Testing The Christian Apologists

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Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
-- Stephen R. Covey

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You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.
-- M. Scott Peck

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I don't know who they are. That's what I mean. You use that as a rote answer to everything. You don't have to actually think about anything because you already have The Answer™.

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Daniel Edwin Barker (born June 25, 1949) is an American atheist activist and musician who served as an evangelical Christian preacher and composer for 19 years but left Christianity in 1984. He and his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor are the current co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.[2] He has written numerous articles for Freethought Today, an American freethought newspaper. He is the author of several books including Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist.[3](...)Matthew Wade Dillahunty (born March 31, 1969) is an American atheist activist who is the current president of the Atheist Community of Austin, a position he had previously held from 2006 to 2013.[3][4][5][6] He has hosted the Austin-based webcast and cable-access television show The Atheist Experience since 2005,[7][8][9] and formerly hosted the live Internet radio show Non-Prophets Radio.[10][11] He is also the founder of and a contributor to the counter-apologetics encyclopedia Iron Chariots and its subsidiary sites. He is regularly engaged in formal debates and travels the United States speaking to local secular organizations and university groups as part of the Secular Student Alliance's Speakers Bureau. (...)Raised Southern Baptist, Dillahunty considered becoming a minister.[2] His in-depth examination of his Christian beliefs, instead of bolstering his faith as he had intended, led him to no longer believe in the basic tenets of Christianity and, eventually, all religions. (...)One of Dillahunty's recurring themes has been the superiority of secular morality over religious morality. His key contentions on the issue are that secular moral systems are inclusive, dynamic, encourage change, and serve the interests of the participants, whereas religious moral systems serve only the interests of an external authority.

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If by that you mean that I don't throw away my old answers whenever I come across new ones, you are correct. I do consider the new ones on their own merit and in light of my observations and understanding of humans and human nature...gleaned from my college studies on Psychology.Do you expect me to throw away everything I have believed as you did? I think you are the loopy one in that regard. You deify evidence as if its the default standard for everything, and have somehow gathered enough of it to reject God. I, on the other hand, would need better reasons than a few scholarly lectures from educated people to throw my beliefs away.

No, I mean you don't give the new answers proper consideration because you assume a priori that they're wrong (because you want them to be wrong). I don't believe you do. You're constantly saying that you refuse to give up your beliefs. Yes. If you have really thought about it, I don't see how you could do anything else. "Deify" is not the right word. I might go so far as to say "revere" but I think "respect" would be more accurate.And yes, again, evidence IS the default standard. It really is. Well, no. I have gathered NONE of it and neither has anybody else, which is why I don't believe in God. That's the same standard that you use for unicorns. You're the one who is inconsistent, not me.And I don't "reject" God any more than I reject unicorns. I would be quite happy to ride a unicorn if you could saddle one for me. And I would be quite happy to discuss your silly theology with God if you could sit Him down on my couch. Think that through. You would need "more" than facts to stop clinging to a lack of facts? What ever happened to your claim that you consider new ideas on their merit?

I believe that humans are in a war of ideologies. I believe that Satan is not simply a plot device representing our own selfish thinking but is an external reality. I have seen enough. Satan was allowed to exist in order to temper us and make those who have an ear stronger. Resisting evil is not an automatic response from every human...many are weak and would as soon roll over and sleep it off or find a way to justify it and form a consensus with it. As for facts, there are some instances in life where they simply are unavailable. The absence of evidence is in and of itself no reason to conclude evidence of absence. Fair enough. You are no different, however. You would be open to having a discussion with God if somehow he could be brought to your house, at your level, and be plopped down on your couch. You likely would grill Him, citing His propensity to "fry your friends and kill innocents, among other things. He is in no way as user-friendly as you hope, so you simply ignore him. Granted I ignore the homeless guy on the way to work always in the same spot begging for change...though I have given it to him on two occasions recently. Why has he any right to everybody's spare change any more than you or i do?You might argue why God has any right to everybody's submission. The only reason you even have such a right is that He allowed it. Lets put it this way. Say that at one time perhaps ten years ago, you and three friends, enjoying a sober day in the mountains, encountered a UFO. You clearly remember every feeling connected with the experience and even what the round-headed alien said to you. You even felt the touch of their scaley skin brushing against you. Your friends experienced the same event. So along comes evidence which refutes that possibility. Do you simply throw away your memory and your impressions? You follow evidence and facts and dismiss the experience as something in your head that could trick you.Keep in mind that I have no reason to accept or reject unicorns. The encyclopedia says they do not exist, so I leave it at that.I would argue that I have a few reasons to accept God while you feel otherwise.
You seem to do fine without Him. In fact, you would prefer that the God peddled by organized religion not be real.

Within the Book of Common Prayer outline of a service is an offertory, a time to present offerings. There are even some sentences that might suggest answers "Why has he any right to everybody's spare change any more than you or i do?"

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If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember
that your brother has something against you, leave your gift
there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your
brother, and then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23, 24

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But do not neglect to do good and to share what you have,
for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Hebrews 13:14, 15

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And the lesson is repeated at the end of the service:

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And now, Father, send us out
to do the work you have given us to do,
to love and serve you
as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.

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Let your light so shine before others,that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.It really is about what you do.

I know that. What I was telling ringo is that this same homeless guy parks himself at the same corner every day and collects from people stopped at the light. I give when I feel compelled to give and not out of obligation. Just because he has his hand out is no reason to give every single time I see him. heck, he probably makes more than I do!And what of the day when I cannot work? If I save nothing I will have nothing. I don't see Bernie and the liberals getting elected anytime soon and I am bright enough to know that they cant conjure social money out of thin air. The nation is already far in debt.

The nation decided to go into debt to enjoy really stupid pleasures like foriegn wars and tax cuts to billionaires and defining money as a form of speech.If there is debt it is because US citizens decided they wanted to waste the money instead of spending on health care or infrastructure or food for the hungry or shelter ...But the bill WILL get paid. The issue is whether you want to pay it through more pain or wiser decisions.Edited by jar, : fix quote boxEdited by jar, : appalin spallin

You're wrong. A war would imply two sides and that's ridiculous. There are hundreds of different ideologies. That's not an excuse for denying the facts that are available. But that's entirely different from you. On what do you base that conclusion? How do you distinguish between non-user-friendly and non-existent? I also ignore the unicorns and so do you. Why do you ignore the unicorns? To each according to his need. That isn't even coherent. Well, of course I would throw away any conclusions that I might have had. It doesn't matter how vivid the memories are. If it didn't happen, it didn't happen. Yes.Duh.I'm trying to wrap my head around how you could not understand that....Yes, our heads trick us.Let me tell you a story: For Grade One, I went to a one-room country school with all of the grades in one room. The school was originally built in the 1920s. I was born in 1952. In 1954, they built a new school beside the old one and then moved the old one away. For one summer, when I was two, mind you, the schools stood side-by side. I recently came across a photograph of the two scools side-by-side. The funny thing is, I have absolutely no memory of the new school. All of the memories I have of that school are distinctly of the old school.I don't have any voodoo explanations for that. I just accept that my head tricked me. Stop lying. I have told you many times that if God existed, I would be happy to accept Him.

Sometimes you have to make eye contact or they won't even ask. You know, treat them like a human being. They're used to being stepped on. They can tell who's likely to give them a buck or two and maybe even talk about the weather for a minute - and who's likely to pretend not to see them. I feel better when I give than when I don't.(My mother used to tell us: Be nice to people. You might be talking to an angel.)

Actually I agree with your Mother. I think I met an angel once...no evidence except that he seemed to glow and he had wisdom that one wouldn't expect out of a homeless man. I don't mind giving and helping people. It makes me feel better too. To be honest, however, if I found out someday that God was not real and that all I had been doing was helping my fellow humans, I would feel a bit disappointed.Its true I would have been doing good. But I really really hope that God exists, is Who we expect Him to be characterwise, and is just waiting to bestow good things on all His children.I will admit there are valid questions from his critics.

Why does He not help us now?(Perhaps he does behind the scenes)

Why do so many suffer? Its the only thing that puts a damper on my blessings. Its a bit like getting served at a big feast first and having to not eat until everyone gets served..

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The only way I know to drive out evil from the country is by the constructive method of filling it with good.Calvin Coolidge
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
As the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so the denial of God is the height of foolishness.-RC Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith

- You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. Anne Lamott
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.~Andre Gide

Then you completely missed the point of what my mother said. She meant that you wouldn't recognize them. Look at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I remember my encounter. I had recently gotten "saved" and was full of love for everybody. The church that I attended had turned a homeless guy away, and I went outside to talk to him. (they were mad that he tracked mud into the sanctuary when he wanted food. he was also inebriated.) So I went out to talk to him. He lived in the railyard next door to the church.(homeless) and I gave him some money and told him why they turned him away.(It was Brent, one of the deacons, who basically had the philosophy that a church would/should feed the needy but not "devils".(drunk people, I assume) After I showed the man respect, he suddenly seemed to glow and began telling me that I would be blessed for helping him. The thing is, I never thought anything about him being an angel until after I had talked with him, perhaps several hours later when the possibility just hit me. Mind you, I wouldn't expect anything but its always nice to know that God appreciates our selfless love towards others.Again, if I someday found out that God was not real, I would probably go through a personal crisis. It's not that I don't find value in helping people. Its that I count on being taken care of in the grand scheme of things. I suppose that the homeless feel that way too.

I couldn't care less what God appreciates. And if somebody does unto me as they would have me do unto them, I couldn't care less whether they do it out of "selfless love" or just because it's the decent thing to do. I doubt it. A lot of them have experience with hell-hole churches like the one that you went to.

Ringo of Saskatchewan has been chomping at the bit for me to stand and debate/discuss absolute truth vs relative truth in the context of being a believer as opposed to an eternally skeptical critical thinker.I expanded my argument based on the beliefs of Peter Kreeft, a respected apologist.Here is the basic framework for this argument:

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Absolute Truth vs. Relativism

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Relativism is the belief that there are no objective, absolute truths. What's true for one person may not be true for another.
The relativist's position is self-defeating because the relativist is making an absolute truth claim when they say, "all truth is relative."
If truth is relative, on what basis can we judge or condemn the actions of people with whom we disagree (For example, Adolph Hitler or Osama Bin Laden)?
Truth is simply the correspondence of what you know or say to what actually is.
Without a society governed by absolute truths, civilization would fall apart. For example, imagine a world where red stop signs didn't absolutely mean, "stop" for all people.

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To say that something is absolutely true means that it is independently true for all people, even if they do not know it or recognize it to be true. The opposite of absolute truth is relative truth. To say that something is relatively true means that it can be true for one person and not for another. And in this context, we are discussing the hypothetical of a Creator Of All Seen And Unseen, a phrase coined by jar of Texas.ringo has argued that

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I am quite well able to deal with such a concept. (A Creator Of All Seen & Unseen) YOU, on the other hand, can't seem to grasp the incongruity of a "creator of all seen and unseen" who DIDN'T create evil.

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​ I have elaborated on this argument by saying that God created potential evil and Lucifer chose to actualize it. Once actualized, humans were free to choose "it" rather than Him.

Edited by Phat, : added sentence

I wouldn't use that definition. I haven't said that all truth is relative. On the outcome of their actions. I had to read that twice. It seems unlikely that some goober named Peter Kreeft would be right about anything, based on the previous quotes. But I suspect that some goober named Peter Kreeft has strange ideas about "what actually is." Well, a lot of civilizations HAVE fallen apart. Has some goober named Peter Kreeft ever heard of history? And all of them have had DIFFERENT "absolute truths". It's truths agreed on by each individual society that hold civilizations together. When those truths inevitably change, civilizations decay and fall apart. Apparently, some goober named Peter Kreeft is too young to remember when stop signs were yellow.Hmmpf. That was easy. And for absolutists, the "absolute truth" is conveniently what THEY recognize to be true. Nope. You're making the mistake of assuming dualism. Relative truth, by it's very nature, encompasses all truth from everybody-in-the-known-universe-recognizes-it-as-truth to nobody-in-the-known-universe-recognizes-it-as-truth. It cannot be an opposite. It cannot HAVE an opposite. Yup. And that's obviously true. For me, it's true that the best flavor of ice cream is chocolate - but it isn't true for everybody. Our freedom was given to us by God. The one who turns a child loose in a workshop full of power tools is evil. The child is not. Some goober named Peter Kreeft doesn't understand the meaning of "all-powerful". Indeed it is a self-contradiction - by some goober named peter Kreeft. He tries to make an argument for an all-powerful God by making an argument against an all-powerful God. Well, you've pretty much quoted some goober named Peter Kreeft word-for-word.We've been through all this before. Some goober named Peter Kreeft is not helping you.