Summer means no religion or politics?

[Jim Reed]

He killed them because they were sinfull, not weak, I think. A man can be strong in a sense, but that doesn't make him a saint.

[Nacho]

Which worked for centuries as an excuse for many "believers" to kill "sinfull" people. God is not very good at previewing the consequences of His acts, apparently.

[Khris]

I've browsed the flat earth society forums recently.
According to the FEs, the earth is flat, confined by a 150ft high ice wall (Antarctica) and pushed trough space (=> gravity) by a powerful energy source.
The sun and moon circle above it.
The funny thing is, regardless of which argument people made against this "theory", the believers always had a convenient answer. (Ships disappear behind the horizon because light doesn't travel in a straight path, NASA faked the moon landings and the pictures of earth from space, the ice wall is protected by government agents, there's an antimoon below earth to explain the tides, etc. etc.)

Thus, their whole world-view is consistent. And still very, very wrong. Wait, that reminds me of another world-view...

[Jim Reed]

Which worked for centuries as an excuse for many "believers" to kill "sinfull" people. God is not very good at previewing the consequences of His acts, apparently.

Humans have the power of choice. No one forced them to kill, it was their choice. An excuse doesn't kill a man, man does.
God gave man the power of free choice, and you can't blame Him if a man chooses to kill.

[RickJ]

I've browsed the flat earth society forums recently.

Hehehe...Khris, I thought you were joking as I just couldn't believe there are still people like this around.   Even the Greeks knew the earth was a sphere and even had a pretty good idea of how big it was, 3500 or more years ago.  Anyway here the link for my fellow non-believers (non-believers in the Flat Earth Socity).

http://www.theflatearthsociety.org

Hmmmm, Khris is this is an elaborate hoax of yours to persuade us and to win an internet debate?   

[Nacho]

Which worked for centuries as an excuse for many "believers" to kill "sinfull" people. God is not very good at previewing the consequences of His acts, apparently.

Humans have the power of choice. No one forced them to kill, it was their choice. An excuse doesn't kill a man, man does.
God gave man the power of free choice, and you can't blame Him if a man chooses to kill.

I do not blame God for the bad things humans do. I can't. I can' t blame anything to something that does not exist...  At least I don't praise him for the good things humans do...

You believers seem to waste a lot of energy defending God, don't you? A supernatural perfect Being should be good enough for not needing any kind of defense from its tiny, weak and humble creations... Unless it's the tiny creations who created the supernatural Being, of course!

[Jim Reed]

Unless it's the tiny creations who created the supernatural Being, of course!

So let me get this straight, if I created God by believing in Him, I could believe in unicorns and create them too?

[Khris]

Jim Reed:
Come on, you know exactly what Nacho meant when he said the believers created the supernatural being.
But, well, how do I put this, do you believe that there's an actual devil, as in, a conscious (supernatural) being devoted to eventually fight a war against God's army...?

[Jim Reed]

Jim Reed:
Come on, you know exactly what Nacho meant when he said the believers created the supernatural being.
But, well, how do I put this, do you believe that there's an actual devil, as in, a conscious (supernatural) being devoted to eventually fight a war against God's army...?

Yeah, I know what he said. I don't know what he meant.

As for the devil...do you really want to know? Should I even bother to explain, when I doubt that your scientific self-importance will permit you to consider the fact that it doesn't know shit?
I haven't met Lucifer himself, but I've met some minions of his in person (5 times that I remember, after I became aware of their existence, and a few times I didn't yet know what it was).
It isn't a pleasant expirience.

[Khris]

You should look into Occam's Razor. It's one of the most useful principles ever and you would seriously profit much from using it from time to time.
It was suggested by a friar and its roots are in theology, btw.

RickJ: There are hilarious threads in there, I really recommend browsing it a bit if you're bored

[Matti]

RickJ: There are hilarious threads in there, I really recommend browsing it a bit if you're bored

Haha, I just did that for a while... it's unbelievable. At first I thought - like RickJ - that you were joking.

This is seriously freaked up, a government controlled icewall around the earth-dish... I see...

[Nacho]

What I mean is that we created God, as we created Unicorns... in our imagination, and after that we reflected that beliefs in in our written and oral tradition. We did not "materialise" God into a real supernatural being, as we did not "materialise" unicorns into real animals.

[Jim Reed]

Yes, I know what Occam's razor is. But not having all the facts will result in an incorrect answer, even using the same method.
Say that you see a small crater in the earth. Occam's razor suggests that it was a small meteor or a hand granade that made it. But it could be a much more complicated solution to its existence, also (eg. a child built it using a plastic toy showel while looking at a picture from Moons surface).

Yeah, but unicorns are fictional and cannot be seen. God's can be seen. Every man can do it, but it requires some practice and/or luck.

[Khris]

Yes, I know what Occam's razor is. But not having all the facts will result in an incorrect answer, even using the same method.
Say that you see a small crater in the earth. Occam's razor suggests that it was a small meteor or a hand granade that made it. But it could be a much more complicated solution to its existence, also (eg. a child built it using a plastic toy showel while looking at a picture from Moons surface).

The whole point of Occam's Razor is that as long as the meteorite explanation is sufficient, it is the most likely one.
Thus, if somebody is mean, he's either simply mean or possessed by the devil, or even one of his minions. Guess which explanation is the most likely one.

[Jim Reed]

Yeah, but likely is not the truth allways, and this is a big world, so the possibilities are vast.

[guitar_hero]

You believers seem to waste a lot of energy defending God, don't you? A supernatural perfect Being should be good enough for not needing any kind of defense from its tiny, weak and humble creations... Unless it's the tiny creations who created the supernatural Being, of course!

Funny how people act like anyone could actually judge god. But if god is really god he's to decide what's good and what's not. So by definition he is good and everything against him is evil. That easy. We tend to think we could tell good from evil all by ourselves and ask "How can a good god do evil things?" He can't. There's no law above god telling what's good and what's not. If he does it, it's good. When we see ourselves in a postition to judge (or defend) god this only proves us being evil. Even his laywers often do forget about this.

[Jim Reed]

Yes, allpowerfull means just that, there is no one above God. But if He, let's say, kills a man, and says that others shouldn't do it, I would do what He tells me, and not do what He does.

[Akatosh]

If your god tells me to never, ever question and just mindlessly obey him, I'll stick with some alternative, thank you very much. I'm not into TPE. Could you ask Mr. Magical Sky Dictator if the tree of knowledge needs, like, a gardener or something? No need for payment, as long as I get some of those sweet insta-smartening apples, and the heavenly trio keeps the heck away from me with their "love".

Seriously though, you are right in that there is no law saying "this is right" and "this is wrong". There is only what humanity has decided to condemn and what humanity has decided to exalt, and the conclusions drawn from that morale matrix. If you look at what we have achieved, I think we all deserve a pat on the back. (Sure, there have been some... less-than-pleasant occurences, but we more or less fixed them. We've come a long way from the grunting cave people who worshipped sky-grandpas because they had no explanation for thunder.)

[Jim Reed]

Knowledge is available, at a price.

If you want to know you need to go learn.
You can't get much without work.

If you have an epiphany that means that you gained some knowledge. That's a really good thing.

[Khris]

Funny how people act like anyone could actually judge god. But if god is really god he's to decide what's good and what's not. So by definition he is good and everything against him is evil. That easy. We tend to think we could tell good from evil all by ourselves and ask "How can a good god do evil things?" He can't. There's no law above god telling what's good and what's not. If he does it, it's good. When we see ourselves in a postition to judge (or defend) god this only proves us being evil. Even his laywers often do forget about this.

Wow, that's a really fucked up way of deciding what's good and what's evil. Congratulations, you've negated tens of thousands of years of evolution of our moral sense.
In the absence of evidence for the existence of god (which is, well, the current situation), I prefer to consider good what makes people feel happy and bad what makes people fell shitty, thanks.

And how come that people even ask "How can a good god do evil things?" Because that implies that they have a different view of what's evil and what isn't. Why would an omnipotent God create beings that have a different moral standard...?