A more preposterous hypothesis

[Willum]

Many of you have probably heard of Eric, the god-eating penguin.

"God can't exist because of Eric The God-Eating Penguin. Since Eric is God-Eating by definition, he has no choice but to eat God. So, if God exists, He automatically ceases to exist as a result of being eaten. Unless you can prove that Eric doesn't exist, God doesn't exist. Even if you can prove that Eric doesn't exist, that same proof will also be applicable to God. There are only two possibilities - either you can prove that Eric doesn't exist or you can't - in both cases it logically follows that God doesn't exist."
-- Mark

Eric is not the point of this post.
The point that:
I propose that there is nothing you can posit about god, or God, that a more preposterous claim can be made that still is more logical than God.

We can use Eric as a starting point, God is posited, Eric is posited, preposterously as demonstrating God cannot exist, yet still logically defeats the idea in both cases.

I believe this is true about anything that can be said about God.

Am I wrong? Can anyone think of anything?

[1213]

By what the Bible tells, love is spirit.

That doesn't really give us a definition of love. What is spirit?

By what the Bible tells, I think spirit is like attitude.

Do you know team spirit? What do you think it is?

[brunumb]

By what the Bible tells, love is spirit.

That doesn't really give us a definition of love. What is spirit?

By what the Bible tells, I think spirit is like attitude.

Do you know team spirit? What do you think it is?

So, love is an attitude. The Bible is really profound. I still think the dictionary definition wins out. There is not a lot of love in the Bible when you weigh it up against all the smiting and orders from God to kill. The Bible is just a collection of stories told by ignorant and superstitious people pretending to speak on behalf of a god they invented for their own benefit.

[Willum]

[Replying to 1213 in post #70]

Everyone? So, you think evil should continue forever? I am not surprised.

The Flood did not stop evil. Your God had the perfect opportunity, this side of Adam and Eve, to stop evil, and he failed utterly. What an idiot god.
So, yet again, you have invoked a more preposterous hypothesis to explain God, actually two. That the flood intended to stop evil. Well done!

By what the Bible tells, God has not tortured.

I suppose you like famine and wandering around the desert for forty years. I suppose you like being a slave (to the Babylonians and Egyptians and...).
So your premise is based on the Hebrew LIKE being tortured in punishment for not being true to God's words?
Yet another specious hypothesis to cover the God story.
You are really good at this!

Really, where are those instructions?[for rape]

That you are unaware of what your Bible says is NOT my problem. But it is yours, I don't imagine there is any getting into Heaven if you are ignorant of His word.

If people would obey the rules God has given, no child abuse would exist.

Interesting premise, can you show it is true, or different from what we actually observe without?
However, there is no injunction against the molestation or abuse of children. That's why it is so prevalent among priests and rabbi. They know better than you do.
Prove me wrong. WITHOUT I might add Juxtaposing MODERN morality, that child abuse is wrong, and generic Biblical injunctions. To do that, you will need to show that THE BIBLE and your God believe child abuse is wrong. More wrong than mixing fabrics, anyway.
In any case, yet again, you have invoked the more preposterous to prove a point about God.
Well done.

And this closes the loop on your more preposterous "love" hypothesis. Finally!

[1213]

…The Flood did not stop evil…

According to the Bible the goal was to kill the evil people that were on earth then. By what I know, it was successful. Perhaps you should read the Bible?

…That you are unaware of what your Bible is NOT my problem. But it is yours, I don't imagine there is any getting into Heaven if you are ignorant of His word…

I am aware of what it says, and I know it doesn’t support your claims.

…That's why it is so prevalent among priests and rabbi….

Please prove it is prevalent among them? If you know most of them are guilty, why are you not doing anything about the matter?

Prove me wrong. WITHOUT I might add Juxtaposing MODERN morality, that child abuse is wrong, and generic Biblical injunctions. To do that, you will need to show that THE BIBLE and your God believe child abuse is wrong…

Whoever receives one such little child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him that a huge millstone should be hung around his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depths of the sea.
Matt. 18:5-6

It is also against the ”love your neighbor”.

[Zzyzx]

…The Flood did not stop evil…

According to the Bible the goal was to kill the evil people that were on earth then. By what I know, it was successful.

Okay, presumably all the evil people were killed (according to the tale) leaving only eight 'good people', Noah and family to repopulate the Earth.

Evidently, 'God's plan' did not work very well if descendants of those eight provide the Earth with plenty of Evil. According to the tale, they are the ancestors of the worst dictators and despots.

Did evolution make bad people from good people?

Perhaps you should read the Bible?

Reading works OTHER than the Bible might introduce a bit of reality -- and learning critical / analytical thinking (and <shudder> science) might cause one to question the validity of the flood tale.

[Willum]

[Replying to 1213 in post #74]

According to the Bible the goal was to kill the evil people that were on earth then. By what I know, it was successful. Perhaps you should read the Bible?

You are really good at this!!
You have proposed that no evil survived the flood, which is a really preposterous hypothesis necessary to defend the God proposition.
Because of course we have evil not only today, but shortly after the days of Noah, in fact, Noah got drunk and cursed Ham, neither is a good act.

Please prove it is prevalent among them?

Have you been avoiding the news for the last 300+ years?

If you know most of them are guilty, why are you not doing anything about the matter?

Well gosh mister, I have been praying REALLY hard!

Whoever receives one such little child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him that a huge millstone should be hung around his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depths of the sea.
Matt. 18:5-6

I am not sure what that is supposed to say. It could, and seems to me, it means to make them sin, or stumble. However, if molestation is not a sin - you have not made your point/ At least not as well as mixing fabrics is a sin.
Still waiting...

But we still have shwacked your love hypothesis into next preposterous...

[Willum]

[Replying to 1213 in post #74]

Of course, it occurs to me, the Bible proposes "God is love."
But what does it also say?
God is jealous.
God is vengeful.
God is angry.

So the Bible provides its own more preposterous hypothesis trumping "God is love," without my help.
Of course it has the BEST one, and the truest one:

God is invisible.
An invisible thing that takes no action and yet is supposedly the most powerful thing in the universe.

Clearly preposterous.

[emilynghiem]

Dear @Willum
Instead of assigning characteristics that are arbitarily chosen,
the approach that I find makes more sense
is to start with values or aspects that people ARE assigning to God.

Then work from there.

So depending how THAT PERSON answers,
this will spell out the EQUIVALENT of how they
define the three levels of God, Jesus and Holy Spirit,
or body, mind and spirit
or individual, collective universe, and the connection/relationship between the two.

I imagine you recommend this much more preposterous approach because you are completely unable to justify God with the one I proposed.
So I propose if you can't show any god with an objective approach, then to ask a subjective personal approach to demonstrate a god is certainly far more preposterous.

Again, well done, but poorly answered.

See you will get people assigning characteristic that can't be measured without a NMRI, like love, and declaring victory.

Dear @Willum
Because each person's understanding comes from their own perspective,
any meaningful conversation has to start from where that person is coming from.

If the framework of your thought process about the meaning of God
is based on discussing the given comparison,
it's not "preposterous" if that is what a person relates to!

The same process of "coming to agreement on meaning"
can happen whether we are arguing about
* Saddam Hussein being redeemable or not
* Republicans or Democrats being more to blame for political problems
* Whether or not the virus pandemic is real or to what extent it has been overblown or downplayed in the media
* What is the real issue behind the global warming arguments
etc. etc.

As long as someone's conscience is focused on addressing or resolving a conflict
that represents something critical to that person, that isn't preposterous at all.

There is some reason they want to focus on it.
So why not address and resolve it, and learn as much as possible?

[Willum]

[Replying to emilynghiem in post #78]

If everyone's god is personal, then everyone's god is subjective.
If everyone's god is subjective, then everyone's god is imaginary.

If everyone's god is imaginary, then you have proposed an imaginary deity, a seemingly more preposterous hypothesis, than a traditional one.
Well done.

[Willum]

“God performed this X miracle.“
“How did God perform that miracle? It’s impossible.”

“God can do anything!”

It is the assumption of Judeo-Christians, without having any solid reason to believe, that God is a all-powerful being, and was so from the beginning.

This causes more paradoxes than it solves, as it begs the question of God’s problems.
The Garden, the Flood, turning people to salt. In the shallow view if God, God would resolve these problems before they could materialize.

This makes for a bad story, but that would be omnipotence for you.

So by performing miracles, the explanation being he is all powerful, raises the more preposterous idea that he would have the problems he would need to miracle in the first place.

A more preposterous hypothesis than the issues addressed.