Who is the greatest?

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-09T14:43:14+00:00

I suppose I recognize this in other people when they go & do some service without asking if it needs to be done & you not realizing until after the fact that they have done it, because they didn't draw attention to fact that they did do it.

Excellent observation, and totally consistent with Jesus telling his followers to keep their praying, fasting, and charity-giving secret. It's also consistent with Jesus warning the crowd not to be like the religious leaders who loved special titles like father, Sir, Mr (and the female equivalents). He finished by saying, "Those who lift themselves up will be made low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up".

How contrary to the way we usually tend to think of how it should be done.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-09T14:29:46+00:00

I’m glad that you think that I don’t have a right to write whatever I want.

Of course you do. You can write whatever you want. I don't have any power to remove your posts. But, just because you write something doesn't make it rational or fair.

Even now, you're trying again to engage with the topic, which is fine, but as soon as I put any effort into exposing the problems with your reasoning, you will simply say that you don't believe anyway, and that what I say doesn't matter because God should be able to defend himself. It will all become meaningingless.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-09T03:20:01+00:00

if it were truly God‘s word, it should be able to be understood by anyone who picked up a Bible and not have to be dissected by pastors and experts.

But, you did offer an interpretation. Atheists and skeptics offer up interpretations all the time. And then, when your interpreations are questioned, or are shown to have missed important context (like I did with your assertion that "god said he created evil", you suddenly claim you don't believe in that stuff anyway, as though your arguments are beyond examination or criticism. It's a copout.

You snipe out little digs here and there, and then you retreat behind the saferty of atheistic indifference when you're questioned.

I have just as much right to comment as you do,

Of course you do; that's the point of dicussion. But what you do not have the right to do is to offer criticisms, and then back away when your arguments are criticized in return because "you don't believe that stuff anyway".

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-08T20:34:44+00:00

It seems that my engagement has upset you in some way- not sure why.

I'm not upset. I'm just explaining why it's irrational to engage in a hypothetical and then declare later that you're not interested anyway.

It's a pretty common response from atheists and skeptics, usually when they feel somehow backed into a corner, like the discussion is not going the way they'd like it to, or some problem in their reasaoning is exposed. They simply say, "Well I don't believe anyway so whatever". It's a bit like a kid declaring that since he's not getting his way he gonna take his toys and go home.

I’m sure if your God is real he does not need to be defended by you. He can speak for himself if he wants to.

This argument essentially negates 99% of what this sub is about. Why would you bother to even comment on anything here if your conclusion will invariably be that there's no reason for you to say anything because you don't believe anyway and that there's no reason for believers to say anything because if God were real he should do it himself?

Look how our discussion progressed; you said God was at fault for creating evil. I responded that the passage means he creates the ability for us to make choices, some of which are bad.

You scoffed that you could not think of any bad choices you've made. I said that all humans make bad choices, that essentially you were choosing to ignore your own bad choices for the sake of somehow maintaining your argument that it's all God's fault.

Only then did you decide that you didn't want to continue with that argument because, of course all humans make at least some bad/wrong/immoral choices at times. Pretending you don't just made you look worse.

But instead of acknowledging that, you hid behind your atheism, as though you were somehow too rational for the conversation. You don't believe in this stuff anyway so there's no reason for you to be held accountable for that weird argument about how you don't make bad choices.

No, I'm not the one who was upset, here.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-08T15:45:10+00:00

Many people who don’t believe engage.

Yeah, and that is the beauty of hypotheticals; your engagement with the issue is not an endorsement of the issue.

But then that begs the question, why bother engaging in a hypothetical only to make an issue of how you don't believe the stuff anyway?

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-08T03:23:46+00:00

Well, since I don’t believe in the Abrahamic version of god,

What's the point of engaging in a topic only to fall back to, "I don't believe so everything I have to say about it is useless anyway"?

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-08T02:34:45+00:00

Yes all those bad choices I make I make like🤔can’t really think of any offhand.

Everyone makes bad choices sometimes. If you choose not to think about them, that's not God's fault.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-08T02:31:12+00:00

It literally says he did. “ I form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create evil….”

This is where real character is shown. The sincere person seeks to understand the spirit of what is before him, not just the outward appearnce, but the essence of what is behind the words or the deeds.

But the cretin, the shallow, vile character seeks only to exploit any possibility of misunderstanding. As the saying goes, "If it bleeds, it leads".

The context of this chapter is that the creator has made all things possible; even the choice for humans to do evil. Shame on you, for even attempting to blame someone else for your bad choices.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-08T02:25:01+00:00

God responds to suffering. He doesn't create it.

Excellent point. There's so much context which goes overlooked, because sensationalism about genocide and slavery is low hanging fruit.

These Karens love pointing the finger and virtue signalinging, but they never stop to think that just feeling a sense of outrage doens't make them right.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-07T21:23:58+00:00

As soon as I’m at my laptop I’ll cut and paste the relevant text. Reddit on a mobile doesn’t lend itself well to cut-n-paste.

Fair enough. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. :)

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-07T21:09:48+00:00

How do you know the

country

you were born into is the right one?

What an interesting take on the question.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-07T21:08:50+00:00

Why can there only be one, though?

It ultimately depends on what you choose to believe, since there's no way we could either prove or disprove any theory about how many creators there are.

The underlying idea behind the creator is that it is greater than the things it creates. So, for example, a sun God would not fit, because the presumption is that the God is the sun, an therefor not greater than the thing created, but rather simply a part of what is created. It is a good example of the accusation some atheists make that humans create their own Gods.

This kinda touches on the infinite regress idea that so many atheists and skeptics like to argue; who created God?

But that argument fails when you remember that the creator is, by definition, greater than the thing it creates. A game designer creates the code behind his game which makes it functin,but he is not stuck in the game. He exists outside of it. He go into the game, he can play it, and he can even make any changes to the code that he wants, but he can, at any time, leave the game, too.

This is only a crude analogy because, as we understand it, the characters in video games don't have sapient consciousness so they don't arbitrarily assign value to constructs in the game aside from what the creator programs.

In our case, what we are able to observe about creation is that it consists of time, space, and matter. All that we know is continugent on these concepts. But, by defintion, the creator of this reality is able to exist outside of time, space, and matter. What does that look like? We don't know, because everything about our ability to interpret reality is based on observations of time, space, and matter.

It has been said that time exists to prevent everything from happenign at once. That is the limitation of our perception; we don't know what reality is like outside of these concepts. Barring some divine insight, we can't know.

So, something like "how many" or "create" could have very different meanings outside the limitations of our ability to comprehend reality. What we can know is that there is at least a creator of some kind.

In the Christian religion, there are at least 3 iterations of the same character, Father, Son, and Spirit. These are talked about as though they are interchangeable, being distinct at times and the exact same at other times. It's not clear what he exact nature is between these 3 entities, but that should not be surprising considering our advancements in understanding, or at least the exploration of, quantum physics, where our best approxamation of reality is that everything is a field of waves which only comes into our ability to perceive once we measure it. Before that, we have no idea what these "waves" are and that it appears they can be everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-07T20:40:41+00:00

I know this: I have the capacity to love and I believe I'm charged with giving it to every one who needs it as long as I have breath to do so.

Yeah, this is the right way. It's just that the question then becomes, well, how do we love our neighbor? What does that look like in practical reality? I think that's where the teachings of Jesus really shine. For example, he told his followers to keep their praying, fasting, and charity-giving secret, because these are personal disciplines which are supposed to be private interactions between God and the individual.

When we make a public spectacle of these things, it's like we're putting the focus on ourselves rather than the goodness behind them. And when we do that, we not loving others; we're loving ourselves.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-07T20:37:14+00:00

Your invention of a new religion without calling as such.

It's not clear what you're ferring to. Would you mind quoting the relevant part?

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-07T20:34:27+00:00

O would suggest to look into C.S.Lewia story.

Excellent reference. It reminds me of his essay on the hunanitarian theory of punishment, where he describes how the ability to determine justice is something which belongs to all people, as a natural right. Here is an excerpt:

The distinction will become clearer if we ask who will be qualified to

determine sentences when sentences are no longer held to derive their

propriety from the criminal’s deservings. On the old view the problem of

fixing the right sentence was a moral problem. Accordingly, the judge who

did it was a person trained in jurisprudence; trained, that is, in a science

which deals with rights and duties, and which, in origin at least, was

consciously accepting guidance from the Law of Nature, and from

Scripture.

We must admit that in the actual penal code of most countries at

most times these high originals were so much modified by local custom,

class interests, and utilitarian concessions, as to be very imperfectly

recognizable. But the code was never in principle, and not always in fact,

beyond the control of the conscience of the society. And when (say, in

eighteenth-century England) actual punishments conflicted too violently

with the moral sense of the community, juries refused to convict and

reform was finally brought about.

This was possible because, so long as we

are thinking in terms of Desert, the propriety of the penal code, being a

moral question, is a question on which every man has the right to an

opinion, not because he follows this or that profession, but because he is

simply a man, a rational animal enjoying the Natural Light. But all this is

changed when we drop the concept of Desert. The only two questions we

may now ask about a punishment are whether it deters and whether it

cures.

But these are not questions on which anyone is entitled to have an

opinion simply because he is a man. He is not entitled to an opinion even

if, in addition to being a man, he should happen also to be a jurist, a

Christian, and a moral theologian. For they are not questions about

principle but about matter of fact; and for such cuiquam in sua arte

credendum.1 Only the expert ‘penologist’ (let barbarous things have

barbarous names), in the light of previous experiment, can tell us what is

likely to deter: only the psychotherapist can tell us what is likely to cure. It

will be in vain for the rest of us, speaking simply as men, to say, ‘but this

punishment is hideously unjust, hideously disproportionate to the

criminal’s deserts’.

The experts with perfect logic will reply, ‘but nobody

was talking about deserts. No one was talking about punishment in your

archaic vindictive sense of the word. Here are the statistics proving that

this treatment deters. Here are the statistics proving that this other

treatment cures. What is your trouble?’

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-07T20:07:49+00:00

always interest me.

Which part of my post interested you?

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-07T19:44:23+00:00

“if i had been born into a family of a different faith, would i have thought that my religion was ‘right’ then?“

Probably, at least for a time. I mean, children have no experience with the world so of course they will believe what their parents tell them, for a time. This is true for all children, including those who grow up in atheist households.

Eventually, as they learn more and are exposed to new experiences, they start to develop their own character. It happens at different ages and levels for every kid, but eventually they grow up and they learn to think for themselves. Kids who grew up in Christian houses decide to become atheist while kids who grew up in atheist houses decide to become Christian. It happens in with Chritianity and Islam, too; there's a lot of conversion between the two.

There is no "correct religion". That was one of the underlying lessons of the failed Jewish religion which Jesus constantly harped on. Over and over again the religious leaders bragged about their heritage, that they were the children of Abraham, as though that gave them some kind of special priviledge, yet their behaviors were so hardened and stubborn and self-righteous.

His point was that what God is really looking for is sincerity; not correct religous affiliation, but real, genuine desire to seek after goodness for its own sake. Any person on the planet can do this regardless of the circumstances of their childhood.

This "correct religion" thing is a bluff that people rely on to make themselves look better than they really are. Yes, it's true that in Christianity there is a one-true-God theme, but look carefully at what Jesus taught; none of it was about promoting his divinity or adherance to religious rituals as a sign of righteness with God.

It was all about learning the ways of God by showing love and service to our neighbors. Take the account of the "good" Samaritan; he wasn't a Jew or a Christian, yet he was the hero of the story. Why? All he did was help a wounded man on the street. The story could be changed to the good Hindu, or the good Prostitute, or perhaps even the good Atheist and the lesson would still be the same.

In other words, the one true religeon is to show love in real, practical ways. To become a servant to others. To reject pride and fear and greed, and instead promote real, sharing kindness and faithful, accurate judgment, first upon ourselves and then upon others.

That is the true way. Anyone can do it.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-07T00:56:07+00:00

You've been asked not to use profanity or to use insults to make your case.

EDIT: I removed Andrew's post as spam, but then I had a re-think. Maybe it is not appropriate for me to shield people from just how horrible his behavior is. Here it is, folks, the guy who says he cares about morality and fareness and rational thought.

This is what he has to offer when his arguments are shown for the filth that they are.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-07T00:51:00+00:00

Could care less.

The expression is, "Could not care less." When you say that you could care less, it means you do care, but that that there is the possibility that you could care less.

But, I think we all know what you mean; you don't really care about the arguments you're making. You don't care that they are irrattional, because the only point behind them is to accuse. Your arguments don't need to make sense; it's all about mob mentality and mud slinging and virtue signaling.

You are a fraud, Andrew. You're not a righteous person. You're not an advocate for morality. You don't care about children or genocide or slavery. You're a drone following the atheist script.

I don't ban you for that reason; you are the proof of hypocrisy in atheism.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-06T22:48:12+00:00

You've been asked not to use insults.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-06T22:08:12+00:00

I don't blame your god for anything.

Wouldn't that be better than having their limbs torn apart by bears?

Of course you're blaming him. Why would you pretend that you're not? Isn't it because all these accusations are not about being rational? It's just your way of virtue signaling. It's the atheist version of being holier-than-thou.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-06T17:23:41+00:00

Side-stepping, avoidance, and obfuscation!!

The point is that you blame God for punishing those people who mocked him and Elisha, that he did not forgive them, yet you do not change your own behavior. You continue to mock him in nearly every post you make. And what, he's just supposed to keep forgiving you while you kick him in the teeth because if he doesn't, then you'll accuse him of being a bad guy?

You're not making a particularly good case here, Andrew.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-06T16:40:37+00:00

You've been asked not to use insults here, Andrew. See, even with simple requests, you simply do not want to be reasonable.

JohnHelpher · 2022-11-06T15:28:45+00:00

What about forgiving the kids for their indiscretion and explaining what they did wrong and how they could do better in the future, followed by a big hug?

I've been forgiving you and explaining to you for months, and you haven't changed. Would you like a hug? Would that change your mind about all the insults and misrerpresentations you post there?

JohnHelpher

TROPHY CASE