Is there a need for apologetics?

[DanieltheDragon]

Given these parameters:

God is real
God is All powerful
God is All knowing
God is Omnipresent

Apologetics seems meaningless. What I am trying to say is that the scriptures themselves should be without criticism given the parameters of the god defined above. Thus if god were real there would be no need to defend god because god and his message would be without fault and fault could not be found otherwise it would violate the parameters of his existence.

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 27 by dianaiad]

Yes sorry I was not quoting you I probable should have made it more clear. I put that definition in quotes to isolate it from my words.


Now to quote you:

In my view, defending a religious belief system is, and should always be, restricted to explaining what it actually is

An all powerfull All knowing Just and Omnipresent god would not need to have his message explained or defended. It would be crafted in such a way that would be understandable,clear, and unambiguous to everyone. Hence apologetics would not exist with a god given those particular parameters.

Well....

Actually.....

You really have no idea what an all powerful, all knowing, just and omnipresent God would or would not 'need' to do, given that you are none of those things.

Just sayin'....

And frankly, this criticism is very much of the 'God didn't do it my way so He can't possibly exist" style of argument. I've never figured out that one. If God is, then He will "do it" in whatever manner He wishes.

Again, just sayin'...

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to dianaiad]

Its not my way I have not defined my way. I am merely pointing out that given the traits assigned to this god

just-meaning he is fair and balanced
all powerful- he has the ability to execute his just nature
all knowing- he has the knowledge of what it will take to execute his just nature
omnipresence-He has the ability to be exactly where he needs to be to execute his just nature.


so why would a being with these qualities need less capable beings to defend its message?

this is not a he didn't do it my way argument.

[ttruscott]

What other religion has any reason at all for the division of reality into good and evil...?...since there is supposedly no division at all between divine and not divine, GOD and creation, etc, in the 'all is one' definition of reality?

Peace, Ted

...

To begin with, for those who believe in Satan, both Free Will and Evil had preexisted humans anyway.

Yes indeed - the human experience is the answer to the problem of evil, not the cause.

But from whence did Satan obtain his evil? (if you don't believe in Satan then save yourself this extra step and just ask from whence humans obtained their evil)

Every sinner created their own evil by a free will decision to go against GOD.

Evil cannot be a product of Free Will, unless you are demanding that God himself has no Free Will. Otherwise God would have been evil too.

I cannot make sense of this...how does allowing evil prove your own evil? Of course GOD has free will. HE has just never used it to create evil.

Therefore it's meaningless to pin the concept of evil on Free Will.

Your logic does not produce this conclusion...

Humans cannot be the source of Evil.

That is correct since all humans are already fallen and corrupted folk by their free will before they became human. The source of their evil is themselves but not in their humanness.

If we're talking about religions I personally believe that Taoism handles the concept of evil far more effectively than Christianity does.

Taoism denies the actual moral existence of good an evil except as opposing sides of the same reality - you can't have one without the other but it is all meaningless as they are just sides of the same reality. They handle it by denial.

Finally, pure secular atheism actually solves the "Problem of Evil" entirely and completely. It's simply not a problem in the first place. There is no reason to believe that the world should be perfect.

Solution by denial. Riiiiight...

Moreover, it's a contradiction to biblical mythology anyway. The God of the Bible proclaims that he himself creates evil.

Isa.45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Only non-believing antagonists to Christian doctrine use this word evil in this verse to mean moral evil rather than referring to a calamity to punish sinners and the 'moral evil' interpretation is not supported in any translation of any bible meaning of the word in any sect.

And yes, the use of this word ra in this verse is a trap...

Here are the possibilities of this word:
Lexicon :: Strong's H7451 - ra`

bad, evil
bad, disagreeable, malignant
bad, unpleasant, evil (giving pain, unhappiness, misery)
evil, displeasing
bad (of its kind - land, water, etc)
bad (of value)
worse than, worst (comparison)
sad, unhappy
evil (hurtful)
bad, unkind (vicious in disposition)
bad, evil, wicked (ethically)
in general, of persons, of thoughts, deeds, actions

evil, distress, misery, injury, calamity
evil, distress, adversity
evil, injury, wrong
evil (ethical)

so to chose the exact one that makes it a denial of GOD's goodness is what...biased?

Peace, Ted

[Divine Insight]

You really have no idea what an all powerful, all knowing, just and omnipresent God would or would not 'need' to do, given that you are none of those things.

This argument fails miserably. The reasoning being that an individual knows precisely what a God could do to easily convince them that he exists and is intelligent, righteous, and benevolent.

If the Bible fails in all of those departments then why should a person believe that the bible has anything at all to do with any God who should clearly know better.

No omniscient God would ever create a dogma as ignorant and stupid as the Bible that serves to do nothing but convince that it could not possible be from an intelligent God. To do so would prove that it knows nothing of me, and therefore it cannot be omniscient.

No omniscient God would create a religion and have his very own priests become totally corrupt and evil. Especially when he's going around intervening in the affairs of men already anyway. Why not intervene in his own church and nip things in the bud before they get so far out of control.

No omniscient God would ever have his only begotten son beaten and nailed to a pole and then ask me to condone this on my behalf because a truly omniscient God would already know that I would never condone such an ignorant and immoral act on my behalf.

In another words Dianaiad, any God who is truly omniscient should have a clue what would convince me of its intelligence and benevolence, but the Biblical mythology fails in all these areas. Therefore it's completely SAFE for me to conclude that these ancient stories cannot be the word of any genuinely intelligent omniscient God because this God would clearly know nothing of me at all.

And frankly, this criticism is very much of the 'God didn't do it my way so He can't possibly exist" style of argument. I've never figured out that one. If God is, then He will "do it" in whatever manner He wishes.

No, your reasoning is false. To begin with I'm not even suggesting that God should have done anything in any particular way. All I'm suggesting is that whatever way he choose to use the following must be true:

He must make it crystal clear why he's doing what he's going without any ambiguity.

If he does something that I would find offensive or ignorant then, being omniscient, he should be fully aware that I would see it as being offensive and ignorant and therefore he should explain why it's neither, or why he had no choice in the matter. But those kinds of explanations do not exist in the Bible.

Therefore there is no reason why I should believe that the Bible had anything to do with an omniscient God.

Because a truly omniscient benevolent and intelligent God would know better. At the very least he would know enough to explain himself intelligently.

But there is no evidence for any intelligent God in the Bible.

So there is no reason to believe that it has anything to do with any intelligent God.

[Divine Insight]

Yes indeed - the human experience is the answer to the problem of evil, not the cause.

Sorry, but if you claim its not the cause then it can't be the answer either.

You wouldn't have then explained from when evil came.

Every sinner created their own evil by a free will decision to go against GOD.

That doesn't explain the existence of evil. Again all you are doing here is assuming that evil already exists as a choice that people can make.

Evil cannot be a product of Free Will, unless you are demanding that God himself has no Free Will. Otherwise God would have been evil too.

I cannot make sense of this...how does allowing evil prove your own evil? Of course GOD has free will. HE has just never used it to create evil.

According to the Bible he has. In fact, if he created hell then he created the greatest evil of all.

Therefore it's meaningless to pin the concept of evil on Free Will.

Your logic does not produce this conclusion...

Sure it does, you can't blame evil on free will if there is no evil to chose in the first place. Evil must exist before free will can be used to chose it.

Free Will alone cannot account for evil.

Humans cannot be the source of Evil.

That is correct since all humans are already fallen and corrupted folk by their free will before they became human. The source of their evil is themselves but not in their humanness.

Humans cannot be the source of evil. Your answer here is no answer at all.

If we're talking about religions I personally believe that Taoism handles the concept of evil far more effectively than Christianity does.

Taoism denies the actual moral existence of good an evil except as opposing sides of the same reality - you can't have one without the other but it is all meaningless as they are just sides of the same reality. They handle it by denial.

Actually they handle it in the only way that makes sense.

The Bible tries to handle evil by demanding that it's something OTHER than God. But then they have a problem of where did evil come from. And you haven't offered a solution to that problem yet.

Finally, pure secular atheism actually solves the "Problem of Evil" entirely and completely. It's simply not a problem in the first place. There is no reason to believe that the world should be perfect.

Solution by denial. Riiiiight...

There is nothing to deny in a secular world. It just is what it is.

Moreover, this isn't "solution" by anything. There is no problem of evil in a secualr world and therefore there is nothing to deny.

Evil is nothing more than things that happen that humans don't like.

It's entirely a subjective opinion of humans.

In fact, if you think about this what humans do not think of as evil would indeed be thought of as evil by other animals that humans treat badly.

So evil is definitely a subjective opinion. Why should what humans think is bad trump what other animals might not like?

When you kill an animal you are the evil one. When you go fishing and hook a fish, you are the evil one in the eyes of the fish.

Evil is entirely subjective opinion. It's nothing more than this and secularists understand this.

Moreover, it's a contradiction to biblical mythology anyway. The God of the Bible proclaims that he himself creates evil.

Isa.45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Only non-believing antagonists to Christian doctrine use this word evil in this verse to mean moral evil rather than referring to a calamity to punish sinners and the 'moral evil' interpretation is not supported in any translation of any bible meaning of the word in any sect.

Sorry, I don't buy that. It doesn't fit the context.

And yes, the use of this word ra in this verse is a trap...

Here are the possibilities of this word:
Lexicon :: Strong's H7451 - ra`

bad, evil
bad, disagreeable, malignant
bad, unpleasant, evil (giving pain, unhappiness, misery)
evil, displeasing
bad (of its kind - land, water, etc)
bad (of value)
worse than, worst (comparison)
sad, unhappy
evil (hurtful)
bad, unkind (vicious in disposition)
bad, evil, wicked (ethically)
in general, of persons, of thoughts, deeds, actions

evil, distress, misery, injury, calamity
evil, distress, adversity
evil, injury, wrong
evil (ethical)

so to chose the exact one that makes it a denial of GOD's goodness is what...biased?

Peace, Ted

And look at all those words. They are all up for grabs for subjective opinion.

Clearly the secular atheists have the concept of evil nailed.

In fact, "Disagreeable" is even one of them.

The secularists are vindicated. Evil is nothing more than that which someone subjectively sees as being disagreeable to them.

The secularists WIN!

[EduChris]

...fault...would violate the parameters of his existence...

What if God chose to create self-determining, self-actualizing, responsible moral agents? It seems to me that if God had chosen to create such beings, there would necessarily be a process of moving from an initial state (i.e., something less than absolute perfection and knowledge) which allowed or even invited the process of self-actualization and self-determination to occur.

If there was such a God it wouldn't be the God of the Christian Bible...

Fortunately Christians need not interpret the Bible as you do. But if for some unknown reason the Bible simply had to be pigeonholed into your interpretation, then your logic would be impeccable!

[ttruscott]

...

Sure it does, you can't blame evil on free will if there is no evil to chose in the first place. Evil must exist before free will can be used to chose it.

...

You can play weird word games as long as you want but they do not descrbe Christian thinking but miss the mark by a wide margin.

Before creation there was no evil. After creation when everyone was still ingenuously innocent, there was no evil but there was the possibility of evil being created. For the last time - THE POSSIBILITY OF EVIL BEING CREATED DOES NOT IMPLY THAT ANY EVIL EXISTS except in one place, your mind, and in no other system of logic.

Evil is that which is against GOD. Before creation, nothing was against GOD so there was no evil. After creation, no one was against GOD while they were innocent but the possibility of their choosing against GOD existed. Evil did not exist until it was created by a person choosing to go against GOD.

This is basic Christianity...to not know this is...ummm???

I'm done with thie worthless exchange and will not answer further...

[Divine Insight]

Fortunately Christians need not interpret the Bible as you do. But if for some unknown reason the Bible simply had to be pigeonholed into your interpretation, then your logic would be impeccable!

I'm glad you agree with the logic.

As far as I can see there is no other way to "interpret" the Bible differently from the way I do without literally rewriting it. The reason simply being that my interpretations are indeed based upon what the bible literally says.

The claim that the Bible can be interpreted to mean things that it doesn't literally say is a clearly false claim. We know it is false with absolute certainly on many levels.

1. The Holy Spirit excuse fails.

The claim that a person must be guided by the Holy Spirit before they can understand the Bible fails because if a person required a magical Holy Spirit to guide them then this Holy Spirit could just guide them directly and would have no need for a literally absurd book as fodder.

2. People who claim to understand it cannot explain it sufficiently.

There has never been a single solitary person who has ever understood the Bible well enough to explain it to others in an unambiguous way.

In other words, let's say that you are guided by the Holy Spirit to understand the Bible. Then you should be able to covey to me your understanding so that I too can see how it makes rational sense. But there does not exist a single solitary person in all of history who has been able to explain their understanding of the Bible to others in a meaningful way on any scale that is impressive.

So there is absolutely no evidence that anyone can makes sense of the Bible. In fact people who do claim to be able to do this often just regurgitate very common apologetic arguments that have already been debunked and proven to be faulty.

3. Claiming the the message is to highly intelligent that it's over the heads of mere mortals to understand

This has to be the lamest apology ever. We're really scraping the bottom of the apologetic barrel on this one. The idea that the Bible is so extremely intelligent that it just seems absurd is nothing short of an apology of extreme desperation along with an open confession that the Bible is indeed absurd.

4. Even people who claim to have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit all disagree

We don't just see the quacks and weirdo outliers here, but we see that this would need to be the case even among the most devout Christian clergy of various religious sects.

Don't forget also, from a non-believer's point of view the Abrahamic religions all began from a single God myth. Therefore we aren't just talking about the confusion and divisiveness in Christianity which itself is extreme, but this would also need to apply to Judaism and Islam as well. These are all under the same umbrella of the same God myth.

In other words, the Holy Spirit would really have its work cut out guiding all Jews, Muslims, and Christianity to the TRUTH via their dramatically different dogmas.

~~~~~

So this apologetic argument that the Bible doesn't mean what it literally says is simply nonsense. This is clearly nothing more than an excuse for a mythology that has clearly failed literally. So all this apology amounts to is a confession that the Bible is literally worthless.

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 9 by bluethread]



No just no. No one is talking about bananas here the comparison just reminds me of more Ray Comfort brain melting apologetics. please no more bananas.

The point is that if a perfect being that is all powerful just all knowing and omnipresent would not allow his message to be distorted in any way. Hence if a god as described existed apologetics would not exist.

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[1213]

Take Mark 16:9-20 it does not appear in the earliest manuscripts but is a later addition. So we have one glaring fault in his message do we include Mark 16:9-20 or not? This is unclear since we do not have the original manuscript. Hence a god with the parameters given cannot exist.

I think it fits to the other Gospels and to the whole contexts and therefore can be accepted. I think it would be no problem if it would not exist all though it would seem odd if the Gospel text would look like not complete and that the end of the text is missing. Anyway, in my opinion it is not fault, because it doesn’t prevent person to understand, if person really wants to understand. For those who don’t want to understand, nothing would be perfect enough.