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Forums - General Discussion - The Religious Argument Thread!

Nintentacle on 12 August 2014
Soriku said:

Adam and Eve is debunked by evolution

Tower of Babel is debunked by modern linguistics

the problem of evil

in the same way you can't disprove unicorns, dragons, and fairies with 100% certainty

Most of your argument made sense, but I don't understand the parts I didn't take out:

How can Evolution debunk Adam and Eve, if no one knows for 100% which one happened? By that logic, both Evolution and the story of Adam and Eve are myths, so one cannot debunk the other.

So you're saying (In your case, assuming he existed), an all-powerful God couldn't change the langauges of people because of the way people have studied language since the 18th century?

God lets evil happen because he gave humans free will. Not letting them do evil means they won't have any free will. Evil effects other people, thus bad things can happen to good people.

It's really different. You can't say that, by believing in Unicorns, Dragons, and/or Faries, some people have completely changed their lives for the better. There's also a few people that claim God cured an uncureable disease (E.G. Herpes)



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Nintentacle on 13 August 2014
Soriku said:

There's no reason to believe there was anything supernatural influencing this. It would just be superfluous and dismissed through Occam's Razor.

3. the current mindset seems to be that the Christian god at least can help you through all walks of life and has a plan for you and stuff like that, but it doesn't seem he's helping people who really need it. Besides, if god has a plan for you, how can you have free will? In this scenario, you're a puppet and god is the puppet master. At the very least sometimes. Also, going by your reasoning, since there is apparently no evil and sin in heaven, then I suppose heaven has no free will?

These two still don't make sense to me.

1. Occam's Razor only suggest that the most likely possibility is correct. Saying it contradicts the story can't be correct, because you are saying It's the most likely answer. I can understand if you're suggesting that you think that God not existing is the most likely answer.

2. First of all, he'll only save you if you come to Jesus. Secondly, just because God has a plan for you, that doesn't mean you have to do his will. You get the choice whether to do it or not. And lastly, in Heaven, there are no Demons/Satan in Heaven to tempt you to sin, therefore there is no sin.



XanderXT on 13 August 2014
Soriku said:

1. Huh? We know what happened with evolution. Evolution is a scientific fact, not a hypothesis, not a myth. Referring to human evolution, we know humans have a common ancestor with chimps based on extensive fossil/skeletal and DNA evidence.

http://en.wikipeda.org/wiki/Human_evolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_years_evolution_fossils

There's no(good) reason at all to belive that god made humans outright that evidence point's to evolution.

2. It would be possible, but how would you go about proving its actually scratch that, I think we'd know for sure if during some period in history, a broad number of languages just spontaneously formed. However, through linguistics we know, for example, that Romance languages like Spanish and French descended from an older form of Latin, and both developed distinctly through the isolation of populations. There's no reason to believe there was anything supernatural influencing this. It would just be superfluous and dismissed through Occam's Razor.

3. In that case, people should stop praying to god since many requests could likely only be fulfilled by interfering with people's free will (like praying for a new car, house, husband, not getting killed by extremists...how do you expect to get that stuff without influencing other people?). However, the current mindset seems to be that the Christian god at least can help you through all walks of life and has a plan for you and stuff like that, but it doesn't seem he's helping people who really need it. Besides, if god has a plan for you, how can you have free will? In this scenario, you're a puppet and god is the puppet master. At the very least sometimes. Also, going by your reasoning, since there is apparently no evil and sin in heaven, then I suppose heaven has no free will?

4. Sure you can. Assuming all these things are fictional, and can't actually influence anything because they don't exist, it doesn't matter whether you substitute gods for unicorns. The only thing that would be necessary is a change of mindset; actually believing that a unicorn can help you in the same way a god can. I'm an atheist though, so IMO, in reality, you're not actually getting helped by anything. You just think you are. The same goes for people who claim that whichever god(s) they believe in cured their disease.


1. While Microevolution is certainly possible, macroevolution isn't. Genetics has proven we can't stray that far from our genetic code. And we actually have closer DNA to chickens then chimps, but according to evolution our common ancestors lived a long time ago. Why then would we have closer DNA to a bird rather than a fellow primeape? Don't say that mutation is the reason for macroevolution. I for one have slightly pointed ears. (Yes, kinda like an Elf or Vulcan. Don't call me that though) For example, what if I wanted to make the Elves of the future? What are the chances of me making a baby with someone that has similar ears and for my child to have the pointy ear gene and for her/him to have a child with similar ears? Certainly smaller than the chance for the Wii U and Xbox One to outsell the PS4 for the rest of their days. (I had to put that somewhere. ) And after more than 150 years how many transitional forms have we found? I dare you to find how many.

I'll answer the rest later.



XanderXT on 13 August 2014

Anyway, you can't say that all the Bible is incorrect. In the book of Job, Job says that God hangs the earth on nothing. This was more than 3 millenia before man went to space. And in Psalms, the path of the seas are talked about. Matthew F. Maury only discovered currents because he believed in that verse



XanderXT on 13 August 2014

Also, the chicken and human thing was proven through tear enzyme chemistry. Not some nutjob Christianity site.



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tiffac on 13 August 2014

Wow! I never noticed this thread but my faith or religion isn't so fickle for me to defend it. I rather hate people trying to force their beliefs on others anyway or trying to out do one another because of their ideology or beliefs.

Believer or not, as long as you respect one another then that's all there is to it.



Nintentacle on 13 August 2014
Soriku said:
Nintentacle said:

These two still don't make sense to me.

1. Occam's Razor only suggest that the most likely possibility is correct. Saying it contradicts the story can't be correct, because you are saying It's the most likely answer. I can understand if you're suggesting that you think that God not existing is the most likely answer.

2. First of all, he'll only save you if you come to Jesus. Secondly, just because God has a plan for you, that doesn't mean you have to do his will. You get the choice whether to do it or not. And lastly, in Heaven, there are no Demons/Satan in Heaven to tempt you to sin, therefore there is no sin.


1. The idea is that we already have a natural explanation for the construction of languages, so there's not much reason to include the supernatural in this. It's superfluous.

2. You can't possibly know god's plan for you if he doesn't reveal it to you, and chances are that in your entire life that you can't be following this plan to a T unless he's directly guiding you (which involves interfering with free will). So what's the point to a plan at all?

If there is no sin in heaven, there is no free will...

1. It still doesn't disprove the story itself, though. The only way you can do that is to prove that God is not all-powerful.

2. You're still making the choice to do his will. At any time, you can just stop.

As for the no sin in Heaven thing, that makes absolutely no sense. How could anybody in Heaven possibly have the temptation to sin after God has judged you? They can still make a choice on what they want to do or not (E.G. "Should I eat this fruit or the other...?" without the temptation to sin.



Nintentacle on 13 August 2014

Soriku said:

1. It does disprove the story. In Genesis, god made humans outright. And adults at that! Nothing even remotely related to evolution is implied in the story. Hell the story even implies that god had no idea of DNA (or rather, whoever wrote the story didn't, which isn't a suprise). God made Eve from Adam's rib. Adam's rib would've had the same DNA as Adam, obviously, so god should've made a copy of Adam when creating a person out of this rib. This is unlike child birth, where the two zygotes (sperm and egg) carry half the parents' DNA and shuffle them around at random to create someone new.

2. How can you know you're doing his will or not if he doesn't reveal his plan for you? Chances are you're not. It's like telling an actor to do whatever the hell he wants during the shooting of a movie, but the director would still want the actor to follow the script that was written. Oh, and nothing about the movie is revealed to the actor either. If the script isn't shown to the actor, how does the actor know that he's following the script? He doesn't. The actor doesn't even know what kind of movie he's shooting for. It's pretty much impossible that he'll follow the script. If so, what's the point of forming a plan (or writing a script) to begin with?

Earlier you claimed that sin gives us free will. I'll quote your post:

God lets evil happen because he gave humans free will. Not letting them do evil means they won't have any free will. Evil effects other people, thus bad things can happen to good people.

If not letting people do evil won't give people free will, and heaven has no evil, thus no evil actions are possible, then heaven has no free will.

Edit: On the contrary, there might be free will in hell! I mean assuming you're not somehow blocked from doing something objectively good.

1. We were talking about the Tower of Babel, not Adam and Eve.

2. You can't do God's will in the first place if you don't believe in him, or continue to live in your sin despite believing. You wouldn't do his will in the first place.

As for free will, you didn't interpret what I said correctly. I meant that God gives you the choice between good and evil on Earth, becacuse it is part of choosing him over sin. In Heaven, no evil people (Satan, Demons, and "wicked" people) are there to tempt you in the first place, so how could you possibly sin? The people already chose good over evil, and are in Heaven. God would have no reason to let people in Heaven have the temptation to sin, because he already judged them to be righteous.



Nintentacle on 14 August 2014
Soriku said:

1. OK. Well here's a chart showing the evolution of English:



I'll even throw in a chart of the evolution of programming languages :P

 

It's clear that languages descend from others, through a change of population, culture, isolation, and through a change in time. Languages didn't just come about spontaneuously. Also, when we speak of language, are we speaking of dialects too? What about Internet slang dialect (lol, YOLO, swag, lmao, leetspeak, etc.). Internet dialect is probably something you've observed yourself, and somehow I doubt you'll agree that it was the result of a god. The Tower of Babel story of languages forming spontaneuously is almost certainly a myth. With a kernal of truth however. The tower itself is real and incomplete, and IIRC the Mesopotamian language at the time was lost, which also stunted education. But it doesn't go further than that.

2. If you don't know what the hell his will is, I don't see how you could do it even if you believe and you're a good person. If you've never been told what to do, how do you expect to follow some kind of will for ~80 years (or whatever your lifespan is)? Unless his will is very vague and really only amounts to things like "go to church, worship/believe in me, be good to others, try not to sin if you can". But the Christian idea seems to be that his plan for individuals is more specific than that.

I understood what you said about sin and free will clearly. If the ability to sin is necessary for free will, and there is no sin in heaven, then you don't have free will in heaven. This is the third time I've repeated this and I really don't know how else to say it.

1. That still doesn't mean, if a God existed, he couldn't change people's speeches. Put it this way; Let's say there is a God. What would stop him from being able to change the way people speak?

2. Anyone who doesn't come to Christ won't even do God's will in the first place, if they knew what it was. They'd either not believe it was from God, or not do it. For people that do come to him, God will tell them his will.

3. You should stop repeating it, I've already told you that that isn't how it works. Look at the definition of free will: "The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act on one's own discretion.". Going by that, it means that free will does not always involve sin. For example, one person can be unsure of what new Chruch they want to go to, so they reseached 2 of them, and chose the best one. So, could they act on their own discretion? Yes. In Heaven, the people that are there are not going to have the temptation to sin, because, the only reason Satan/Demons tempt you is so you can go to Hell, so it would be irrelevent to tempt someone in Heaven, not to mention that they were kicked out of Heaven. But, there is still free will, because you can make choices (Not as important, clearly. But nevertheless they are still making choices) based on your own discretion.



Nintentacle on 14 August 2014
Soriku said:
Nintentacle said:

1. That still doesn't mean, if a God existed, he couldn't change people's speeches. Put it this way; Let's say there is a God. What would stop him from being able to change the way people speak?

2. Anyone who doesn't come to Christ won't even do God's will in the first place. For people that do come to him, God will tell them his will.

3. You should stop repeating it, I've already told you that that isn't how it works. Look at the definition of free will: "The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act on one's own discretion.". Going by that, it means that free will does not always involve sin. For example, one person can be unsure of what new Chruch they want to, so they reseached 2 of them, and choose the best one. So, could they act on their own discretion? Yes. In Heaven, the people that are there are not going to have the temptation to sin, because, the only reason Satan tempts you is so you can go to Hell, so it would be irrelevent to tempt someone in Heaven, not to mention that he was kicked out of Heaven. But, there is still free will, because you can make choices (Not as important, clearly. But nevertheless they are still making choices) based on your own discretion.

1. There's nothing to stop an omnipotent god from doing this, but going by this reasoning then anything is possible. Maybe god made 2+2=5 but we just don't realize it yet. Maybe the grass is purple but god changed our perception. Maybe all our memories up to this point are fake and god implanted new memories into our heads 5 minutes ago. Maybe god also recreated the universe 5 seconds ago, but we don't know this. Maybe...

Seriously, unless you can back up this claim with some evidence, then it's dismissable and shouldn't be entertained at all. Linguistics is consistent and we know languages descended from other languages over time. It doesn't matter that scriptures say otherwise.

2. Yes, god will tell you, if you have schizophrenia and/or are epileptic. Because I'm pretty sure you can't speak to fictional beings otherwise. Mind you, this also applies to every other god out there; the Christian god isn't any more credible than other gods, so your claim that god will show you the way if you believe in him doesn't mean anything without evidence as well. And this is the issue with faith...Iy

3. Regarding free will, you just moved the goalposts. This was your exact post:

God lets evil happen because he gave humans free will. Not letting them do evil means they won't have any free will. Evil effects other people, thus bad things can happen to good people.

You said it rather plainly that not letting humans do evil means we won't have any free will. Good and evil are two sides of the same coin (although there's a lot of in-between); if only good is possible then we're missing something. You have the will to do good, but not free will as you describe. If you're only able to do specifically good actions in heaven, and nothing else, then your actions are limited. Free to do good is not the same as total free will, where you're able to do any action. That said, there's debate in the scientific community on whether we have free will at all, but I won't say much more on that.

1. It still does not prove that there wasn't a point in time where there wasn't one language, unless you can find any document of sorts.

2. It isn't the issue of faith. It's just that you don't believe in it, so you say those people have mental disorders. That doesn't provide any evidence on your side, it just reinstates your opinion.

3. You can still, technically, do ev il in Heaven, but anyone that would do evil (I.E.: Someone who isn't saved) isn't allowed in Heaven in the first place. And, like I said before, you can't be tempted in Heaven. So, basically, the wicked people that would do evil, despite not having the tempation (Along with people who still live in their sin/haven't been forgiven for their sins at the time of their death as well) won't be in Heaven.

If you didn't understand that, what I mean is that you misunderstood the context behind "Not letting them do evil means they don't have free will." because I worded it wrong. What I meant was "It is technically possible to do evil anywhere, but there is no evil in Heaven because no one there would do evil.".