Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:51 pm Agree: 3   Disagree: 0

@Jehovahnissi

You say: "To deal with the human will, its nature and functions, respect should be had to the will in three different men, namely, unfallen Adam, the sinner, and the Lord Jesus Christ. In unfallen Adam the will was free, free in both directions, free toward good and free toward evil. Adam was created in a state of innocency, but not in a state of holiness, as is so often assumed and asserted. Adam's will was therefore in a condition of moral equipoise: that is to say, in Adam there was no constraining bias in him toward either good or evil, and as such, Adam differed radically from all his descendants, as well as from "the Man Christ Jesus." But with the sinner it is far otherwise. The sinner is born with a will that is not in a condition of moral equipoise, because in him there is a heart that is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked", and this gives him a bias toward evil. So, too, with the Lord Jesus it was far otherwise: He also differed radically from unfallen Adam. The Lord Jesus Christ could not sin because he was "the Holy One of God." Before he was born into this world it was said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" Luke 1:35. Speaking reverently then, we say, that the will of the Son of Man was not in a condition of moral equipoise, that is, capable of turning toward either good or evil. The will of the Lord Jesus was biased toward that which is good because, side by side with his sinless, holy, perfect humanity, was his eternal Deity. Now in contradistinction from the will of the Lord Jesus which was biased toward good, and Adam's will which, before his fall, was in a condition of moral equipoise - capable of turning toward either good or evil - the sinner's will is biased toward evil, and therefore is free in one direction only, namely, in the direction of evil. The sinner's will is enslaved because it is in bondage to and is the servant of a depraved heart."

>>>>You making a great deal of positive assertions here why should I believe any of this nonsense?

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:48 pm Agree: 4   Disagree: 1

@Daniel Paul
You say:"Cause and effect are created things. Now, you have said there is no God yet you presented no proof. Do you believe that by faith? Prove there is no God. That is what is required without faith."

>>>>Cause and Effect are not created things. They are part of reality. As for God proof, the burden of proof is on those who make the assertion that a given god exists. If someone were to claim that invisible fairies exist in gardens which contain roses then there is no reason to believe that claim without their bringing forth the evidence that their assertion is true. It is not unreasonable to not only deny these fairies but to assert that said fairies do not exist until sufficient evidence is presented to the contrary. That is what I am doing with my assertion that there is no god. Till theists can show otherwise in an unambiguous way for all intents and purposes to life there is no god.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:38 pm Agree: 2   Disagree: 0

@believer
You say: "sl, if a parent tells a child not to play in the street they don't need to know why it is wrong to play in the street but only that their parents who love them told them not to because they love them and only wants what's best for them which is what God wanted for Adam and Eve."

If an omnipotent and omniscient parent doesn't want their child to play in the street and that parent knows they will anyway but is determined to not have their child play in the street that omnipotent omniscient parent eliminates the street.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:34 pm Agree: 6   Disagree: 1

@Jehovahnissi

You are your mind and your mind is inextricable from the brain. Mind/Brain unity is very well established. Your Bible is wrong because it is based on 2000 year old understandings of the universe and physiology. We know better now.

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Soulless »

Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:30 pm Agree: 4   Disagree: 0

@DelightntheLord

>>>>Eternally burning in Hell is not punishment, it is torture. Punishment is with the intention of creating deterence and the eventual ability to show that one has been detered therefore punishment must be temporary. Hell is said to be permanent, therefore Hell is not punishment; it is torture.


You say: "God is blameless...you are not. Christians do not "refuse" to look at the flaws godless men think they need to "point out", rather Christians who have been regenerated by God accept Him on His terms;
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."(Rom 6:23)"

>>>>No, god is nonexistent and I am not. According to the Bible the wages of sin are not "death" but an eternal life of burning in agony in the fires of Hell. If that is so, then I am more loving, more understanding, more thoughtful, more considerate, and more forgiving than the Biblical god.


You say: "Only if you are stuck in time, like we are. God knows the beginning and the end, so "predestination" is simply the result of the culmination of History of those who have chosen to love and obey God. Consider that the Word of God is eternal, breathed by God outside of time and it tells of the beginnings and the end. No other religiously inspired book can boast this."

>>>>There is no such thing as "outside of time".


You say: :Who else has the words of life eternal?
No one but Christ Himself. His very incarnation split our time; B.C. and A.D."

>>>>Time is an illusion. The counting of time as we understand it is of human invention. And not everyone uses B.C. and A.D.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:29 pm Agree: 1   Disagree: 1

@DelightntheLord

You say: "He gave man free will to choose, either for or against Him; between obedience and disobedience.
My dog doesn't need to understand good and evil in order to obey my command to sit. Simply, God told them ahead of time; it was the cataylst for the excercise of free choice."

>>>>A dog is trained to obey, and a dog does not obey after being told once. It only learns through repetition. Humans can learn this way as well, but not doing things because one is trained to avoid it through repetition and just being told not to do something are entirely different processes. It all goes back to the nature of what good and evil are. "Good" and "Evil" are really no different than "Right" and "Wrong". "Good", "Evil", "Right", "Wrong" are all relative judgments. So as for the Genesis narritive what was actually being kept from Adam and Eve in the story was the abilty to Judge, that is to say, Determine "Good" from "Evil" or "Right" from "Wrong". They couldn't even judge that being naked was "Right" or "Wrong" before eating the fruit. Yet the god of the Bible is expecting them to be able to understand without the ablility to Judge that obeying him was "Right" and disobeying him was "Wrong", because if they could not make such determinations then Adam and Eve were nothing but puppets.


You say:"Yup, He knew, that is why the very first prophesy of a savior for mankind is found in Genesis 3:15. We, who have accepted the Savior have come into life and choose freely to love God. One will not be forced to love God."

>>>>But if we don't we are told we will burn in Hell by the Bible. That's an ultimatum.


You say: "God created man to show His mercy and love for His creation to an audience of angels who did not rebel."

>>>>Yet according to the Bible most of the humans that have ever lived will burn in Hell for all eternity. That's neither mercy nor love.


You say: "God took a risk that man would rebel. Instead of creating mindless, robotic creation, He created man to love and fellowship with Him through free choice; freely choosing to love and trust God. If God chose not to create man, you would be oblivion or "soulless" as you already consider yourself, so what does it matter? Rebellion against God leads to punishment because man without God is depraved in his nature."

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Wed Jun 03, 2009 4:46 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 1

@Jehovahnissi

You say: "If the will is determined, then there must be a determiner."

There is only Nature of which we are a part. We are subject to the laws of Nature, just like we are subject to gravity. There is no "determiner", there are only the natural laws to which we are subject.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Wed Jun 03, 2009 4:34 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

@Jehovahnissi

Human Will is an emergent property of brain function, just as the things we call "the mind" and "consciousness" are emergent properties of human brain function. They are inextricably linked to the material world.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Wed Jun 03, 2009 4:23 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

@Viking

You are of course absolutely correct that there is no Hell, but we both know that isn't the prevailing view of the majority of Christians.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:59 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

getting late goodnight

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:58 am Agree: 1   Disagree: 2

@Daniel Paul

"isn't predestination and free will different views of the same events simply viewed from inside the time creation?"

No, internally predestination and free will are opposites, but an omniscient god would have to mean that predestination exists. However, since there is no god and time is just an interval within the movement of space we end up with what we actually have which is cause and effect.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:50 am Agree: 3   Disagree: 2

@Daniel Paul

Questions for you to answer:
Who placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden?
If Adam and eve didn't have knowledge of good and evil how could they truly comprehend it was "wrong" to eat from it?
If your god is "all knowing" wouldn't your god have to know they would eat from it before they did?
If everything your god created was "perfect". Why did your god do the very thing required to make them "imperfect" by placing that tree there when he knew they didn't really understand why they shouldn't eat from it? So he could blame them for his own actions?

Your god IS a control freak within the narrative of the Biblical story. What your god apparently wants is to give people the illusion of free will and then punish them when they actually use it. That's called toying with people, and it's not very nice.

Your god wants to blame me for something that someone else supposedly did. I was never in the "Garden of Eden".

The god you've known all your life is the god of your own making. You see your god through rose colored glasses. He gets all the credit and none of the blame, but I'm just pointing out the flaws you refuse to look at.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:25 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

@viking

We are subject to the cause/effect system. I cannot choose to actually believe a god exist, even though some people make that claim they really can't, in fact I didn't choose to not believe. I was a believer and I found myself convinced over time that I was incorrect about that belief. Belief and disbelief just happen as part of the system. Morality and ethics often ebb and flow along this cause/effect system, but we have evolved a desire to survive. If we hadn't we wouldn't have survived as well as we have. This alone is enough to generate reasons and purpose for much that humanity individually and collectively determines for itself. We acquire a natural proclivity toward that which ensures survival. Survival is broad enough to encompass many differing ideologies and that is evidenced in the various cultures that have existed. "more moral, considerate etc." is a rather relative judgment and those determinations by individuals or collective groups will be firmly grounded in the cause/effect system even as it remains relative. Like I said, who we are is the sum of our experiences and our thoughts and feelings about our experiences. Two people may have remarkably similar experiences but their thoughts and feelings will be different about them. When it comes to morality for example, All morality comes from our intention for ourselves, our culture, or our society. Things that are contrary to our intentions will automatically be deemed "wrong" or "immoral". Many people argue over differing morality but that conflict is created only when someone else decides to dictate the intention which they will do because they will feel they must. There are no moral absolutes, only similarities in our intentions, and one of our most basic and most common intentions is survival.

You ask: "Also if you have no free will than aren't all of your statements also predetermined by your nature and history rather than any virtue of inherent validity?"

The fact that I'm saying this at all is not "pre"determined but is determined by the cause/effect system, things unfold as they do within the system but there is no predetermination for example it wasn't predetermined before I was born that I would be sitting here at my computer at this second. The future doesn't exist there is only now which is experienced by our minds. As far as inherent validity is concerned, we are able to make predictions within the cause/effect system the fact that we can do that is the perfect example of how inherently valid what I'm saying is. Science, for example, makes predictions about the results of experimentations every day but any prediction is only a matter of probability.

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Soulless »

Sun May 31, 2009 11:42 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

@viking

Hell described in the Bible is cannot be for punishment in spite of the Biblical use of the word "punishment". Punishment is done with the intention of creating deterrence and therefore must, by necessity, be temporary so as to provide opportunity to example having been deterred. Hell is forever according to the Bible and there are many places it talks about it and therefore one must conclude that creating deterrence must not be the intention. Burning for all eternity would indeed be torture should such a thing be possible. Of course, it's nonsense since there is no afterlife and there is no such thing as the "soul".

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Sun May 31, 2009 11:19 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

@viking
It's very clear to me that we live in a universe of a very complex tapestry of cause/effect sequences, which begins from the circumstances of our birth. "Free Will" is an illusion. We have choice but that's as far as the illusion goes. Even a casual look deeper and one can see that all the options for every choice are still determined by the cause/effect system we live under and our actual choices are based upon the results of our experiences of past cause/effect sequences whether those experiences are real or not. Our interpretation of those experiences are very important since this will affect how the choices are made, and since who we are as a person is the sum of our experiences, and our thoughts and feelings about those experiences, as well as our genetic propensities there is virtually nothing left that could be construed as having a "Free Will". Free Will was created by people so it would make it easier to place blame and punish those who are seen as "wrong doers", but with the exception of those people who are mentally damaged in some physiological way, murders, rapists and thieves are made, not born. And to accept the concept of "Free Will" is to relinquish our own contribution to creating such people even if only in the tiniest of ways. Human experience is generated both at the level of the individual and at the level of small and great collectives. We are also at the effect of the natural world around us, the weather for example, which also plays a part in the input of the cause/effect system we live under. The more I look at it the less room there is for a god.

I hope this answers your questions.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Sun May 31, 2009 10:50 pm Agree: 1   Disagree: 2

@believer

Any god that would make a rule that would end in the torture of even one individual for all eternity simply for a lack of belief is a monster I want nothing to do with. I'm more moral, more thoughtful, more considerate, more caring, and more understanding than that god.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Sun May 31, 2009 10:48 pm Agree: 1   Disagree: 1

@Daniel Paul

Any supposed god who is said to be the "creator", as is said of the Biblical god, is necessarily the creator of the rules dealing with a so called "afterlife" that includes the rule that says that anyone who doesn't go to "Heaven" must automatically go to "Hell". It doesn't matter that in your view everyone is going to Hell without intervention. The rule would still have had to been initiated by the creator and therefore is still culpable for the ultimatum, and it is indeed an ultimatum. You obviously dislike the idea of giving any blame to your gods intentions but if your god had not made the rules he could get out of taking responsibility, but he can't. He's stuck with it being an ultimatum no matter how much of a spin you want to put upon it.

The description that you have is of the Mafia Boss who likes to put on the good show of benevolence. I'm not buying it. He's a monster with a single spray veneer of loving kindness.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Sun May 31, 2009 8:34 pm Agree: 1   Disagree: 0

@Viking

Your post is a non sequitur. What I said does not logically lead to having no identity, free will or rationality. Those things are quite irrelevant to what I said and are entirely different issues.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Sun May 31, 2009 8:25 pm Agree: 2   Disagree: 1

@Believer

The "free gift" you are referring to is an ultimatum.

"Love me and do as I would have you do, or burn for all eternity"

That's really no different than the Mafia Boss giving you the choice to either do as he would have you do or you get to sleep with the fishes.

Atheists Advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago Buses

Soulless »

Sun May 31, 2009 6:14 pm Agree: 2   Disagree: 2

To paraphrase to monotheists, "I contend that we are all atheists. I simply believe in one fewer God than you do. When you comprehend why you dismiss all the other possible Gods, you will comprehend why I dismiss yours."