Give us your best evidence for a god

atlashunter said:

Excellent.

I would add that no tool at our disposal has the track record of sorting the wheat from the chaff that our intellect has. It's not perfect but nothing else comes close. And if there were a creator then that tool would have also been provided by the creator. It would be an odd creator that gives their creation a powerful tool for learning about their creation yet makes it a hindrance in learning about the creator.

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Well put.

I would add that the Bible says not to trust the intellect that God gave us. The Bible is so convincing of this, that I've seen several believers express the notion that if "intellectual pursuit" leads them away from faith then they abandon it, indeed they call it Satanic.

ambush80 said:

Well put.

I would add that the Bible says not to trust the intellect that God gave us. The Bible is so convincing of this, that I've seen several believers express the notion that if "intellectual pursuit" leads them away from faith then they abandon it, indeed they call it Satanic.

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Cult like?

660griz said:

Cult like?

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It's a strategy that cults employ.

WaltL1 said:

.


Unless you don't want to understand.
To believe A/As "hate God" is far more satisfying than the truth.

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I agree with this.

atlashunter said:

Didn't read through all of that. You really need to work on getting to the point in a concise manner.

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Years ago I stopped reading his posts... After starting to become active again last year I quickly remembered that best practice and continue it. I'd like to understand what he's trying to communicate but realized after a while that I rarely was able to. Thought it was just me....

TripleXBullies said:

Years ago I stopped reading his posts... After starting to become active again last year I quickly remembered that best practice and continue it. I'd like to understand what he's trying to communicate but realized after a while that I rarely was able to. Thought it was just me....

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I struggle mightily to understand what Isreal is saying. When I do it makes for good conversation.

Isreal, please take note of how many of us have a hard time with your style of conversation. I'd like to be able to discuss more with you but you're gonna have to dumb it down a little.

ambush80 said:

I struggle mightily to understand what Isreal is saying. When I do it makes for good conversation.

Isreal, please take note of how many of us have a hard time with your style of conversation. I'd like to be able to discuss more with you but you're gonna have to dumb it down a little.

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I find his posts more of a question and answer session with himself pretending that we are involved so that it somehow seems he is answering questions we are asking. The reality is that it is a platform to turn the conversation towards the points he wants made that often have nothing to do with the topic and it often ends up as proselytizing.
For instance:
"Perhaps you were wondering..." " You may ask yourself..." "We can easily say..." " What if..." "That brings us back to..."

Much too hard to follow to the end and only because the end usually has nothing to do with the start.

Man, you guys are a tough crowd
I can appreciate (though not always understand) Israel's posts. Figuring them out is kind of like making your brain do a couple hundred sit ups.
It hurts but its good exercise.
Are they on topic? Not necessarily.
Do they promote discussion? Not necessarily (though we are discussing it right now).
But here's the thing -
Ive never heard Israel intentionally insult anybody.
Ive never seen Israel play the "drive by ignorance" game.
He doesn't regurgitate scripture.
Heck, he's even posted a vid of him singing. That takes bigger cajones than Ive got.

Art posted a vid in the Something Different thread of a rather rotund woman being moved by the Spirit and dancing her derriere off. He entitled it "when the Spirit says dance you gotta dance".
So Israel if the Spirit says philosophize you gotta philosophize!

ambush80 said:

Well put.

I would add that the Bible says not to trust the intellect that God gave us. The Bible is so convincing of this, that I've seen several believers express the notion that if "intellectual pursuit" brings them away from God then they abandon it, indeed they call it Satanic.

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without "intellectual pursuit" (and I will lump curiosity in with that too) we as a species would have become extinct. Granted the exact opposite of the evolutionary viewpoint is the creation viewpoint: if we hadn't sinned we would have never left the garden of eden AKA god's abundant and limitless gifts and would have no need for intellectual pursuit. Everything would be given to us, no prey animals or enemies would kill us, the climate would never change forcing us to figure out how get out of dodge and survive our new surroundings, etc. etc.