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.
Yeah because Jim Bakker has no charisma, looks ugly, speaks stupid and is a convicted criminal. What does any one see in that loser!
Joel Osteen is much smoooooooother. His net worth is 55 million dollars. Supposedly EARNED by selling books because he takes no salary from his congregation. Good for him. And I don’t recall ever seeing him hustle for donations.
I loved his sermon. I’d send the guy 10 bucks for a good sermon like that. He gets 5.5 million people to feel the same way, that’s 55 million. One sermon I had in mind was:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJfw82onrzw
Mung,
Interesting that you would choose to truncate my statement at that point…
…when this is what I actually wrote:
You are utterly transparent, Mung.
ETA: Speaking of which, I caught you quote mining again.
Flint, to Sal:
Or in Augustine’s observation, which Sal liked so much:
Remember, Sal, you’re the guy who told us, with a straight face, that you were a creationist because the creationists had offered you “a better deal” than the evolutionists.
My incredulous response:
That’s the sort of “vast ignorance” Augustine was talking about, Sal.
I feel somewhat like the guy who trusts the salesman’s promises.
Having experienced the product sold as the love of God, one eagerly anticipates the joys of heaven. I’ve seen the brochure. What could go wrong?
That is exactly the same as when Creationists quote Darwin setting up the problem his then proposes a solution to.
Fucking despicable. In this case Mung asks his question knowing it’s answered in the part of the quote he stripped off.
Fucking despicable. But I guess he’s proud and Jesus is proud so it’s all good.
My heart goes out to those in the path of Hurricane Irma.
May they find relief from God’s “love”.
Unfortunately, God’s “love” has weakened only slightly. Maximum sustained winds are still in excess of 180 mph.
I dunno, I think it’s a win-win situation. After enduring the suffering, you either get oblivion or an eternity of hallelujahs. On the whole I’d prefer the oblivion.
It is the third option that keeps many in the pews.
Alan Fox,
I guess it’s possible that Heaven or God are not precisely as portrayed. But then the potentially sinister thought emerges … in what way?
I’d certainly convert on entering the Pearly Gates though (or distantly viewed through the flames). At least, I could hardly not become a believer.
Allan,
What’s interesting is most Christians’ odd insistence that if you convert after death, it’s too late. You’re gonna burn.
Why in heaven’s name (so to speak) would God take such an uncompromising, unloving stance? It’s the opposite of the attitude the father takes in the parable of the prodigal son.
keiths,
Rather like the ‘out’ dependent upon timely repentance, gently mocked in Roddy Doyle’s Paddy Clarke ha ha ha:
I’m not sure my point has been understood. If you base your expectations of tradesmen and salesmen on past performance, one should worry about spending eternity at Heavenly Condos. I would anticipate reality to be more like Fawlty Towers.
After all, the original creation was advertised as paradise, but included a predator that tortured and killed not only the residents, but all living things and their descendants forever. This glitch was hidden in lawyerly fine print, like the ten pages of a license agreement that no one reads.
Just the fact that the breach of contract punished people and living things that didn’t participate in the transgression says that the objective all along was to inflict pain. It was foreseen, after all.
So having witnessed this duplicity, people are standing in line to buy Release 2.0?
Sorry about the “men” thing. But a loving mother would most likely be less of a shit. She would have made the kids feel real bad for about ten minutes and be done with it.
petrushka,
And the tree. How did such a tree even get in there? I’m more reminded of Sauron’s basic stupidity, putting all his Power into a ring. What can go possibly wrong?
I’ll test the hypothesis.
But there’s no feedback from Heaven. Oblivion, eternal bliss, fiery furnace or stuck in a lift with other people? Anyone’s guess.
There, I don’t follow. We’ve no way to tell whether any of the after-life myths, whatever version, are true. To me, they look suspiciously like stories people have made up. If I’m wrong, I’m in for a bit of a toasting.
Why not sell that story?
Losing it was what got him in trouble!
Perhaps it’s a consequence of being outside spacetime. You get a bit hazy on cause-and-effect.
Better evidence relative to payoff. Atheists give me zero payoff with insufficient evidence.
You want me to feed you the math again?
stcordova,
Regarding whether you are in for bliss, toasting or oblivion in the after-life, there is no evidence whatsoever to support any outcome. I’m playing Pascal’s wager as if this life is all we have. Live in the moment!
Evidence is what’s needed.
You’re utterly hilarious. I quote you asking me to explain why he [fmm] was quoting the Quran, I tell you it’s already been explained to you [so why should I] and you complain that you were asking me to explain [which is obvious to anyone] and then you bitch that I quote mined you for only including the part where you were asking me to explain.
I’m not going to explain it to you because it’s already been explained to you and you ignored it when it was explained to you.
Sal:
No. Here’s what you wrote:
What would count as evidence for you? What counts as evidence for me obviously doesn’t count as evidence for you. But just to be clear, what would count as evidence for you?
Spin all you want, Mung.
Readers can judge for themselves.
Pascal’s Wager demands an impossible strategy for someone not already in the tradition. ‘Believe there’s a demon behind this door, or it will gobble you up’. Huh?
As anyone will tell you, I don’t find hypotheticals helpful. Have you been talking to Mike Gene, lately, BTW? It’s his usual approach. You say you have evidence. Show me yours!
Also, Sal,
I do consider that human story telling is a sufficient explanation for religious myths. A story that didn’t reek of human imagination might be a candidate for evidence of a religious truth.
You utterly blew it when it came to interpreting FMM’s comment where he was quoting from the Quran. And you won’t even consider that you were wrong. Now from where I sit, that’s just damned funny. So yeah, spinning with laughter.
Mung,
Perhaps you could help me out. When people ask where I live, I never know whether to say “the south of France” (pretentious and misleading), “south-west France” (wrong, usually understood to be Gascony) or south-east France (wrong, refers to Provence). When I say Langued’oc, I’m soon to be wrong because our region has been renamed Occitanie.
Astronaut Charles Duke healing a blind girl in Jesus name. You may think it a coincidence, but if I were the blind girl or Charles Duke, I’d be at little careful at offending a deity that provided an answer to prayer. If a skeptic wants to take that risk, that’s up to him.
Extreme skepticism is a good quality in many cases but not all. If I had even a rumor of trouble about a bad storm, I would at least take some precaution. Some people were skeptical of the severity of Hurricane Katrina about 12 years ago in the USA. Long after the storm, I was down in Biloxi Mississippi and Bay St. Louis Mississippi where the center of the Hurricane landed. The locals there who fled told the story of some of their neighbors who refused to consider the dire warning of the weathermen. Their neighbors were convinced they knew better. Their neighbors stayed, the storm hit, and their bodies were never found….
Even Richard Dawkins put his certainty of atheism at 6.9 at a scale of 1-7. That means he feels there is 1.4% chance there is a God. Let’s suppose this is the Christian God whom he so despises. Ok, 98.6% chance Dawkins is right, his payoff on an eternal time scale is 0. 1.4% chance Dawkins is wrong by his own estimation, so a 1.4% he roast for eternity. That’s not a good payoff. No atheist has ever justified to me that they are making a mathematically sound choice based on their own estimate of the odds and payoffs.
What’s the basis for Dawkins’ atheism? Darwinism. Even by the admission of some of his own colleagues, Darwinism probably doesn’t explain the complexity of living systems. So his 98.6% belief is based on a flimsy scientific inference.
I’ve provided evidence the fossil record is young. You all dismissed it even though no one here provided credible explanations for the anomalies presented.
It’s one thing to say one is not convinced, but it’s not the same as saying there is zero evidence.
If the fossil record were young, would that count as evidence for the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3 and Matt 1? Would a youthful fossil record count as evidence of the Bible’s authenticity for you?
Here is one my friends who is a physicist. You might have to rewind the movie to the start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYyQ8l2OcBg&t=1710s
My suggestion would be to:
a) ask keiths.
b) poll a group of slow fourth-graders.
If they both agree, you have your answer.
Also already answered. Happy now? 🙂
keiths throw himself under the bus. If I were keiths, I can’t say I wouldn’t be tempted.
stcordova,
Tripe. I’m not sure you know what ‘credible’ means. This has been discussed again and again. You just block your ears. Which, of course, is entirely to be expected when you’ve got a mental image of someone demonic prodding you with a toasting fork to concentrate the mind. C14 in coal? How widespread, what about the limestone in cyclothems, what about other isotopes, yadda yadda yadda.
That’s a bit random though. Why just the one? I’ve lost the sight of one eye. Could he help me? I’ll pay!
There’s an old adage I heard a lot as a kid “God helps those as helps ’emselves”. Not sure how this anecdote works as evidence, though.
I’m not sure what Dawkins does differently with his little bit of uncertainty. I mean he’d need to pick a religion, first. I’m sure he’s not going to pick YEC!
Apples and oranges. I claim science and religion are looking at different questions. Science answers “how” questions rather successfully. Religion tries to answer “why” less successfully.
YEC factual claims have no bearing on whether there is an afterlife. I don’t see the connection.
No indeed. And for me, so far, there is zero evidence of an afterlife in Heaven. It’s human invention. Nobody has come back to tell us.
Don’t see why. It would just mean evolutionary theory was wrong or needed updating. “How” and “why” again.
Give me a resumé.
Yeah, what are the odds that Noah’s Flood occurred, or that God made life appear evolved?
I think I’ll not worry overmuch about those chances.
Glen Davidson
Sal,
You make the stupidest arguments. Here’s another one:
Really? You can’t conceive of any possibilities other than those two?
Alan Fox,
The evidence here is historical.
YEC or OEC is evidence of creation. If that starts to become credible then the historical evidence may start to become credible. You are discounting the evidence up front without evaluation. I understand this because I used to be ” blind” to the evidence around us.
https://creation.com/d-russell-humphreys-cv
That’s a faith statement, not a fact statement. You put your faith in Evolution, I put my faith Jesus.
Good question, and as Keiths was astute to point out, God could make belief in him really really easy by showing up and persuading everyone. My answer, not necessarily the right answer, is that we are the ones being put to the test and the great mystery isn’t why only some of us are save but rather why any of us are spared given God’s great wrath toward humanity.
Perhaps, in the scheme of things, we are like cockroaches who can’t comprehend why the universe and all reality doesn’t revolve around their needs and wishes of how the universe ought to be.
colewd:
That’s a big “if” and a big “may”, Billy.
If it works for you, good luck to you. I’m not trying to persuade you otherwise, just tossing in my view. I still think arguing over science vs religion is apples and oranges.
Funny, I thought the same of you. You’re the one who said even if you saw an instance of special creation with your own eyes, it wouldn’t invalidate evolution for you. So how about two instances, how about 3, how about N instances?
The more I’ve studied the matter of a young fossil record, the more promising it looks. In contrast the more I’ve studied various evolutionary theories the more absurd they look!
It’s ants on the sidewalk, oblivious of the Empire State Building! 🙂
And has absolutely no bearing on the putative existence of gods.
stcordova,
If you saw one instance of filling a bucket from a tap, would it invalidate all instances of buckets filling with rain? Equally stupid argument.
Yes, when IDists/creationists find their claims credible enough to do actual science–and then finally find evidence for once–maybe miracles will become believable.
So far, we’ve never seen any IDist/creationist brave enough to do design science. Wells is probably as close as you’ll get, with his bizarre “turbine” hypothesis for centrioles. Naturally, it didn’t work out.
Glen Davidson
Yes, we’ve noticed how well you’ve “studied” it all.
If you were on our side cherry-picking and using false dilemmas like you do, we’d try to get you to go to the other side.
Glen Davidson
GlenDavidson,
At some level it does appear evolved from the progression of the fossil records. The biochemistry, however is telling us something very different.
Unless the deity prefers honesty over calculation
Thanks old friend. Good luck to you too!
FWIW, there was a time I was excited YEC and Christian theology were true.
But as I pondered the issues, because of the issue of God’s wrath and the problem of malicious designs, more so than at any time in my life, at some level, I wish Keiths was right because that would mean most of humanity is spared from an angry wrathful God.
I refer to a thread which brought colewd to our forum when was surfing the net once upon a time. The thread stated my sentiments then and which are my sentiments today:
To paraphrase the Apostle Peter, if the bad stuff coming down on the planet is an example of God’s love for the Christians, think how bad his wrath will be on the non-Christians! 1 Pet 4:18
Don’t you know that if any miracle ever occurred that science is completely wrong?
/Sal thinking
Glen Davidson