Let's cut to the chase. Do you have any evidence?

[no evidence no belief]

I feel like we've been beating around the bush for... 6000 years!

Can you please either provide some evidence for your supernatural beliefs, or admit that you have no evidence?

If you believe there once was a talking donkey (Numbers 22) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe there once was a zombie invasion in Jerusalem (Mat 27) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe in the flying horse (Islam) could you please provide evidence?

Walking on water, virgin births, radioactive spiders who give you superpowers, turning water into wine, turning iron into gold, demons, goblins, ghosts, hobbits, elves, angels, unicorns and Santa.

Can you PLEASE provide evidence?

[iamtaka]

A bad argument would presumably be any argument you disagree with.

Person over argument. It's a bad argument because it's fallacious.

How exactly is one supposed to address a ridiculous system of thought except by exposing it to ridicule; which is to say, the reasons why it is ridiculous? Heaping praise on it for managing to be so spectacularly illogical would itself be spectacularly illogical.

Ridiculous is a value judgment. It is subjective. Most subjective matters are rooted in emotion. Should we really bring emotion into a discussion where we seek to discuss matters on the basis of reason and evidence?

I should also point out that if you are offended by the prospect of seeing your most cherished religious beliefs subjected to ridicule and scorn, boy are you on the wrong forum.

Again with the person over argument. Also, I was not aware ridicule and scorn were acceptable behaviors here.

A simple God? A simple God who is in reality three distinct Beings? Now throw in the rest...

I am going to quote my response to FarWanderer.

The line of reasoning replaces the Christian perspective of God with a non-Christian perspective. It does not matter whether a non-Christian believes the Christian perspective of God is complex. It only matters what the Christian believes about God.

The Christian accepts the premise that God is simple and does not need a cause or creator. One can disagree with the premise and believe their argument fails on that basis. However, one cannot switch out the Christian's premise with their own premise that God is complex and needs a cause or creator and then declare their argument fails because of such. The latter is a straw man argument. It is that to which I am objecting.

If you cannot tolerate anyone mocking such a thought process, I can only suggest that you should attempt to quickly get over it, because you have lived a sheltered life and out here in the real world abject foolishness is quickly subjected to mockery and derision. I should also point out that declining to address such mockery and derision does little to advance your cause, since it is immediately taken for a weakness of logic and the obvious inability to defend such a weakness.

Again with the person over argument. I will only respond to appropriate, relevant questions.

I actually posted much of your argument for you. The more I post, the more absurdly humorous it becomes. Which was my point in posting it.

The argument posted is not my argument.

I have a suggestion. Instead of becoming bogged down in the dreary verbiage of Christian theology, why don't we simply turn to the very core of Christian belief. That would be the story of the resurrection of Jesus. If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be demonstrated to have occurred to even a reasonable degree of probability, then the musings of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and other Christian theologians are nothing more then baseless assumptions grounded in hot air which is founded on little more then grade A 100% bull droppings. Means the whole thing is abject nonsense. It is overwhelmingly apparent that an empty grave and a missing corpse, ANY empty grave and missing corpse, are VASTLY more likely to have been a result of actions taken by the living, as opposed to actions taken by the corpse. Wouldn't you agree? And so if it is possible to discern, even within the pages of the NT, that the story of the resurrection can easily be attributed to actions taken by the living, then the possibility that the corpse came back to life and flew away has no realistic standing at all. Which serves to render all the rest of your argument pointless.

We cannot even discuss a simple, straightforward matter. The resurrection is multitudes more complicated and nuanced. I have no confidence that such a discussion would be productive.

[Clownboat]

I feel like we've been beating around the bush for... 6000 years!

Can you please either provide some evidence for your supernatural beliefs, or admit that you have no evidence?

If you believe there once was a talking donkey (Numbers 22) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe there once was a zombie invasion in Jerusalem (Mat 27) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe in the flying horse (Islam) could you please provide evidence?

Walking on water, virgin births, radioactive spiders who give you superpowers, turning water into wine, turning iron into gold, demons, goblins, ghosts, hobbits, elves, angels, unicorns and Santa.

Can you PLEASE provide evidence?

Since we're cutting to real chases, or the nut of the matter - do YOU really care if evidence is presented or not? I see no 'evidence' at all that any explanation, however well defined or presented, will be seriously considered.

It is not the lack of evidence that is the real issue here, it is the suppression of it.

And in that do you err and in that will you trip up yourself. For in the end the only soul that you are responsible for is your own and if you don't care to explore your own eternal possibilities you deserve the fate you get - because you asked for it.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

I hear you hollering from the loft about a soul that you cannot show exists. Seriously, I hear it.

But why the fear tactics? Can you not leave that to terrorists? Do you not understand how empty your threats of hell are to people that do not believe that there is a hell? You are the one that espouses this belief about a god that controls you, not only in this life, but also in the afterlife. It seems that you are the one that deserves the fate you get, sense you are the one choosing to believe it. You cannot project your beliefs on to others and expect them to have this same fear that you seem to hold.

By all means... holler away though.

[help3434]

[Replying to post 2545 by iamtaka]

I find it manipulative that you keep implying that all of Christianity believes in Divine Simplicity. This is not the case.

[iamtaka]

I find it manipulative that you keep implying that all of Christianity believes in Divine Simplicity. This is not the case.

Was I being manipulative or imprecise for the sake of avoiding unnecessary wordiness?

[Danmark]

Regarding the origin of the universe you can conclude either that it has always been, or that it came from nothing. It takes an extra step to come up with the idea of a god, but even if you do jump to that conclusion, you have the same choice. Either God always was, or he came into existence out of nothing.

I don't think it's quite that simple. There is a further point to be made here for the theist side that has got to do with philosophical problems associated to the idea that the universe has an infinite past. An infinite number of things seems to lead to a self-contradiction, as demonstrated by Hilbert's Hotel. If that's correct, then the universe has a finite past. Thus, the universe either came about 'spontaneously' from nothing, as Lawrence Krauss believes, or it had an external cause, which would have to somehow exist outside time (and space). That's where the God-hypothesis steps in.

If the universe can somehow have an external cause, why jump to the conclusion it has a personality, or is personal or is 'God?' Actually there is an easier way to deal with this. If we define the universe as everything that exists, then there is no external cause. Once one posits an external cause, that cause instantly and simultaneously is part of the universe.

It is just a mathematical game like Hilbert's hotel, which contains a logical paradox.
In Hilbert's hotel there are a countably infinite number of rooms that are all occupied.
Supposedly the problem arises when a new guest wants to check in.

The only reason this is a paradox is because of the use of a false or differing definition of 'infinite.' Here's what I mean:

There are in infinite number of rooms and an infinite number of people. Hilbert's Hotel suggests that the number of people is infinite +1 (or the number of rooms is infinite minus 1). When two numbers are both infinite, there is no limitation on either. Or another way of saying it is that the two infinite numbers must be the same, no matter how many word games you want to play to show otherwise.

Speaking of word games and paradoxes, here is one of my favorite puzzles:

Thiss sentence contains threee errors.
_________________________________
Try not to scroll down until you've had a chance to play with the puzzle.
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
'

'
'
'
'






You count 2 errors, but then the 3rd error is that the sentence actually only contains 2 errors... which means that it isn't true...which means it has 3 errors, so it is true... and on and on, back and forth for ever.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to iamtaka]

We cannot even discuss a simple, straightforward matter. The resurrection is multitudes more complicated and nuanced. I have no confidence that such a discussion would be productive.

The entire rest of this discussion is made irrelevant by this particular fact; when push comes to shove you have repeatedly refused to engage in debate. You sir are an empty vessel, exposed for all to see. I am not the only one watching here. If you had any actual confidence in your position you would seize this as an opportunity to educate the uneducated and to preach the Word of the Lord. But you fall short of that qualification, and you are apparently aware of that fact.

[Clownboat]

Thiss sentence contains threee errors.

Correct... there are three. I bolded all of them for you.

[iamtaka]

The entire rest of this discussion is made irrelevant by this particular fact; when push comes to shove you have repeatedly refused to engage in debate. You sir are an empty vessel, exposed for all to see. I am not the only one watching here. If you had any actual confidence in your position you would seize this as an opportunity to educate the uneducated and to preach the Word of the Lord. But you fall short of that qualification, and you are apparently aware of that fact.

I am confident in my position. My position is that the argument to which I responded in my initial post is fallacious. There have been no critiques which have raised any flaws in my response. Hence, my confidence has only grown.

I do notice the manipulative language and personal attacks continue. Shall I also take additional confidence in my position given such? I think I will.

[Danmark]

Thiss sentence contains threee errors.

Correct... there are three. I bolded all of them for you.

Nice try but no cigar. . . . Correction you deserve a cigar, one that explodes.

[Danmark]

I confess I do not see the import of whether this is seen as simple or complex.

Tired of the Nonsense presented a bad argument. Bad arguments rarely advance the discussion. There are more often an impediment.

What hits me is that there is apparently no dispute that Tired's description ... is accurate. Since this is a good summary of Christian doctrine, and one that has not been objected to, it beggars the imagination that any one could read this and not find this 'god' and this doctrine hopelessly ridiculous. I would be utterly embarrassed to take such a 'god' seriously. I can't see how anyone could consider such an absurd and illogical doctrine seriously and 'stake one's life upon it.'

The only thing I can suppose is that by virtue of having it beat into one's head for the first 15 or 20 years of one's life, it seems natural. But to an objective and mature reader, new to this doctrine, it is absurd. Jack and the Bean Stalk makes more sense.

Surely out there somewhere is a Christian Apologist who can either defend this monstrous absurdity, or who can challenge the summary as misrepresenting true Christian doctrine.

I am growing tired of these manipulative tactics. I am willing to grant that perhaps you do not intend to be manipulative with the response above, but that's certainly how the response comes across to someone trained in linguistics and rhetoric. Why? The post breezes over the point made by my posts and makes use of conversational implicature to inject a directed challenge into the discussion. Again, perhaps you did not intend that or you're unaware of the force of your words, but it certainly comes across as manipulative.

Please point out the sentences in this post that advance the argument or are not personal. I fail to see how you advance the argument by saying an argument is 'manipulative' or 'bad.' If you actually demonstrate why an argument is weak or otherwise defective, that would help. But simply pasting a label on it does not further debate.