Therefore, it is not that God made this sin unforgivable, it is that the sin is preventing whoever is doing it from getting forgiveness in the first place. Now, if at any point, said person asks for forgiveness, he/she is recognizing God meaning that he/she is acknowledging God's existence and effect in the world, and is therefore not blaspheming against the holy spirit, which allows forgiveness.

Furthermore, if anyone is saying that this proves that God is not supreme, because he has made a sin he cannot forgive, one quick look at the wording of the verse disproves that. the verse says "will not" instead of "cannot"


Please ask me if anything is unclear.

[Arx]

Dwarfy, that's just how they're described. When I say elemental, I don't mean to imply anything more than the appearance.

UXLZ, your logic is pretty much all based off "I think this instead of this." Also, the assumption that a physical impossibility as we understand it has to make sense. Your current argument isn't really any stronger than "I don't think omnipotence makes sense."

And your perfection stuff all seems to have one major issue: in the Bible, God is the benchmark for perfection. And if we're adopting our own meanings of perfect, why isn't it true that God is perfectly God and therefore perfect?

Aand lastly, the trademark symbol is a unicode character, so you can put it in your personal text if you like.

[UXLZ]

UXLZ, your logic is pretty much all based off "I think this instead of this." Also, the assumption that a physical impossibility as we understand it has to make sense. Your current argument isn't really any stronger than "I don't think omnipotence makes sense."

My current arguments are simple enough that if you don't think they're correct, I doubt I'd be able to come up with something else that you would. I'll simply reiterate that for something to be 'omnipotent' by our definitions (Humans) it must meet several mutually exclusive conditions. An example of that being the aforementioned creating an object it cannot lift, or an object it has no power over. If it cannot create that object it is not omnipotent, if it can lift or have power over that object it is not omnipotent. It's not a case of 'understanding' omnipotence, by the words which we use it simply isn't possible.

And your perfection stuff all seems to have one major issue: in the Bible, God is the benchmark for perfection. And if we're adopting our own meanings of perfect, why isn't it true that God is perfectly God and therefore perfect?

God is perfectly God, as I am perfectly me. If you wish to set God as the baseline for perfection that is understandable, but 'utter' perfection is simply not possible if only because it also has the requirement of omnipotence, which is also not possible. Regular perfection, albeit difficult to attain, is something I believe is technically possible. 'Utter' perfection, however, is not. 

Aand lastly, the trademark symbol is a unicode character, so you can put it in your personal text if you like.

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

[TD1]

Dwarfy, that's just how they're described. When I say elemental, I don't mean to imply anything more than the appearance.

Ah. I see. But why have different appearance if nothing else is different? Is it just because? Also, it seems to me that appearance has a significant impact on personality. If you are a good looking blonde, you are more likely to be vapid than an ugly grey. This seems to be he case...or are Jesus and God just different in appearance? They seem to have different anger threshholds and even messages, comparable to  a difference in message between, say, Zeus and Hercules.

[Arx]

Well, the 'roles' are kind of different. Typically, yes, the Father is seen as being, well, a father: protective, loving, somewhat (occasionally extremely) vengeful. The Son is a man; Jesus struggled with most of the things we struggle with, particularly abuse of his power. The Spirit is... there's no English word that does it justice; the Greek is parakletos, which is sort of an amalgam of advisor and councillor and life coach and friend and helper, which is really clumsy to say. Traditionally, I believe most of the acts of God via people are considered to be achieved by the Spirit.

I'm highly doubtful of your point about appearances. I've never observed it to be true in actual life.

[TD1]

If someone is tall and muscular, are they more or less likely to be commanding? If someone is ugly, are they more or less likely to be out going?
Edit: a side note which just occured to me
If Hercules looks, talks and acts like a man, the natural conclusion is that, despite texts.saying otherwise, he was not actually the son of Zeus. Can you disagree? Replace Hercules with Jesus, and Zeus with God...

[origamiscienceguy]

Are you saying that Jesus couldn't be the Son of God because he looked like a man?

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Arx]

Can you disagree? Replace Hercules with Jesus, and Zeus with God...

>implying Jesus acted exactly like a normal person.

He didn't, though. He demonstrated on multiple occasions that the normal rules didn't exactly apply.

[TD1]

So did Hercules. Your basis for believing in Jesus is equally applicable to belief in Hercules. But Hercules, if he existed, you would acknowledge to be just a man. Why is the same not applied to Jesus? Is he exempt from such logic simply because it is a personal belief?

You may well agree and say yes, you do agree because it is a personal belief... but when one chooses to apply logic to everyone/thing but then ignore the hard and fast rule because of faith, it seems to me a tad intellectually dishonest.

Again, I don't mean to insult. Just raising a question.

[Angle]

I have a question for everybody - what would it take to change your mind? What evidence would suffice? What argument would satisfy?

For myself, I'd want a detailed and consistent theory of God that can be tested against reality, along with significant enough evidence to justify conducting such tests, and for the tests to come out positive. It's a lot to ask, but if there was a god, it could be managed.

[Arx]

I have a question for everybody - what would it take to change your mind? What evidence would suffice? What argument would satisfy?

An actual reasonable disproof of all my personal experience, a very solid reason for God's total non-existance, and probably another reason to live.

So did Hercules. Your basis for believing in Jesus is equally applicable to belief in Hercules. But Hercules, if he existed, you would acknowledge to be just a man. Why is the same not applied to Jesus? Is he exempt from such logic simply because it is a personal belief?

No, he's exempt from such logic because you're unlikely to find Zeus on top of Mount Olympus. You won't ever find the Garden of the Hesperides (or at least, p < 0.05), and there is no Atlas holding up the world. There's nothing nearly as hard against Jesus.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[TD1]

For me to believe in God, I would need the religion to have a beginning with humanity. It would need to be worshipped by all. Its morals would need to remain constant to be absolutist. I would need a direct conversation with God, and not just be told that he spoke to Jim in Paris, or to those people many thousands of years ago. It would need not to have denominations. It would need to have set laes which are reaonably sensible, ie women not in the clergy is silly.

Arx: Nor are you likely to find God in the heavens. Olympus was inaccessible, so they said gods lived there. So too were the heavens inaccessible. If Greek religion had survived, no doubt they would say that Olympus was just a metaphor/misinterpretation, and the gods are transcendent. Just as there is no Atlas holding up bthe sky, there is no God making the planets stay where they are. No doubt the Greek Priest could say that whilst Atlas hasn't been observed to hold things up, nor has he not been observed either. Or, perhaps, gravity which keeps the worlds apart is controlled by Atlas.