Examining Relevance
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And then what?
Ok then. So you cannot assume the universe has to have purpose to exist then, because it could happen.
I assume the Universe has a purpose because I believe that God exists, thus giving the Universe a purpose, at least for me.
Also, what if it has no purpose despite god existing? Or that purpose is just to entertain this god, with no benefit to us in the slightest. God may have love for us only as one does when growing a plant from seed; sad when it dies, but gets over it fairly fast and probably isn't going to go through much effort for it if it becomes an inconvenience.
If it had not purpose and God *did* exist, why did he create it in the first place? If this purpose is purely to entertain God, that's still a purpose.
When you die you are gone anyway?
What if whatever created the universe is gone and no longer has any impact on what happens here? Would that not render worship and belief pointless?
Whatever created the Universe is eternal, by its very nature.
I said it left, I never said it stopped existing
I'll say it, What if it stopped existing?
God could be creating other universes, there is no reason it couldn't.
Shock of God - Let me address some things for you. Your belief that your God offers a base of objective morality is inherently flawed due to your own doctrine... let me explain.
Premise1 - God is all-knowing. (Job 37:16, Psalm 147:5, 1 Samuel 2:3, Isaiah 55:9, Job 28:24, 1 John 3:19-20, Hebrews 4:13, Isaiah 46:9, Matthew 10:30, Psalm 139:4)
Premise 2 - God created man in his own likeness. (Gen 1:26–27, Gen 5:1–3, Gen 9:6) This means through the substantive theological principles that our deductive reasoning skills are similar to God's, as they are an attribute of His image and we are a likeness of that image.
Premise 3 - Mankind can find reasonable and logical reasons to create detailed codes of law that govern over acts of moral turpitude, and the ability to reason those things out is a similar if not mirror image of God's same ability for reason.
Premise 4 - God commits acts that mankind would find legally reprehensible as crimes of moral turpitude, such as mass child murder and genocide. (Do you really need me to quote all the verses of God's merciless acts of psychotic behavior according to your useless book? You've read it right?)
Conclusion - The God of the bible is less moral than the reasoning of human beings and therefore cannot be a valid source of moral guidance and has in fact refuted His own claim of perfection.
To address your claim of God's objective moral high-ground;
Again, this is a self-refuting argument. As shown in this analogy:
"God is perfect"
"Who says? What do we have to judge that by?"
"God says and you must judge it by God."
Now we're down to the nitty gritty... the hubris of religion and the dementedly religious like yourself that are the objects of my disdain and general anger. Your claim that there is no "purpose" without God is the war cry of the coward. You have to have some goal beyond this life to be looking forward to, or you'd just curl up and wait to die. There is so much "purpose" to life without God that your tiny little mind just can't even fathom it. That's the real problem with all you "I've got an axe to grind with those immoral and purposeless atheists" types... you just can't see living without a carrot to chase so you do your best to make it seem as if all of humanities problems rest on the shoulders of someone else. It's the immoral atheists and the immoral homosexuals and anyone but yourselves that are the reason you're not happy enough in this life and have to spend your life on your knees begging for one where you don't actually have to work for it.
So let me give you some advice, okay - Grow up. Man up. Stop blaming everyone for shit and making idiotic statements like your atheists lack morality crap. If you truly believed or had "faith" in your God then you wouldn't be here trying to defend Him and if He were real then he could defend Himself.
Now let me end this by going all the way back to the damn OP and remind you that you DIDN'T meet the criteria given of VERIFIABLE and PROVABLE evidence and in point of fact have given nothing but utter contrivance and personal opinion. I was specific, so either you purposefully ignored that, or you're even more dense than I've come to suspect you are. Now if you can't present what I asked for, then you're pissing up a rope here and may as well move along.
I couldn't help but notice your constant use of ad hominem attacks, as well as assumptions.
Firstly, I do not personally accept the Bible as a Christian doctrine and my belief in God is not grounded within the Bible. And I have read it... three times. So your argument is invalid, in my eyes, as my evidence for God's morality does not come from the Bible.
Since I don't accept the Bible as complete truth, I, therefore, do not believe God has killed anybody. I also couldn't help but notice you think I hate atheists, and homosexuals. I actually find that quite offensive, as I've defended homosexuality on this website and my step-brother is gay as well. Also, I have no problem with atheism or atheists, many of my friends are atheists and we get along just fine.
Secondly, if you remove God as a foundation for morality, then what Hitler and the Nazi party did was really bad, because they thought it was good. From the atheistic viewpoint, anything could be considered good, including murder, rape, theft, genocide, etc. This is not saying that atheists are immoral, I don't believe that. I believe everybody is moral.
"Secondly, if you remove God as a foundation for morality, then what Hitler and the Nazi party did was really bad, because they thought it was good."
Adding a god to the mix does nothing to alter this. For example, the 9/11 hijackers believed what they were doing was good and consistent with their god's morality. Appealing to a god adds no actual objectivity, only the illusion of objectivity.
I'm reminded of the quotation from physicist Steven Weinberg: "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
The good news is that most of us agree with you: God hasn't killed anybody. We just have a different reason for believing it.
So, what you're saying is that the 9/11 hijackers didn't really do anything wrong? I mean, they didn't believe it was wrong.
No, of course that's not at all what I'm saying. I am saying that they claimed to be working on behalf of a god, which is evidence that claiming a god does absolutely nothing to establish what is or is not moral. Any 'objective morality' added by claiming a god is an illusion.
Morality by its very nature is subjective. There is no universal form of morality.
And still, SoG, you have not responded to Casper's original question. Lots of fancy dancin', but no actual response to him. Why is that? Either respond to him or, If you want to talk about something else, start a different string.
His premises are grounded in arguments that I've already refuted or in ideas or concepts which I do not accept, such as parts of the Holy Bible.
Not to our satisfaction.
His premises are grounded in arguments that I've already refuted or in ideas or concepts which I do not accept, such as parts of the Holy Bible.
His premises are grounded in arguments that I've already refuted or in ideas or concepts which I do not accept, such as parts of the Holy Bible.
His premises are grounded in arguments that I've already refuted or in ideas or concepts which I do not accept, such as parts of the Holy Bible.
False premise is false. Are you saying that God has revealed himself to you, along with his son Jesus, and many parts of what is in the bible, but not all? How did this come about SoG?
Also, the only evidence for the label of a god that you have is the Bible. You want to disbelieve all basis of religion and still follow that religion? By your logic Shock of God, god has left no valid evidence of his existence of him for us to worship at all, or even a reason to worship. What indication is there beyond a text such as the bible that his god even wants worship? Considering the notable lack of appearing to us, if it does exist, it probably wants to be left alone.
I take a more personal and theological approach when examining God. Some traits of God are affirmed in the Holy Bible, though I believe a lot of the traits God possesses can be seen elsewhere than just in the Bible.
And I find it contradictory when you say you don't want to convert us, just disprove our lack of religious belief.
I take it to mean he takes great pleasure in trying to make us look like fools, Very, how can I put this, something his god would frown on.
Is that really a term? If it is, I might consider myself one of those apathetic atheists.
Mans limited knowledge and fear of mortality may have a hand in driving masses to worship God who in all possible examinations remains irrelevant.
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