artsylady

I am sooooooo great. Better than I have ever been. Well, wow, so glad you're alive! lol So cool. Posted 3 minutes ago · Report post I was on hospice twice and the doctors thought I was a goner....so hey....but then God ~ ( you know? right? ) God has his own plans and knows what he's got in mind for us....sometimes you just don't see the curve ball coming. I didn't think I was ever going to play a big role in God's plan but I'm shocked to see what he's doing. Anyway...how are you? 0 Quote People don't care how much you know - until they know how much you care...

I should invite a friend here. She has been in a serious mourning for her husband for a long time. I think she would be blessed

Wow, been a long time and thought I would check in at Worthy. Could not believe it when I saw Catsmeow!! I actually thought you had died. lol What a blessing.

Start complimenting her. Seriously. Try to find things you genuinely like (if you can) . Sounds like she might be jealous of you, or she may be a bully, but she obviously doesn't know how to love. You can show her. It's easy to love the good nice people but this lady is going to be a challenge for you. Look at it as an opportunity for growth and remember how much God loves and treasures you.

I don't know why they are calling themselves gay Christians if they aren't having sex. Does this mean they are still having gay sexual thoughts? If that's the case, they may as well just be having sex, as we know lusting is much like committing and that we shouldn't dwell on evil thoughts. I do commend them for abstaining, however, i think they should also try to be free of the evil thoughts and become heterosexual.

I'm glad they're putting that much money into bricks and mortar as opposed to weapons.

Arthur: Not to simple. Some are born as hermaphadites.

I would call it very strong demonic influence.

Most of us know unconditional love. These people do not know such a thing. From birth raised that if they stray from the religion, they will be, at best, shunned and outcasted, at worst, hunted down and killed. A muslim does not have the luxury of ever wondering if his religion is wrong. They need to be shown love. T

Another point missed was this. What would you expect from a person born in a Muslim country, raised by a Muslim family, indoctrinated in Muslim schools and mosques to hold as a belief system as an adult?

Pardon? That's quite a garguantan guess. You think chimps sit around wondering if there is a god, why we're here, what happens to them when they die? Please tell me why do you think this? It sounds like you don't put much value on the intelligence, communication, speech, reasoning, philosophizing that separates humans from other mammals as well as the spiritual aspect of humans. Am I getting this correctly? This question seems to have gotten missed.

The hurricane is actually symbolic of a human death.

I will change the original analogy due to points made from our discussion. Here you go. New additions in bold. Let's say you grew up on a desert island with limited food. You had to work to gather food, water and firewood, but you survived. There are others with you on the island. One day, a man named Paul rows up on a boat and greets you. He tells you a bit about the history of your island and how it was created. He tells you that if you leave the island, he will row you out to a magnificent huge cruise ship. On that ship there is an unlimited food supply of sumptuous appetizers, delectable entrées, and a tempting array of desserts, prepared by top chefs and available around the clock. He tells you there is a captain. You will most likely want to worship the captain because he has done all of this for you and it will benefit you emotionally. There are beautiful clothes to don, fabulous social activities with many wonderful and exciting people. On the ship, you don't have to lift a finger if you don't want to. Gone are the days of hard toil. You can simply relax or you can engage in some of the ship's many fun activities. He also sends you a warning that very soon, the island you are on will be completely destroyed by a hurricane - The cause of the hurrican is unknown. But Paul says it will happen.Paul then allows you time to think about his offer and rows back out to sea and out of sight. He tells you that his motivation for all of this - his visit, his message etc is that he loves you and doesn't want to see harm come to you. The next day another man, Fred, rows up to the shore and greets you. Fred tells you that Paul is a liar. He tells you a different way in which the island was created. He tells you that no cruise ship exists and that there is no hurricane that is about to destroy your island. Now you are very confused and unsure of what to do, undoubtedly. You have two completely different people telling you completely opposite stories that will affect your life. You start asking scientists who are on the island who were all educated their entire lives in a belief that would favour Fred's rendition. However, even though they were all educated formally this way, there are some who see that Paul's explanation fits the evidence better. Their numbers are much smaller by comparison but they are adamant Paul's story is more conclusive. Neither can prove or disprove the story of the cruise ship because they have no way to leave the island to find out, and it seems the ocean out there is a very big place. Now.. do you decide to reject Paul as the liar because you feel he has given you no choice? Or do you decide to not believe Paul because you believe him to be arrogant? Do you dimills Paul as the liar because you don't like the consequenses he has presented for the future of your island?

And there are certainly scientists today who can prove all of this. Maybe the analogy should state that there are are scientists who have studied the natural world only in the viewpoint of Fred, for years and years. However, some of those scientists, even with that kind of background, still favour the claims of Paul. That would be fair, right? Assuming your logic is valid, you must feel a very strong call yourself from agnosticism and atheism! Atheism and agnosticism are not spiritual and have no spiritual entities that love me and gently try to persuade me. And back to the bigger picture, can you still call Paul, or the captain arrogant? I can, and I've already explained why. Theists are arrogant according to the very same reasoning with which you argue that atheists are arrogant. Post #158 sums up my argument, I believe. artsylady, on 26 December 2011 - 07:52 AM, said: Actually, yes, I do. My boss isn't in the business of universal love and salvation. He's not even in the business of charity. He's in the business of making a profit, and I'm going to get fired if he thinks I'm not conducive towards that end goal. There's actually nothing illogical at all with an all-powerful God banishing us to Hell for all of eternity for not worshiping him. Like your boss analogy, it makes a lot of sense and a lot of people have no problem understanding the concept, even if they might not agree with it. It's when theists claim that God is kind and loving as well that they trap themselves in an embarrassing paradox, which they then try to extricate themselves from using special pleading, gross double standards, invalid analogies, and/or plain old nonsense. You missed the point entirely. Again, you tried to change my analogy to say that after you decide not to accept Paul's offer, you then find out that a hurricane awaits. In reality, we know that hell or heaven awaits. The consequenses and not a surprise and have been told to us before hand. artsylady, on 26 December 2011 - 07:52 AM, said: The point is that a lot of Paul's claims have been shown to be false. Dubious of his remaining claims, you ask him if he can actually show solid proof of the existence of the ship and captain so as to trump Fred's evidence and dispel your doubts, and that's when Paul calls you arrogant and demands that you ignore the evidence. Here you go again. "Paul calls you arrogant and demands that you ignore the evidence?" Where does this even come from?

As far as I can remember, it's not going to be Satan who will judge and cast us into Hell, but God. What do you think it says about God's omnipotence if Satan is able to cast us into Hell willy-nilly without God's nod of approval? Not a very flattering picture, I imagine, which of course is not allowed by the Christian ideology. Even if it were Satan casting us into Hell (which it isn't), it stands to reason that he's doing it only with God's permission. Actually, I think it will be the saints who will judge the sinners. Hell originally was created for satan and the demons and satan has an influence here on earth. Hell is complete separation from God. You seem to be constantly dismissing God as arrogant while constantly forgetting that he has an evil adversary. God said "it is my will that NO MAN should perish". God wants to keep us from hell. So much so that he sent his son to die for us and live amongst us, enduring torture pain etc. You call this God arrogant? You can continue to choose to see God as arrogant, but that is your choice, and it seems the free will part is what you don't like. Really? Yes, do you not agree we humans are prone to worship? Not sure why this is here. Again, not sure why you've included this. Is it because the Bible speaks of praise? I did address praise and worship in another thread. From the point of the believer, can you at least try to understand that this is what we like to do? Just as football fans like to praise their favorite team? For some reason, I highly doubt that such a shenanigan would work with an allegedly omniscient God who knows our every thought and intent before we even form them. God is looking for sincerity. If we are sincere, like the thief crucified with Christ, we are saved. It doesn't matter what you think. You can't pretend to have mind like God's in order to be able to understand. I can see you're also beginning to realize that presenting analogies apparently isn't quite working in your favor. No, that's not it at all. I just for now need you to see that science cannot disprove or prove God. In the analogy, you keep saying the ship has been proven not to exist. I need you to see that science cannot prove that God, heaven and hell don't exist because they are in the supernatural realm - a place where science cannot go.

Again, you have changed the scenario to where it doesn't fit. You're nitpicking on an insignificant difference. But if it satisfies you, allow me to apologize for my mistake, and amend my analogy to say that Paul warns you about eternal torment on his first visit as well. Now, what exactly do you think that changes? I find them to be very different. Let's get a brand new analogy for you. You start a new job. You are bored due to lack of work and decide to check your personal email. Your boss gets angry and fires you because of it. So you start a new job. Your boss tells you ahead of time that using personal email on company time is grounds for firing. Do you see the difference? In my analogy, Fred makes no claims about the existence about the ship or the captain, but he shows hard evidence why Paul's claims about the nature of the ship and captain cannot possibly be true, whereas Paul calls you arrogant when you point out the inconsistencies to him and asks if he has any proof to counter Fred's claims. That in itself is an act of sheer arrogance, but I guess I can understand if you disagree. You have the same vested interests as Paul, after all. Well, if you can tell me how you can prove that heaven or hell cannot possibly be true, you might have a point here. Paul hasn't shown himself to be a very likeable character. He's arrogant, irrational, hypocritical, ignorant about the evidence against his case and seeks to simply hand-wave them away, and quite possibly suffering from delusions. Now that describes a good number of us, and possibly myself as well on a number of occasions. But no, I admit that I don't quite see where Paul is supposed to endear himself to me. He's irrational now too? You rhyme off many things. Please describe why he's arrogant, irrational, hypocritical. Again, he can't be ignorant about the evidence against his case, just as no one can prove heaven and hell do not exist. I can't honestly say I know that there is no god. What I can say with certainty, however, is that there is no Christian God. As I see it, an allegedly all-knowing supreme deity who makes so many scientific errors when delivering His Word (the Bible) means either one of two things: that this deity is not all-knowing after all, or that he simply doesn't exist except as a figment of imagination. Okay, well that is a start. This thread is getting too long already so I'll stop it there and leave it for later.

But it's not from the hurricane that we are being protected when we worship. It's from his adversary who wants to steal, kill and destroy. Again, from the opinion of the believer would you take our word for it that worship is actually for our advantage? Humans seem to be prone to worship. We see grown men yelling screaming, waving flags or whatever, dressed up with makeup and worshipping their favourite football team. We see young girls having idols that sing. They write fan letters, have posters, attending every concert screaming or crying their eyes out. Worship is part of our make up, which again, makes us very different from animals. If we merely want to be protected from the hurricane, we can decide to just believe the captain exists, on our deathbeds. And this is the part where you demonstrate that my analogy is not so far off after all. Not only is there zero evidence about your claims regarding the supernatural, there is zero evidence that there is even a supernatural in the first place. Likewise, when Paul is revealed to have zero evidence not only about his description of the ship, but the existence of the ship itself, Paul starts labeling you as arrogant and demands you to throw out the evidence. I'll start over and forget the analogy for a moment. If a supernatural God exists and created the world and everything in it, can science prove this or is science limited? I am baffled that anyone who can liken the belief to a fairy tale, can debate for hours on the existance and spend so much time trying to prove it wrong. Actually, I am not really baffled. From my position, God is still calling you and that is why people choose to continue to fight against it. . Except that those in Paul's camp who makes those claims turn out to have just as much evidence as Paul does. In other words, none at all. In any event, it would be hard to difficult to prove the ship did NOT exist, when there are those who say it does. And back to the bigger picture, can you still call Paul, or the captain arrogant?

I have always respected the opinion of the agnostic, but I do also find the opinion of the atheist to be arrogant. In order to know there is no god, you would have to possess the knowledge of the entire universe. You would have to be a god. While we know that there are more unknowns in the universe than knowns, it's quite a stance to take to say that you still know there is no god. So tell me how you do it? Logically speaking.

Allow me to propose a somewhat modified version of your analogy. Did you ever consider that worship might be for the believer and not for God? The enemy of God cannot stand the sound of worship and flees. It's in manual. So if we are humans worship God, we are more free to commune with him. We can take our battles to him (as he wants us to do) We can trust him to take care of us emotionally and spirtually all of the time, but when we worship, we eliminate the influence of satan. It's pretty well known among mature Christians that if we are downtrodden or depressed, worship actually uplifts us. Now knowing that, worship sounds pretty good actually, doesn't it? The 'strings attached" are things like trusting to take care of our burdens and living in peace, even in troubled times. A sense of well being that wants us to reach out to others in need and have compassion for others. From the viewpoint of the believer it's a pretty easy ship to want to stay on. I am sure you will have your own opinion about what it's like to be a believer, but take it from a believer please. And I"m sure others will agree here. I am definitely happier, more confident and more at peace than my non Christian friends and I have my faith to thank for it. And I have gone through many battles, even worse than theirs. Christians who are mature and faithful cannever renounce our faith because we love it, we love the perks and we truly love God. I hope you can try to understand this. Now you're getting way off topic. But I will induldge you and show you where you are misrepresenting things. First off, may I should have added that Paul;s motivation for warning you is that he loves you and wants to see you to safety and doesn't want you to fall for the lies of Fred? Don't forget too, that Paul had already warned you about Fred and had told you that Fred is a liar. You don't seem to consider this anymore and have suddenly decided it's Paul, not Fred who is the liar. Mainly, things we are talking about, evidence for heaven, hell, creation, etc CANNOT be proven in science because science is limited to the natural. So, throw out the part about proof that the ship doesn't exist because it's not valid here. What could be valid and where I can add something is that there are people in Fred's camp who will tell you the ship doesn't exist. But, there are those in Paul's camp who tell you they've met the captian, they love him and they have a beautiful spiritual connection with him, that they won't give up, and that some have even gone to their deaths, rather than renounce it. Again, you have changed the scenario to where it doesn't fit. In my scenario, as in the Bible story, you have your entire life until death to decide and the consequences have been told to you from the beginning. In your rendition, God keeps the fate of the nonbeliever a secret until after he chooses. Not at all the same. Well, I still see no reason for you to believe Fred over Paul, especially if the claims that Paul makes are unproveable, which they are. And I still don't see why you'd describe him as arrogant, when he claims to be warning you out of love. That makes no sense. Hypocrite? Wow. Why? I dont' see that either. Gee, you really don't want to like Paul at all do you? Very interesting.

I have always respected the opinion of the agnostic, but I do also find the opinion of the atheist to be arrogant. In order to know there is no god, you would have to possess the knowledge of the entire universe. You would have to be a god. While we know that there are more unknowns in the universe than knowns, it's quite a stance to take to say that you still know there is no god. Let's say you grew up on a desert island with limited food. You had to work to gather food, water and firewood, but you survived. One day, a man named Paul rows up on a boat and greets you. He tells you that if you leave the island, he will row you out to a magnificent huge cruise ship. On that ship there is an unlimited food supply of sumptuous appetizers, delectable entrées, and a tempting array of desserts, prepared by top chefs and available around the clock. There are beautiful clothes to don, fabulous social activities with many wonderful and exciting people. On the ship, you don't have to lift a finger if you don't want to. Gone are the days of hard toil. You can simply relax or you can engage in some of the ship's many fun activities. He also sends you a warning that very soon, the island you are on will be completely destroyed by a hurricane. Paul then allows you time to think about his offer and rows back out to sea and out of sight. The next day another man, Fred, rows up to the shore and greets you. Fred tells you that Paul is a liar. He tells you that no cruise ship exists and that there is no hurricane that is about to destroy your island. Now you are very confused and unsure of what to do, undoubtedly. You have two completely different people telling you completely opposite stories that will affect your life. But..... do you decide to reject Paul as the liar because you feel he has given you no choice? Or do you decide to not believe Paul because you believe him to be arrogant? Do you dimills Paul as the liar because you don't like the consequenses he has presented for the future of your island?

I indeed see the 95 percent. A common designer used the physical attributes a few times. I agree. It's the 5 percent that separates us. Humans are spiritual, we are thinkers, ponderers, intelligent and able to communicate, and want to communicate beyond the subjects of food and survival. I could answer 2 opposite ways. One is that the human is still more intelligent or has the capability to be more intelligent. Two - that the human will not have ability to speak (based on the study of feral children) and therefore can't communicate, can't learn to reason etc. But with this answer, it's your chicken egg scenario, it's your mystery to figure out that if a modern human raised by chimps is a stupid as a chimp, did intelligence really 'evolve' at all? Pardon? That's quite a garguantan guess. You think chimps sit around wondering if there is a god, why we're here, what happens to them when they die? Please tell me why do you think this? It sounds like you don't put much value on the intelligence, communication, speech, reasoning, philosophizing that separates humans from other mammals. Am I getting this correctly?

Do you have anything better to offer than to extrapolate my reply into a baseless ad hominem? Nebula is correct in her interpretation.

No another words I don't see how the fact that we can use math to predict orbits or anything else [mathematically] results in an invisible entity that created everything. In my view a Deist can an least manage an argument for a Creator, not that I would necessarily embrace it but I can see a decent argument being made. From a Christian standpoint you have a mountain of work ahead of you to go from "i think there is some creative being/force involved in the creation of our Universe" to "The Creator set our Universe in motion some 6000 years ago. He became angry because we ate forbidden fruit and banned us from a magical garden. As time went on he would only forgive people if they slaughtered and burned an animal in homage to him. The final solution for all our problems was for him to send himself to earth and consequently sacrifice himself to himself." Nebula's interpretation was correct. You don't understand but you're sure Stephen Hawking has it all figured out so you don't have to. Then, your next response, you decide to minimize the Christian belief origins story and call it 'magical'. Sorry, but you will be called to task and asked to think.