Occasionally a theist makes an argument so amusingly stupid that it would be a shame not to share it with a larger audience. This is one of those occasions.
On another thread, we’ve been discussing the unloving way in which God — supposing that he exists at all — is treating the victims of Hurricane Harvey (and the soon-to-be victims of Hurricane Irma, unfortunately). In the course of that discussion, fifthmonarchyman — a Christian — made the following, er, memorable argument:
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.
– Isaiah 45:7
keiths:
Yes, and creating disaster for his children is exactly what every loving father sets out to do. Right, Mung?
Nothing says “I love you” like drowning someone or wiping out their possessions.
At that point fifthmonarchyman got the bright idea that he could defend God by arguing that God is not our father. He wrote:
quote:
the Originator of the heavens and the earth! How could it be that He should have a child without there ever having been a mate for Him – since it is He who has created everything, and He alone knows everything? – Sura 6:101
and
and say: “All praise is due to God, who begets no offspring, and has no partner in His dominion, and has no weakness, and therefore no need of any aid” -and [thus] extol His limitless greatness. – Sura 17:111
end quote:
That’s right, folks. Fifthmonarchyman quoted the Quran to argue against the idea that God is our father — forgetting that the latter idea comes straight from Jesus. What are the first two words of the Lord’s Prayer? Our Father.
Seeing fifth — a Christian — use the Quran to argue (unwittingly) against Jesus is one of the stupidest moves I’ve seen in a long while. I therefore renominate fifth for the title of World’s Worst Apologist.
After posting his comment, fifth belatedly realized that he had just thrown Jesus under the bus. He tried to undo the damage:
Get it keiths ?
A loving father is not the default understanding of God. Not by a long shot.
To know him as Father you need to have met his Son. Once you have met his Son you are simply not dissuaded when bad things happen.
peace
It’s a bit too late to backpedal, fifth.
This is a good time to quote Augustine again, on the topic of Christians who make fools of themselves:
…we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.
The inanity goes even deeper. I’ll elaborate in the comments.
It’s taken this long has it? That keiths koolaid rots your brain.
Yeah, I totally get where most of our…”Jesus freaks, out in the streets…” are coming from. Just the idiocy bugged me. Going to try and go back into lurker mode…
I was going to do an OP on this theme…going a bit deeper into the QM info conservation; microtubule consciousness processing, and as far as to some biological processes that appear to be controlled by quantum mechanics via quantum entanglement, such as mitosis…
My last posts on a similar theme:
Weren’t very popular and most people argued over different issues…
I don’t want to bore TSZ to death…
I don’t know…
Like membrane proteins, the preferred sane hypothesis.
Glen Davidson
Could be the best thing ever to happen to it.
You are not teasing me, are you? Do you like this stuff?
There is a lot of speculations on the QM theme and consciousness… but there is quite a bit of solid science too….
Woodbine,
Oh, well now Woodbine we are getting more to the truth of what you are saying then huh-you don’t have a low bar of what you would expect in a loving God at all now do you? Your definition of a loving God isn’t just a God that would prevent death to babies, like you claimed early. Now you want to prevent other bad things from happening. So now we are getting into Keiths zone-so no harm to grandmothers. How about harm to middle age men, a loving God needs to prevent that too right?
No floods where people might lose their homes, that’s also evil a God must prevent if you want to call him loving. How about heartache, is that Ok? I guess not right, because why would a loving God let people be unhappy, if he could prevent it?
Now maybe you and keiths and Robin can go back and think why your definition of a loving God means you only get infinite brains in a vat of whipcream having orgasms 24 hours a day. Because you are not going to have choice and love and relationships and motivation and striving and good deeds, and accomplishments if you want God to prevent every bad thing from ever happening.
That you and Robin and keiths can’t understand this, is more down to your own failure to be able to think through something long enough.
In a world with choice by definition a world also must have consequences, even an all powerful God couldn’t change that. You haven’t set a low bar for your loving God, you have set an impossible bar.
An OMNI-LOVING OMNI-GOD would not allow someone to set an impossible bar!
Therefore, God does not exist.
There’s a special bit for phoodoo at 1:55.
Why is keiths ignoring questions he’s been asked and refusing to back up his claims?
You aren’t fooling anyone, Mung.
WRONG!!!
I am denying a major premise of his argument. (A couple of them, really. But let’s stick with one for now.)
Where did this “all-loving” crap come from? What does it even mean?
If someone is arguing that floods in which people die and homes are destroyed are inconsistent with God’s nature they are obviously not reading the same bible that I read. The same bible that other Christians read.
Please tell me you understand. Because you really can’t be this dense.
An argument is sound if (and only if) all its premises are true and its reasoning is valid; all others are unsound.
From the very first page of comments, more than a week ago:
I can understand that if you make a fool of yourself you want to pretend like it never happened. Why not just answer the questions? Are you afraid? Got a little bit of a yellow streak there? The term “man up” only applies to real men?
Now is your chance to shine, atheist boy.
I see keiths is moving the goalposts again. 🙂
For heavens sake, Phoodoo it’s not hard.
My position is a loving God would not slaughter, or decree the slaughter, of children (amongst other things – but let’s keep it simple).
But somehow your mind has gone into overdrive and concocted this slippery slope argument whereby if God refuses to kill children then he would therefore have to prevent anything bad happening anywhere, ever….OMG it’s the end of free will as we know it!!!!! This is nonsense…..
“Hey, Woodbine, the police are going to arrest that murderer….that’s a bad idea. If they prevent this murder happening then where does it end? Next week they’ll be stopping us from riding a bike in case we fall off, you just watch.”
Phoodoo, we are not just discussing a God that spots a baby drowning and elects to do nothing (as bad as that is) – we’re talking about a God who actively drowns the fucking thing.
What is preventing you from agreeing with me that a loving, omnipotent God would not slaughter children. What’s the stumbling block?
I bet even Alan notice that bit of hand-waving.
If God is not “loving,” then yes, Christianity is false. But according to keiths, God has to be “supremely loving,” whatever that means, even if Christianity doesn’t hold that view.
You’re totally transparent keiths, your word-gaming is visible to all.
Jesus loves you anyways. 🙂
.
Good one
This is just a non-sequitur. Why not just admit it, keiths? You made a lousy argument, and it only smells more rank as time passes.
Maybe it’s the Jewish God who refused to forgive them and banished them from the garden. How did you decide that it was the Christian God? Power of imagination?
Maybe the Christian God forgave them.
You don’t get points for making shit up and then not defending it and then pretending like it never happened. You have to defend your claims if you want to score points.
Mung,
…says Mung, as he frantically moves the goalposts from where I set them in the very first page of comments.
I thought you might like it. 🙂
Soul Train never soul sleep
I’m still waiting for one of the believers to say something that actually sort of makes sense, like this:
Hilarious! Really! Your desperation is showing.
Maybe you should start yet another thread and REALLY REALLY set your goalposts (in your OP this time) so that no one will think you moved them yourself.
ok everyone, ignore anything keiths wrote after the first page! Else you’ve moved the goalposts.
#keithsLogic
No one believes you anymore keiths. You’ve become a laughingstock. Even Woodbine finally got a clue. But fight the good fight bro!
Woodbine:
Mung:
Heh. Look up the word “apologist”, Mung.
Can you agree Mung, even if you’re uneasy with terms like ‘supremely’, that the Christian God should at the very least be sufficiently loving not to slaughter children?
Is that too much of an ask, Mung?
Mung,
Do you believe the Bible when it says that “God is love”?
Ow! O man, you got me there! That one really stung! Anything else you can do to avoid the issues? Can I help?
When’s the last time you read the Bible, when you were like maybe nine? Because you seem to have forgotten everything in it. Want me to send you a copy? You know, you can even read online these days. Want some links?
Mung,
When you get flustered, you’re even less effective than usual.
Now calm down and tell us:
Do you believe the Bible when it says that “God is love”?
Did you miss that verse, Mr. “I don’t just read the Bible; I study it”?
Of course. That passage was crucial to my becoming a Christian.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Can you point me to a passage in the Bible that reads “God is not love”? Because that would be a contradiction. I’d have to take that seriously. I don’t have to take your nonsense seriously.
Mung,
You’re flustered, and it shows. Try to calm down so you can think a little more clearly.
Funny. You’re the one who had to back-track all the way to the first page, not me. Now you’re moving the goalposts again.
And you’re still avoiding answering the questions. What are you afraid of?
Mung,
Does the following sentence make sense to you?
God is love; therefore he slaughters children, drowns people (including those who love and worship him), and destroys their homes and possessions.
Doesn’t that sentence cause just a wee bit of dissonance in your religion-addled brain?
CharlieM:
Sure there is. Just accept that God doesn’t exist, or that if he does exist, he’s not powerful and loving. It makes perfect sense, and it fits the evidence.
The problem is only a problem for believers who cling to the notion of a powerful, loving God, despite the overwhelming contrary evidence.
J-Mac,
Too late.
Woodbine:
Come on, Woodbine. It makes perfect sense:
Haven’t you ever loved a baby and wanted to drown it? Or are you some kind of atheist freak who thinks that loving a baby means wanting to protect it, nurture it, and make it happy?
Robin,
When fifth gets desperate, he lies about his opponent’s position. It’s the power of Jesus working through him.
And not just in this thread. He’s been doing it for months.
A comment of mine from March of this year:
And that, by the way, was fifth’s “defense” of God after God chose to stand by, doing absolutely nothing, while a dog ate the head of a living baby.
Remember, kids: God is love.
I confess! I guess I’ve known it all along….deep in my heart.
When I finally came out to my parents they said they’d always known. Apparently when I was young we went to the Goldberg’s for Passover and I started asking odd questions. We left early.
Oh, I tried to put it it behind me….but tell me how long can you continue living such a lie?
Perhaps one day, God willing, a rabid dog will attack my children and I’ll have the decency and courage to sit back and watch….but until then I’ll just have to accept my twisted view of love.
Mung’s had this in his copy buffer for the last 48 hours.
My name is Elizabeth Liddle, and I started this site to be a place where people could discuss controversial positions about life, the universe and everything with minimal tribal rancour…
From about this site.
Thanks to Keiths for finally confirming that pointing and laughing is the motivation.
Well, as the theists are enjoying themselves so much too, let’s declare this an extension of Noyau.thread.
Still wondering:
Physical bodies die. The process can be messy painful, drawn out but hard to think torture processes that can extend the process into months, let alone years.
Then the physical body ceases functioning and decays.Then, for some (most?) Christians (leaving aside other dualists for the moment) the immaterial, immortal soul escapes and depending on a variable set of rules gets to immaterial, eternal Heaven with joy and bliss. (For Catholic zygotes that fail to nidate, the interim suffering would appear to be minimal.) Everyone dies eventually. Still not seeing why any amount of physical suffering on the physical body supports “Christianity is false”. And I’m a very physicalist physicalist. Perhaps that’s the problem. There’s a practical upper limit to suffering that one physical organism can incur and the soul, being immaterial, can’t be physically tortured at all.
Not seeing why “Tsunamis kill innocent people” is a gotcha for Christianity.
Alan,
I said that laughing was one of the motivations, a fact that you are eager to overlook, in typically dishonest fashion. You have a lying problem, as you yourself have acknowledged.
Mockery can be a very effective form of criticism, as we’ve discussed many times here at TSZ. But since you are opposed to skepticism, considering it an infringement of freedom, you naturally would like to see skeptical mockery disappear. Except when you hypocritically deploy it, of course.
Fifth’s brilliant move — comparing God to Ted Bundy to make the case that they both are loving — was ripe for mockery and fully deserving of it. You, of course, are opposed. I can only imagine what a drab and uninteresting place TSZ would be if you had your way. Thank God (so to speak) you’ll be resigning soon.
In the meantime, instead of continuing on your hopeless and quixotic quest to stamp out skepticism at The Skeptical Zone, why not get out of the way and let the grownups — those who can face skepticism and mockery without getting the vapors — talk?
Alan,
I know. You’re baffled by it.
Yet thinkers on both sides understand that it is a serious problem for Christianity. Why not do some reading on the topic?
If you let your children go outside where there is a possibility of rabid dogs do you not love your children?
keiths,
There are thinkers on both sides for which it is not a problem-why don’t you do some reading keiths?
Woodbine,
I believe the bible was written by men, so I have no idea what slaughtered children you are talking about.
1 Samuel 15:2-3, God commanded Saul and the Israelites, “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'”
The Bible is the inerrant Word of God because it it written in the Bible that it is the inerrant Word of God.
You might love them – but you’d be a shitty parent. You should at the very least supervise them until they’re mature enough to take care of themselves.
However, if you witness your children actually being attacked by the dogs and do nothing then I say you are a not only a shitty parent but evil, too.
Here’s the weird thing about this kind of defence….
Imagine a man has kidnapped a young girl, is poised to kill her, and the only being in the Universe who could possibly save her is God. Now, Christians will argue that it is inappropriate for God to intervene because that would violate the kidnappers free will.
But now imagine the same scenario only this time a police officer arrives at the scene carrying a gun. Would anyone argue that the police officer should stand down lest he violate the kidnapper’s free will? Of course not.
So what’s the difference?
Why is saving the life of the kidnapped girl the most important thing when a human is in a position to save her – but when the only person available is God all of a sudden it’s the kidnapper’s free will that matters the most?
If that’s what you think it means then yes, it’s gibberish, and trivial gibberish at that. It’s not Mandarin, it’s a language I speak fluently, so that’s no excuse.