The silence of God

[MarsCydonia]

In what way would making it's existence known to non-believers in any way, shape or form make already established believers lose their faith in a Yahweh?
Surely "hard" evidence would only strengthen their conviction, that they made the right choice on faith alone

I raised this issue several comments ago*. So far, no answer from Leroy...

*I also pointed out the the current major reason for deconversion is the lack of evidence so this reason would become a non-issue.

 

[Steelmage99]

In what way would making it's existence known to non-believers in any way, shape or form make already established believers lose their faith in a Yahweh?
Surely "hard" evidence would only strengthen their conviction, that they made the right choice on faith alone

I raised this issue several comments ago*. So far, no answer from Leroy...

*I also pointed out the the current major reason for deconversion is the lack of evidence so this reason would become a non-issue.

Yeah, it is apparently how he rolls.

Reminds me of how I made a serious considered post about my moral stance in regard to animals vs. humans.

Response from leroy? Nada.

It is almost like he pretends to know peoples positions and thoughts, and when presented with the reality that he is wrong.....he doesn't know how to deal with it.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

leroy wrote:
what you have to do is prove that if God would have made his existence more evident (whatever you would consider "more evident") there would have been more followers.


I already did that:

he_who_is_nobody wrote:
I do not disagree with the idea that a deity can hide itself forever, I just see no clear reason why it would actively hide. However, my only point is that your reasoning fails for two reasons. First, you claim this god wants us to have a loving relationship with it. That claim is unsupported, and only rests on a Biblical claim. Second, since you want to play with the Christian mythos; Christianity only makes up nearly 1/3 of the earth's population. As you pointed out earlier, most of the world believes in some sort of god(s), but not Jesus. However, the Bible also claims that your god is a jealous god and thinks that we should not worship anything else but it. That means there are nearly 2/3 of the world's population that your god can convince (they already believe in god(s)), yet refuses to do so. That means your deity is condemning nearly 2/3 of the earth to hell fire (another Biblical claim) simply by not demonstrating itself.

[emphases added]

no you didn't , as you usually do, you made an irrelevant comment that has nothing to do with my objection to the argument. it doesn't matter if 66% of the population goes to hell, that is completely irrelevant to my comments,


again what you have to do is prove that by making his existence more evident God would gain more followers, the argument would apply regadless if you are talking about God in general or just the Christian God.

You are contradicting yourself. You agree that nearly 2/3 of the world do not worship Jesus. Thus, if people are not believing in Jesus, they are not believers in God, but some false idol(s). Beyond that, if these people already believe that such a creature can exist, would not Jesus gain all of those people as believers if he simply demonstrated himself to be God? Remember, this is a consequence of using the Christian mythos to justify the idea that a god wants relationships with us. All the theists that do not worship Jesus are no different from atheists that also do not worship Jesus. This is why belief in a god(s) is not the same as belief in Jesus according to the Christian mythos. This is why you cannot lump all theists together, yet still argue that all Jesus wants are loving relationships from us.

To sum up: according to the Christian mythos, atheists and theists that do not believe in Jesus are the same. Theists already accept there is a god(s), they are just worshipping the wrong one. Jesus could fix that by demonstrating his existence.

I personally would not have any problem if Grumpy descries to change his argument and apply it to the just to the Christian God

I do not remember him ever talking about anything but Jesus. In the comment you quoted from him that started this thread, he seems to be speaking clearly about your god, since he is talking to you. That would be Jesus Christ. As I already said, and you ignored:

he_who_is_nobody[/url]"]How disingenuous can one get. Go back and read the comment from Grumpy Santa that started this thread. He is clearly talking about your god (Jesus Christ), not all gods theists have dreamt up. The argument from Divine Hiddenness (silence of god as dandan/leroy so ignorantly calls it) is spesific to a personal loving god such as Allah, Yahweh, and Jesus; not all gods floating around in the mind's of theists. How dishonest can one get?! However, this goes a long way as to why you believed what I said above about hell and nearly 2/3 of theists as being irrelevant.

The argument is never used as a defeater to all gods. Why would it be?

Remember dandan/leroy, when you say God, you actually mean Jesus Christ. Thus, there are nearly 2/3 of the worlds population that do not believe in Jesus, yet would since they already believe in some sort of deity.

what I mean by God is irrelevant, the relevant things what Grumpy Santa means by God, and he clearly is talking about God in the general sense, not just the Christian God.

Incorrect. The quote that started this thread:

leroy[/url]"]

Grumpy Santa wrote:

Not a very impressive god. You'd think that it would be powerful enough to provide evidence so incontrovertible that someone would have no choice but to accept it. It should be smart enough to know what that would be for any individual, shouldn't it?

He is clearly talking about your god, since he was talking to you. If I am wrong about this, than Grumpy Santa can feel free to correct me.

 

[Grumpy Santa]

He is clearly talking about your god, since he was talking to you. If I am wrong about this, than Grumpy Santa can feel free to correct me.

Wow, talk about changing my goalposts. You're correct (and I thought it was clear) that (while all gods have been silent) I was specifically talking about Leroy's particular flavor of a god.

 

[leroy]

"]In what way would making it's existence known to non-believers in any way, shape or form make already established believers lose their faith in a Yahweh?
Surely "hard" evidence would only strengthen their conviction, that they made the right choice on faith alone
I raised this issue several comments ago*. So far, no answer from Leroy...

*I also pointed out the the current major reason for deconversion is the lack of evidence so this reason would become a non-issue.

Yeah, it is apparently how he rolls.

Reminds me of how I made a serious considered post about my moral stance in regard to animals vs. humans.

Response from leroy? Nada.

It is almost like he pretends to know peoples positions and thoughts, and when presented with the reality that he is wrong.....he doesn't know how to deal with it.

about animals, you answered the question to my satisfaction, that is why I didn't comment anything else.



Yes I would argue that it is possible that by making his existence more evident God might loose current or potencial followers, I cant provide more details because I don't know what you personally mean by more evident


so please answer, what could the Christian God do, to gain more followers without losing current or potencial followers and without removing will ?

 

[MarsCydonia]

Yes I would argue that it is possible that by making his existence more evident God might loose current or potencial followers, I cant provide more details because I don't know what you personally mean by more evident

so please answer, what could the Christian God do, to gain more followers without losing current or potencial followers and without removing will?

This is another comment that is bull, that Leroy does not understand why it is bull and where Leroy will refuse to think about it and instead will ask us to explain why it is bull... We are long past wearysome at this point.

 

[leroy]

He is clearly talking about your god, since he was talking to you. If I am wrong about this, than Grumpy Santa can feel free to correct me.

Wow, talk about changing my goalposts. You're correct (and I thought it was clear) that (while all gods have been silent) I was specifically talking about Leroy's particular flavor of a god.

ok for the sake of simplicity, we will ignore the fact that I don't think that non Christians go to hell necessarily and that Non Christians could be considered followers (according to my view)



So what could the Christian God do in order to gain more followers?


you mentioned earlier that God could remove cancer.


but as I mentioned earlier if God removes cancer and everyone gets hilled inexplicable>

1 most atheist would attribute this to an unknown natural cause

2 Muslims and other none Christian theist would atribute this to their God and not to the Christian God

3 Many individuals decide to follow the Christian God after suffering from a tragedy (like cancer) so by removing Cancer would loose all these potencial followers. After all we know that humans tend to be very stupid and don't think about God when everything is ok, we tend to only look for God when things are nasty.


so in order to make a valid argument, you have to prove that by removing cancer the number of followers that God would gain, would outnumber the number of followers that he would loose,. and of course you have to consider past present and future


it seems to me that in order to optimize the number of followers, God needs a perfect balance of good stuff and bad stuff,

he_who_is_nobody
He is clearly talking about your god, since he was talking to you. If I am wrong about this, than Grumpy Santa can feel free to correct me.

well my God (my personal interpretation of the Christian God) would not send all Muslims to Hell, but lets ignore that fact

But ok now that Grumpy made his clarification, we are now talking about the Christian God, in my previous arguments just change God for Christian God, and change 99% of followers for 33% of followers


I would like to clarify that Grumpys argument is based on a counterfactual conditional, namely if God would have donde X, he would have achieved his Goal "Y" in a more efficient way. so by your stupid and fallacious logic the argument should be rejected by default because according to you counterfactuals are necessary fallacious,

So if you where intellectually honest and consistent you should reject his argument. but we both know that you are not going to do it because we both know that you are not intellectually honest

 

[leroy]

Yes I would argue that it is possible that by making his existence more evident God might loose current or potencial followers, I cant provide more details because I don't know what you personally mean by more evident

so please answer, what could the Christian God do, to gain more followers without losing current or potencial followers and without removing will?

This is another comment that is bull, that Leroy does not understand why it is bull and where Leroy will refuse to think about it and instead will ask us to explain why it is bull... We are long past wearysome at this point.

Why would I waste my time asking you, if you are demonstrably unable to answer questions unambiguously ? it is true that in the past I asked you several questions multiple times expecting a clear and direct answer, but I learned my lesson I learned that you are unable to provide direct answers

 

[MarsCydonia]

Why would I waste my time asking you, if you are demonstrably unable to answer questions unambiguously ?

Why would anyone waste their time explaining to you, if you are demonstrably unable to understand easy and clear answers? If you repeatedly demonstrated an unwillingness to learn? Repeatedly demonstrated an unwillingness to address points, preferring to dimiss them only by calling them irrelevant rather then meaningfully replying to them?

In short: why should anyone bother further with you Leroy?

 

[leroy]

In short: why should anyone bother further with you Leroy?

I don't know, why don't you ask that question to those that are responding to my comments?

 

[MarsCydonia]

[I don't know, why don't you ask that question to those that are responding to my comments?

Exactly so you can expect some of us to point out the absurdity of the things you write to others who can spot the absurdity without the need of a lenghty explanation comment to you as it will only be ignored, called irrelevant or ran from.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Wow, talk about changing my goalposts. You're correct (and I thought it was clear) that (while all gods have been silent) I was specifically talking about Leroy's particular flavor of a god.

ok for the sake of simplicity, we will ignore the fact that I don't think that non Christians go to hell necessarily and that Non Christians could be considered followers (according to my view)

There we have it. Dandan/Leroy will use the Bible to justify part of his argument when it suits him, but reject other parts of the Bible when it gets in the way of his arguments. As I pointed out, your whole argument rested on the Biblical claim that Jesus wants loving relationships and not just belief. However, for whatever reason, you throw out the part of the Christian mythos that states Jesus is a jealous god and only wants people to follow him. What is allowing you to pick and choose from the Bible and if you are able to reject one part of it with no justification, why can we not reject all of it for the same reason?

he_who_is_nobody
He is clearly talking about your god, since he was talking to you. If I am wrong about this, than Grumpy Santa can feel free to correct me.

well my God (my personal interpretation of the Christian God) would not send all Muslims to Hell, but lets ignore that fact

Let us not, since your whole argument rests on you justifying it with the Bible. Your Bible also states that Muslims would also go to hell. Again, what is allowing you to pick and choose from the Bible and if you are able to reject one part of it with no justification, why can we not reject all of it for the same reason?

But ok now that Grumpy made his clarification, we are now talking about the Christian God, in my previous arguments just change God for Christian God, and change 99% of followers for 33% of followers

I already address this and you saw fit to ignore it:

he_who_is_nobody[/url]"]You are contradicting yourself. You agree that nearly 2/3 of the world do not worship Jesus. Thus, if people are not believing in Jesus, they are not believers in God, but some false idol(s). Beyond that, if these people already believe that such a creature can exist, would not Jesus gain all of those people as believers if he simply demonstrated himself to be God? Remember, this is a consequence of using the Christian mythos to justify the idea that a god wants relationships with us. All the theists that do not worship Jesus are no different from atheists that also do not worship Jesus. This is why belief in a god(s) is not the same as belief in Jesus according to the Christian mythos. This is why you cannot lump all theists together, yet still argue that all Jesus wants are loving relationships from us.

To sum up: according to the Christian mythos, atheists and theists that do not believe in Jesus are the same. Theists already accept there is a god(s), they are just worshipping the wrong one. Jesus could fix that by demonstrating his existence.

Why do you refuse to engage with direct challenges?

I would like to clarify that Grumpys argument is based on a counterfactual conditional, namely if God would have donde X, he would have achieved his Goal "Y" in a more efficient way. so by your stupid and fallacious logic the argument should be rejected by default because according to you counterfactuals are necessary fallacious,

So if you where intellectually honest and consistent you should reject his argument. but we both know that you are not going to do it because we both know that you are not intellectually honest

Actually, your argument is the counterfactual, that was hackenslash's point and he is correct. However, one can engage with counterfactuals to expose deeper flaws in a person's understanding, as I have done above. Now we know, as I have long suspected, that you pick and choose from your Bible when it suits you. One would have not had evidence that you do that unless I pressed you on this argument. Beyond that, now we know that when you use the Bible to justify an argument you are using, you will also hypocritically reject the Bible when it does not suit you. Amazing how that works, right?

In short: why should anyone bother further with you Leroy?

To expose his hypocrisy and general flaws in his logic and world view. I mean, remember how dandan/leroy's worldview on free will has changed? He can learn, it just takes a while.

 

[leroy]

[Why do you refuse to engage with direct challenges? .

because your challenges are irrelevant to the point that I am making..........you what to avoid your burden by sending red hearings.


the point is that you can not prove that humans would react differently, in such a way that it would be consistent with God goals, if God does something different like curing cancer, knocking our doors, organizing tours in the universe or whatever you would consider evidence for God.

*I gave a free gift and told you what are God goals suppose to be, (according to my view) that would make your burden proof easer to carry, but feel free to accept or reject my gift.


it doesn't matter if Muslims go to hell or not, it doesn't matter if I am cherry picking from the bible, it doesn't matter if we are talking about the Christian God, or God in the general sense, for the sake of this argument we can assume whatever you what regarding those things. the fact is that It is that you don't know what would happen if God would have done something different, you cant know how humans would react and you cant know if that would lead to more followers (or whatever Gods goal is)


According to you it is impossible to know how the universe would be if gravity where any different, well human behavior is far more chaotic and unpredictable that the force of gravity, so by your standards you should agree with my previous statement.


you can not prove that humans would react in a convenient way if God does something to make his existence more obvious, like curing cancer, or whatever you would consider evidence for the Christian God.


with convenient I simply mean in accordance with Gods goals.

 

[Nesslig20]

If God excists, why doesn't he makes his existence more obvious?

The only problem with that question is with the word "more". The existence of any god couldn't hardly be any LESS obvious. Think about it, the most powerful being you can imagine. An infinite, uber-galactic super genius with phenomenal cosmic powers, yet the only method he seems to use in contacting us is using ancient folklore passed down from a tribe of illiterate desert dwellers, which needed to be translated and retranslated and reinterpreted into many different versions of "the truth", making it hard to distinguish between what was originally meant and what was meant to be taken literally thereby making it practically impossible to tell which version of "the truth" is the "true truth", but still containing glaring falsehoods easily corrected by a class in science 101. You would think the god(s) is/are hardly trying at all. It makes more sense to see the obvious, which is that all these signs point towards the conclusion that these tales are entirely men-made (yes men, the kind with penises), by people from the bronze age, and definitively not inspired by a superior being.

 

[leroy]

The only problem with that question is with the word "more". The existence of any god couldn't hardly be any LESS obvious.

Again the exístanse of a God is obvious for 99% of the worlds population and the exístanse of the Christian God is obvious for 33%.

sure there are possible worlds where his existence is less obvious,

 

[Steelmage99]

Again the exístanse of a God is obvious for 99% of the worlds population and the exístanse of the Christian God is obvious for 33%.

So what?

 

[MarsCydonia]

Again the exístanse of a God is obvious for 99% of the worlds population and the exístanse of the Christian God is obvious for 33%.

So what?

It would be pointless to point out to Leroy that this is false. Don't expect Leroy to provide any citation.

 

[leroy]

Again the exístanse of a God is obvious for 99% of the worlds population and the exístanse of the Christian God is obvious for 33%.

So what?

yes granted my comment was irrelevant thanks for pointing it to me



so is anyone in this forum is going to accept their burden and show that if God world have done things differently, God would have achieved his Goal in a more efficient way?


My assumption is that Gods goal is to get as many followers as possible without removing will. feel free to grant or to reject this assumption when you present your proof

 

[MarsCydonia]

so is anyone in this forum is going to accept their burden and show that if God world have done things differently, God would have achieved his Goal in a more efficient way?

My assumption is that Gods goal is to get as many followers as possible without removing will. feel free to grant or to reject this assumption when you present your proof

Leroy could:
1. Address the correct form of the argument
2. Address how his objections to his flawed form of the argument were shown to be invalid
3. Address how his flawed form of the argument brings glaring issues for a christian standpoint.

Leroy has opted to run away from all 3 for over a page of comments now.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

[Why do you refuse to engage with direct challenges? .

because your challenges are irrelevant to the point that I am making..........you what to avoid your burden by sending red hearings.

How exactly is:

he_who_is_nobody[/url]"]You are contradicting yourself. You agree that nearly 2/3 of the world do not worship Jesus. Thus, if people are not believing in Jesus, they are not believers in God, but some false idol(s). Beyond that, if these people already believe that such a creature can exist, would not Jesus gain all of those people as believers if he simply demonstrated himself to be God? Remember, this is a consequence of using the Christian mythos to justify the idea that a god wants relationships with us. All the theists that do not worship Jesus are no different from atheists that also do not worship Jesus. This is why belief in a god(s) is not the same as belief in Jesus according to the Christian mythos. This is why you cannot lump all theists together, yet still argue that all Jesus wants are loving relationships from us.

To sum up: according to the Christian mythos, atheists and theists that do not believe in Jesus are the same. Theists already accept there is a god(s), they are just worshipping the wrong one. Jesus could fix that by demonstrating his existence.

Irrelevant to:

leroy[/url]"]But ok now that Grumpy made his clarification, we are now talking about the Christian God, in my previous arguments just change God for Christian God, and change 99% of followers for 33% of followers

:?:

It is a direct refutation of something you later posted.

the point is that there is that you can not prove that humans would react differently, in such a way that it would be consistent with God goals, if God does something different like curing cancer, knocking our doors, organizing tours in the universe or whatever you would consider evidence for God.

Your script is broken (like always) and I am not following it. Get over the fact that you are terrible at predicting how conversations will go and start addressing direct refutations of your argument.

1. You pick and choose when to follow the Bible. Thus, your whole argument can be refuted by me simply rejecting the Bible as easily as you did for the parts that you do not like. Do you not understand your hypocrisy with this one?
2. Theists that do not believe in Jesus are the same as atheist (they both do not believe in Jesus).
3. Theists already accept that there is a god(s), thus since Jesus refuses to demonstrate himself he is condemning theists to hell.
4. Christianity only makes up nearly 1/3 of the world's population.
5. By remaining silence, Jesus is damning nearly 2/3 of the world's population (theists that are simply worshipping the wrong god(s) and there is no reason to assume they would not worship the real god if it presented itself.

Care to deal with direct challenges or are you just going to ignore the vast majority of this post again?

*I gave a free gift and told you what are God goals suppose to be, (according to my view) that would make your burden proof easer to carry, but feel free to accept or reject my gift.

:lol:

A gift? A real gift would be you openly admitting that you pick and choose from the Bible when it suits you or dealing directly with the implications of accepting the Bible in your argument. Essentially, a gift would be dealing with my direct objections and not trying to force me back on your broken script.

it doesn't matter if Muslims go to hell or not, it doesn't matter if I am cherry picking from the bible, it doesn't matter if we are talking about the Christian God, or God in the general sense, for the sake of this argument we can assume whatever you what regarding those things. the fact is that It is that you don't know what would happen if God would have done something different, you cant know how humans would react and you cant know if that would lead to more followers (or whatever Gods goal is)

It does matter because your whole argument is based off of a claim made in the Bible. Tell me dandan/leroy, why do you think a god's goal is to have loving relationships with us? Does not your whole argument rest on that? If not for the first claim from you (god wanting loving relationships from us) my line of questioning would not have formed. Thus, deal with the implications of hypocritically picking and choosing form the Bible or accept the whole of the Biblical claims.

According to you it is impossible to know how the universe would be if gravity where any different, well human behavior is far more chaotic and unpredictable that the force of gravity, so by your standards you should agree with my previous statement.

I agree to this irrelevant point. Again, your script is broken.

you can not prove that humans would react in a convenient way if God does something to make his existence more obvious, like curing cancer, or whatever you would consider evidence for the Christian God.

You do not know that there is a god, yet we are pretending there is one to have this conversation, right? The whole point of engaging with a counterfactual is to see were it leads. Thus far, it leads to very a uncomfortable place for you.

with convenient I simply mean in accordance with Gods goals.

You never demonstrated that there is such a thing as a god, let alone that Jesus is that god, and it appears that you do not even worship Jesus, just some god that only exists in your head; thus we actually have no idea what goals a god(s) would have. Remember, my objections are only here to demonstrate that the goals you arbitrarily picked lead to very uncomfortable places for you.