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nonpartisan

It's possible it was divine intervention, it's significantly more likely it was dumb coincidence.

And tell me how you know that dumb coincidence is not actually divine intervention?

Even if I did believe in divine intervention, he helped you pass your test? Seriously?

Cite please? Where did I say He helped me pass my test? As a matter of fact, I said that I learned from that experience that I was not cut out to be a paramedic.

@blakeyrat said:

Look, if God exists, he's doing one of two things: 1) he created the rules that govern this universe, then got the fuck out and isn't screwing around with it, 2) he's screwing around with everybody all the time. Because I'm sure as fuck not believing that God pays you special individual attention and everybody else just gets "eh whatever."

There are no other possibilities? How about 3) He's screwing around with nobody and helping those who seek it?

@blakeyrat said:

The problem is, if you believe 2), you have to believe that God did make those old women smack into each other. If you believe 2) God's a fucking dick who's out there every day starving people, making people shoot each other, etc. And I sure as fuck would never believe in that God.

Neither do I.

@blakeyrat said:

I have an extremely scientific mind. I don't believe shit until I witness it. And half the time, not even then.

Then even if I wanted to try to convince you, by your own admission I really have no chance. If you don't even believe what is visible to you, well, I won't even waste my time.

dargor17

@nonpartisan said:

"None of it is about judgement." Pardon me, but your judgment is showing.

My post was in reply to lettucemode, claiming that people who are not religious are so because they're afraid of the inescapable judgement after death that religions guarantee. And my point was, I'm not really worried about that and therefore he's completely wrong about my reason for not being religious, which I summed up in those 2 points. I don't care about the fact that according to religion I will be judged when I die, not because I'm so afraid of it that I just refuse it, but because I think that the people who wrote the holy books know exactly as much as I do about the afterlife, that is: nothing. After all, why should I believe the Bible and not, say, the Iliad? Both are ancient and full of portents, and reflect what people at the time believed to be the truth.

@nonpartisan said:

Do you discount the writings of Isaac Newton? He's a man and lived a long time ago. How about Aristotle? Do you discount them out of hand because he was a man?

Neither the Principia or Aristotle's books are claimed to be written by any deity, while I'm pretty sure the Bible is said to be dictated by the boss to the prophets or something like that. And as I said, I don't really believe in divine inspiration. Of course Aristotle, Newton, and also the Bible are important for our culture and it's important to understand them and their context, I don't discard them, but I also don't let them decide what is good and what is wrong for me.

blakeyrat

@nonpartisan said:

There are no other possibilities? How about 3) He's screwing around with nobody and helping those who seek it?

So everybody in the world who's suffering is suffering because they haven't seeked out God's help?

lettucemode

@dargor17 said:

@nonpartisan said:
"None of it is about judgement." Pardon me, but your judgment is showing.

My post was in reply to lettucemode, claiming that people who are not religious are so because they're afraid of the inescapable judgement after death that religions guarantee. And my point was, I'm not really worried about that and therefore he's completely wrong about my reason for not being religious, which I summed up in those 2 points.

I didn't mean to generalize my statements to include everyone - I used the phrase "most people", I think. checks Yup. Sorry if it was unclear.

nonpartisan

@blakeyrat said:

So wait do you have free will? When you ended up at all those various accident scenes, did you have free will then? But you simultaneously believe God arranged for you to be there?

I'll take this, since the underlying claim was mine and not Sutherlands'.

If someone arranges for you to unknowingly get to a surprise party, did you no longer have free will? So long as he/she/it didn't tie you up and throw you in the back of the car to get you there?

I absolutely had free will. I could have said "Fuck 'em!" and driven on. I had no legal obligation to do anything. Perhaps the one at Church -- I could've just called 911 and no one would have been the wiser. I could've driven right past the accident scenes -- I was in uniform, but wearing an EMT uniform doesn't obligate me to respond if I'm not on duty. I may have looked like an asshole, but legally I was safe. I could have completely ignored all of these instances. I had free will the entire time.

@blakeyrat said:

If God is controlling any aspect of what happens in this universe, we do not have free will. And I still refuse to believe God would pay attention to one individual and ignore everybody else.

Ever tried asking? Did you ever think to sincerely, genuinely, reverently pray about the whole iOS and JavaScript problem? I've had revelations come to me even about work-related problems when I did, and typically they were unusual but elegant solutions that I never would've considered otherwise.

Sutherlands

@blakeyrat said:

@nonpartisan said:
There are no other possibilities? How about 3) He's screwing around with nobody and helping those who seek it?
So everybody in the world who's suffering is suffering because they haven't seeked out God's help?

Hmmm, I don't see that at all in what he said. Try again, maybe?

nonpartisan

@blakeyrat said:

@nonpartisan said:
There are no other possibilities? How about 3) He's screwing around with nobody and helping those who seek it?

So everybody in the world who's suffering is suffering because they haven't seeked out God's help?

How in the fuck did you get to that conclusion?

How about: There's suffering in the world whether you believe in Him or not. Those people who seek His help may find that some or all of their suffering is relieved through Him

I make no guarantees, express or implied, about whether He will help you or not; that's between you and Him. All I know is that I have experienced circumstances where I had problems, I turned to Him, and suddenly things just mysteriously worked out in ways I never would have predicted.

blakeyrat

@nonpartisan said:

I've had revelations come to me even about work-related problems when I did, and typically they were unusual but elegant solutions that I never would've considered otherwise.

I just take a shower, that's where I get all my best ideas.

lettucemode

@blakeyrat said:

@nonpartisan said:
I've had revelations come to me even about work-related problems when I did, and typically they were unusual but elegant solutions that I never would've considered otherwise.

I just take a shower, that's where I get all my best ideas.

I prefer the method wherein I scratch my balls for a while. It puts me in such a relaxed state of mind.

nonpartisan

@lettucemode said:

I prefer the method wherein I scratch my balls for a while. It puts me in such a relaxed state of mind.

You're damn lucky . . . I almost filled my keyboard with my lunch over that one! KeyTronic keyboard, just got it a few weeks ago, real keys, not like those damn flat icky pieces of shit you get by default with new systems these days.

ender

@nonpartisan said:

I absolutely had free will. I could have said "Fuck 'em!" and driven on.

You did - but what about them?

nonpartisan

@ender said:

@nonpartisan said:
I absolutely had free will. I could have said "Fuck 'em!" and driven on.
You did - but what about them?

Not my fault one or both drivers chose to disobey traffic laws.

boog

@blakeyrat said:

Once I prayed to God that I needed a new stereo, and not a day later my roommate was shanked by an escaped inmate, and I totally went over and took his stereo.

I find prayer to be a lot like calling tech support: I never get any straight answers and I'm always better off trying to solve the problem myself.

Peraninth

@boog said:

@blakeyrat said:
Once I prayed to God that I needed a new stereo, and not a day later my roommate was shanked by an escaped inmate, and I totally went over and took his stereo.
I find prayer to be a lot like calling tech support: I never get any straight answers and I'm always better off trying to solve the problem myself.

I bet god is up there in his helpdesk chair thinking: "These dumbass users. They call tech support but then they don't listen to a damn thing I have to say. This is why developers shouldn't have to do support. <grumble, grumble, grumble>"

RTapeLoadingError

@nonpartisan said:

@blakeyrat said:
So wait do you have free will? When you ended up at all those various accident scenes, did you have free will then? But you simultaneously believe God arranged for you to be there?
I'll take this, since the underlying claim was mine and not Sutherlands'.
If someone arranges for you to unknowingly get to a surprise party, did you no longer have free will? So long as he/she/it didn't tie you up and throw you in the back of the car to get you there?
I absolutely had free will. I could have said "Fuck 'em!" and driven on. I had no legal obligation to do anything. Perhaps the one at Church -- I could've just called 911 and no one would have been the wiser. I could've driven right past the accident scenes -- I was in uniform, but wearing an EMT uniform doesn't obligate me to respond if I'm not on duty. I may have looked like an asshole, but legally I was safe. I could have completely ignored all of these instances. I had free will the entire time.
@blakeyrat said:
If God is controlling any aspect of what happens in this universe, we do not have free will. And I still refuse to believe God would pay attention to one individual and ignore everybody else.

You asked God for help and then a number of accidents happened while you were nearby. What I think blakeyrat is asking (and if he's not, then I am) is what you think happened. Is it...

God heard your prayers and manipulated you so that you'd be near to accidents that were already going to happen; or
God heard your prayers and manipulated other people to have accidents close to where you were already going to be; or
God did nothing to manipulate anyone and it's all just a coincidence.

If it's none of the above I can't understand how God intervened but didn't impinge upon your free will.

morbiuswilters

@Peraninth said:

@boog said:
@blakeyrat said:
Once I prayed to God that I needed a new stereo, and not a day later my roommate was shanked by an escaped inmate, and I totally went over and took his stereo.
I find prayer to be a lot like calling tech support: I never get any straight answers and I'm always better off trying to solve the problem myself.
I bet god is up there in his helpdesk chair thinking: "These dumbass users. They call tech support but then they don't listen to a damn thing I have to say. This is why developers shouldn't have to do support. <grumble, grumble, grumble>"

He probably outsourced support to India. Which is why your prayers never seem to get answered; Nagesh is on the other end.

Cassidy

@morbiuswilters said:

... Which is why your prayers never seem to get answered; Nagesh is on the other end.

Hmmm... that would actually explain a lot of the "miracles" that have recently occured.

ASheridan

@nonpartisan said:

I've heard it argued that God made those accidents for me. My belief is that He put me in the right place at the right time, but didn't create the accidents.

You can't have it both ways. Either he created the accidents and engineered for you to be there, or it was all happenstance. This for me is the main failing of those who follow a particular religion involving a deity, as examples of positive (seemingly) miraculous events are given as evidence to prove the existence of said deity. However, negative evidence is always ignored or rejected. This might also be why there are so many clashes between the fringes of the scientific & non-religous and the religious & non-scientific communities.

ASheridan

@nonpartisan said:

If you never consider the possibility the Earth is round, nothing will convince you that the Earth is anything but flat.

Except there's this thing called scientific evidence for the earth being round (or round-ish). There is none for any religion. What gets my goat is anecdotal 'evidence' offered up as an alternative to scientific evidence. That's like comparing apples and potatoes (not even oranges here) and will get you as far.

ASheridan

I don't think stealing is OK, and we've already established that looking at content online whilst blocking ads surrounding the content isn't stealing. You think Google is 'stealing' the content when it indexes your content and shows snippets of it in their search results?

Or are you one of those dumbfucks that thinks it's OK to steal my bandwidth?

PJH

@ASheridan said:

@nonpartisan said:
I've heard it argued that God made those accidents for me. My belief is that He put me in the right place at the right time, but didn't create the accidents.
You can't have it both ways.

Puts me in mind of a quote from Epicurus.

ASheridan

@nonpartisan said:

@blakeyrat said:
@nonpartisan said:
There are no other possibilities? How about 3) He's screwing around with nobody and helping those who seek it?

So everybody in the world who's suffering is suffering because they haven't seeked out God's help?

How in the fuck did you get to that conclusion?
How about: There's suffering in the world whether you believe in Him or not. Those people who seek His help may find that some or all of their suffering is relieved through Him
I make no guarantees, express or implied, about whether He will help you or not; that's between you and Him. All I know is that I have experienced circumstances where I had problems, I turned to Him, and suddenly things just mysteriously worked out in ways I never would have predicted.

I think he got to that conclusion because of what you implied.

You said that you felt your god arranged for you to be at those incidents. So if your god listens to prayers about a test, why wouldn't he listen to ones about people dying maybe, or those suffering excrutiating agony through starvation? Maybe your god doesn't have the power to do the big stuff, or maybe he doesn't care and likes fucking with people? Or maybe, just maybe, there is no god and what you experienced was coincidence.

Cassidy

@ASheridan said:

Except there's this thing called scientific evidence for the earth being round (or round-ish). There is none for any religion.

Let's not forget that for many years, people believed the world to be flat before science disproved that theory - can it be said that people blindly followed a belief (religion?) until science uncovered the facts?

I've heard a quote of "science raises questions and seeks answers; religion provides answers that we dare not question" (or something like that), based upon the over-zealous nature of those who used religion to shape culture and control a population whilst seeking to persecute and ban science for fear those answers would undermine and erode religion's control over humanity. Similarly, didn't Einstein stop producing some of his best work once he "discovered" religion?

Disclaimer: I'm not knocking religion, any more than I'm defending science. Both have their place; there is good and evil in both camps. I think what gets my goat is the atrocities that are committed by man in the name of science OR religion, and that's not really the fault of science or religion. It's a failing in mankind.

ASheridan

I agree, some of the greatest atrocities the world has known have been done in the name of one religion or another. I'm not saying that the religion is the direct cause of that, but it does tend to inhibit free thinking, and leads to blindless devotion and the creation of zealots who believe that their end justifies their means.

I've no problem with people believing whatever they want, whether it be the Christian God or the invisible spaghetti monster, as long as they don't try to impose their views on me, or engineer situations to benefit their belief that negatively impacts me in any way. I realise there's overlap, but I would hope that some fragment of common sense would apply in those situations.

dhromed

@nonpartisan said:

If you don't believe it possible that it was divine intervention, then I can't convince you.

Therein lies the problem.

You presuppose a malleable solution as a possible option; a generic, catch-all backup explanation for everything that you perceive as hard to understand. Then you make an unusual observation, and immediately mold your solution to fit the data, and call it quits. You are essentially giving up on trying to understand the world around you, saying welp! I don't get it! must be God!

This is a very bad way of dealing with the world.

@nonpartisan said:

If you never consider the possibility the Earth is round, nothing will convince you that the Earth is anything but flat.

Demonstrating the roundness of the earth was not some random mental fantasy presupposition that turned out to be true when people looked for proof. It was based on unexpected, unintuitive, repeateable observations that directly countered the idea of a flat planet. It is not a valid comparison to faith, nor to your experiences.

boomzilla

@ASheridan said:

You can't have it both ways. Either he created the accidents and engineered for you to be there, or it was all happenstance.

Why? Do you have some knowledge that the rest of us don't? Or is your question begging assertion simply a manifestation of your desire for a neat, simple explanation?

ASheridan

@boomzilla said:

@ASheridan said:
You can't have it both ways. Either he created the accidents and engineered for you to be there, or it was all happenstance.

Why? Do you have some knowledge that the rest of us don't? Or is your question begging assertion simply a manifestation of your desire for a neat, simple explanation?

I wasn't begging anything, although I do prefer a neat explanation, as they tend to be less prone to be wrong.

I merely meant that if you believe that one set of actions are defined by a deity, why not another set, which are said to be connected (i.e. in this instance, nonpartisan said s/he believed that their god arranged for them to be in the right place at the right time to help with the various incidents, thereby creating a connection between the incidents and his/her position at that time through the work of a deity). Also, if a god has the power to manipulate events enough to place somebody in a certain location at a specific time, why not place other people in such a way that the accident never happened in the first case? Unless nonpartisan is right with his/her comment about them only being there because they prayed. How many people pray not to be involved in some kind of accident right before the accident? If that's all it takes, health and safety would be a lot easier to implement in the workplace.

Or of course, it could all be coincidence. In the same way that people see images in the clouds and faces in crisps (or potato chips) people are also great at seeing patterns where there are none.

erikal

Funnily enough this week has proven that derailing a thread into a pretty hefty discussion about religion is allowed to survive (while on other forums the thread would be locked, put in isolation and several people would be banned just to set an example), but apparently reviving a 7-month old thread is frowned upon.

This place continues to be awesome to the max!

boomzilla

@ASheridan said:

@boomzilla said:
@ASheridan said:
You can't have it both ways. Either he created the accidents and engineered for you to be there, or it was all happenstance.

Why? Do you have some knowledge that the rest of us don't? Or is your question begging assertion simply a manifestation of your desire for a neat, simple explanation?

I wasn't begging anything, although I do prefer a neat explanation, as they tend to be less prone to be wrong.

Well, you might be right about that. Instead of begging the question, I suppose it was more of a false dichotomy. Either way, what you said was wrong.

@ASheridan said:

Also, if a god has the power to manipulate events enough to place somebody in a certain location at a specific time, why not place other people in such a way that the accident never happened in the first case?

Because why should a god behave the way ASheridan (or anyone else) thinks he should? Look, it's fine to have an opinion. Any belief in god is faith based, and cannot be proved in a scientific manner. I'm not saying you're wrong, but that you're just being fallacious in presenting that false dichotomy.

Your argument is worse than a young earth creationist's argument, because given an omnipotent creator, it should be within his power to make stuff look older than it really is. And you certainly can't disprove the existence of an omnipotent creator. But your assertion is just a logical fallacy.

ASheridan

@boomzilla said:

@ASheridan said:
@boomzilla said:
@ASheridan said:
You can't have it both ways. Either he created the accidents and engineered for you to be there, or it was all happenstance.

Why? Do you have some knowledge that the rest of us don't? Or is your question begging assertion simply a manifestation of your desire for a neat, simple explanation?

I wasn't begging anything, although I do prefer a neat explanation, as they tend to be less prone to be wrong.

Well, you might be right about that. Instead of begging the question, I suppose it was more of a false dichotomy. Either way, what you said was wrong.

@ASheridan said:
Also, if a god has the power to manipulate events enough to place somebody in a certain location at a specific time, why not place other people in such a way that the accident never happened in the first case?

Because why should a god behave the way ASheridan (or anyone else) thinks he should? Look, it's fine to have an opinion. Any belief in god is faith based, and cannot be proved in a scientific manner. I'm not saying you're wrong, but that you're just being fallacious in presenting that false dichotomy.

Your argument is worse than a young earth creationist's argument, because given an omnipotent creator, it should be within his power to make stuff look older than it really is. And you certainly can't disprove the existence of an omnipotent creator. But your assertion is just a logical fallacy.

Actually, my logic is just extending the logic that nonpartisan put on his/her being placed in a specific location for a specific reason. If humans are giving one reason to a set of events, why is it 'logical' to exclude another set of events (which non-partisan connected by reason. Furthermore, why is it illogical of me to highlight that? The deity influence is only inferred by anectodotal evidence from nonpartisan, so it makes no sense to then disclude another connection made by another human and then argue the reasoning for that is because a human can't place their own rules on a gods actions. Nonpartisan saying that god placed them where he did, s/he is placing a rule on the actions (as s/he see's it) on their god.No logical fallacy as far as I can see it.

nonpartisan

@dhromed said:

@nonpartisan said:
If you don't believe it possible that it was divine intervention, then I can't convince you.

Therein lies the problem.
You presuppose a malleable solution as a possible option; a generic, catch-all backup explanation for everything that you perceive as hard to understand. Then you make an unusual observation, and immediately mold your solution to fit the data, and call it quits. You are essentially giving up on trying to understand the world around you, saying welp! I don't get it! must be God!
This is a very bad way of dealing with the world.
@nonpartisan said:
If you never consider the possibility the Earth is round, nothing will convince you that the Earth is anything but flat.
Demonstrating the roundness of the earth was not some random mental fantasy presupposition that turned out to be true when people looked for proof. It was based on unexpected, unintuitive, repeateable observations that directly countered the idea of a flat planet. It is not a valid comparison to faith, nor to your experiences.

But there's so much more to it than how you're trying to simplify it. It's hard enough to explain in person, but let me try.

I just got a seat on the train. Do I consider that divine intervention since it doesn't happen often? No, I consider that luck. As much as I have emotions that are real, so do I also have a spiritual sense. I don't feel my getting a seat is from Him.

In the part you quoted, all I'm trying to say is that you have to be open to a possibility before you can accept that it may be true. Those people who were hard-core believers that the world was flat would not have begun to consider a round world, or that the Earth was not three center of the universe. If you do some electrical work in your house and it burns down the next day, if you are 162% certain you did it right and that it was not the cause, you're going to deny that work as a possibility. It was the dryer or the toaster. You've smelled something funny for a week around the front door and it was that. In the face of evidence from the fire inspector, you may insist that all the wires were tight in the wire nut, or that you hadn't forgotten the wire nut, or the wire nut melted away, or . . .

I have no evidence my wife has cheated on me. I have no evidence she hasn't. My belief is that she hasn't. Blest am I for believing without having to see.

My belief in God is based on a sense of spirituality and a continuum of experiences. The two experiences I discussed (I see no one is arguing my vision of my child's birth even though it's not a repeatable scientific event) aren't the only two experiences I've had. There are things happening in the world today that people are ignoring, or don't believe, or something. How about the visions of the Blessed Mother that have been seen in Medjugorje (I think I got that spelled right)? They continue to this day. If a person believes that these are the experiences of crazy people, or dope smokers, or what have you, they will never be convinced that it's divine intervention, whether it is or isn't.

That's all I'm saying. If you can't believe in the possibility of divine intervention, then it's hopeless for me to even try.

boomzilla

@ASheridan said:

Actually, my logic is just extending the logic that nonpartisan put on his/her being placed in a specific location for a specific reason. If humans are giving one reason to a set of events, why is it 'logical' to exclude another set of events (which non-partisan connected by reason. Furthermore, why is it illogical of me to highlight that? The deity influence is only inferred by anectodotal evidence from nonpartisan, so it makes no sense to then disclude another connection made by another human and then argue the reasoning for that is because a human can't place their own rules on a gods actions. Nonpartisan saying that god placed them where he did, s/he is placing a rule on the actions (as s/he see's it) on their god. No logical fallacy as far as I can see it.

Fuck, read what you wrote. You said that everything had to be for a reason or nothing had to be for a reason. It's not illogical to believe one or the other, but they're obviously not the only options. You said that those were the only options. One other option is that some things are due to god and others are not.

Any bit of logic relies on assumptions. You have assumed that either an omnipotent being has scripted out everything or nothing. You are free to assume this, of course, but don't expect to be taken seriously. Your assertion is equivalent to, "ASheridan must live in either Asia or Europe." Perhaps this less loaded form of your assertion will demonstrate your error. Also, consider that there are no empirical reasons to make the assumption that you made. The existence, power and motives of god are beyond what science and logic can explain.

Again, I'm not criticizing you for believing in either one, but for not thinking clearly enough to realize that you're failing to make a rational argument.

ASheridan

@boomzilla said:

@ASheridan said:
Actually, my logic is just extending the logic that nonpartisan put on his/her being placed in a specific location for a specific reason. If humans are giving one reason to a set of events, why is it 'logical' to exclude another set of events (which non-partisan connected by reason. Furthermore, why is it illogical of me to highlight that? The deity influence is only inferred by anectodotal evidence from nonpartisan, so it makes no sense to then disclude another connection made by another human and then argue the reasoning for that is because a human can't place their own rules on a gods actions. Nonpartisan saying that god placed them where he did, s/he is placing a rule on the actions (as s/he see's it) on their god. No logical fallacy as far as I can see it.

Fuck, read what you wrote. You said that everything had to be for a reason or nothing had to be for a reason. It's not illogical to believe one or the other, but they're obviously not the only options. You said that those were the only options. One other option is that some things are due to god and others are not.

Sorry, of course it's far more "logical" for nonpartisan (a human) to know exactly what is divinely engineered or not. For him/her to say that their god engineered for them to be around at these incidents makes far more sense than a god that would prevent these incidents from happening in the first place, or the whole thing just being a bunch of coincidence.

@boomzilla said:

Any bit of logic relies on assumptions. You have assumed that either an omnipotent being has scripted out everything or nothing. You are free to assume this, of course, but don't expect to be taken seriously. Your assertion is equivalent to, "ASheridan must live in either Asia or Europe." Perhaps this less loaded form of your assertion will demonstrate your error. Also, consider that there are no empirical reasons to make the assumption that you made. The existence, power and motives of god are beyond what science and logic can explain.

Then why is nonpartisan trying to explain his/her being around right after these incidents an act of god? That is trying to explain with logic a reason for things. If nonpartisan can do it, then why can't I? Is it maybe perhaps because my logical assumptions in this case are actually making the standard religious view of "everything good happening in my life must be because of god, everything bad must be because I don't believe enough/am not good enough" appear ridiculous?

The point I'm trying to make is that you can't make one set of assumptions on a deity, then try to argue against points you disagree with about your deity by saying that a human can't comprhend a god. Sorry, but if a human can't comprehend a gods actions, then a human can't comprehend a gods actions; not "a human can't comprehend a gods actions, unless the actions agree with the general line of thinking of the populace of the believers in said religion, in which case a human can"

nonpartisan

@ASheridan said:

You said that you felt your god arranged for you to be at those incidents. So if your god listens to prayers about a test, why wouldn't he listen to ones about people dying maybe, or those suffering excrutiating agony through starvation? Maybe your god doesn't have the power to do the big stuff, or maybe he doesn't care and likes fucking with people? Or maybe, just maybe, there is no god and what you experienced was coincidence.

Who's to say that He doesn't listen to those prayers?

My experiences with Him fall into the category of "be careful what you wish for, you might get it." If I pray to learn to be more patient, guess what? I end up in situations that test my patience. When I prayed for assistance with my paramedic skills, guess what? I ended up in situations where I could practice. Neither of these are what I expected.

My view of God now is one of a parent . . . further explanation gets dangerously close to having to expand the discussion into the nature of life itself and why we're here. But for the moment, suffice it to say that if I ask my parents to give me $1M, even if they had it, they wouldn't do it. If I ask God to let my parents live forever, He won't do that. But if I ask Him to lighten my burden because I have family issues going on and five deadlines at work, mysteriously two of those deadlines will be unexpectedly delayed, two projects will somehow be reduced in their priority, and it'll turn out that the fifth project actually only needed a couple of network ports instead of brand new switches being installed and programming those ports is five minutes working remotely instead of several hours developing a new configuration, getting it peer reviewed, collecting the hardware, running the fiber circuits, visiting the closet, etc. All of that pretty much happening simultaneously. Others may see that happen on a regular basis; none of that is normal in my work environment.

boomzilla

@ASheridan said:

The point I'm trying to make is that you can't make one set of assumptions on a deity, then try to argue against points you disagree with about your deity by saying that a human can't comprhend a god.

But it's OK to argue against one set of assumptions on a deity by saying that you can comprehend a god?

blakeyrat

@Cassidy said:

@ASheridan said:
Except there's this thing called scientific evidence for the earth being round (or round-ish). There is none for any religion.
Let's not forget that for many years, people believed the world to be flat before science disproved that theory - can it be said that people blindly followed a belief (religion?) until science uncovered the facts?

The more people look into it, the more it becomes apparently that nobody in history has ever (seriously) believed the world was flat. People skipped from "not ever even thinking about it" directly to "at least cylindrical, if not fully a sphere".

Now maybe there was some huge civilization that seriously believed the world was flat, and just happened to not leaving any writings behind. But that's not very likely.

serguey123

So far from this discussion I guess that god is like a bored IT grunt on the helpdesk

ASheridan

@boomzilla said:

@ASheridan said:
The point I'm trying to make is that you can't make one set of assumptions on a deity, then try to argue against points you disagree with about your deity by saying that a human can't comprhend a god.

But it's OK to argue against one set of assumptions on a deity by saying that you can comprehend a god?

I'm not saying I comprehend a god (it's a bit difficult to comprehend a thing you don't believe in at all) but I'm saying that if you can make one assumption about god, why can't you make another? Why is it right to assume that god has a hand in the positive miracles of the world, but that to assume he had a hand also in the negative miracles would be jumping to conclusions that can't be made about a deity?

Like I said before, you can't have it both ways. Either you stick to your own arguments that humans cannot comprehend the actions of a deity or you accept that a human can. If one can, then you accept all the comes with that; if you believe a human can't comprehend a gods actions, then you must also accept that to claim god was behind a particular set of circumstances is also attempting to comprehend gods actions, which you can't do.

serguey123

@blakeyrat said:

Now maybe there was some huge civilization that seriously believed the world was flat, and just happened to not leaving any writings behind. But that's not very likely.

There you go, proof!, so now feed the turtle or we are dead

Sutherlands

Oh my gosh... so many... false dichotomies... brain... exploding...

ASheridan

@serguey123 said:

@blakeyrat said:
Now maybe there was some huge civilization that seriously believed the world was flat, and just happened to not leaving any writings behind. But that's not very likely.

There you go, proof!, so now feed the turtle or we are dead

Isn't that Rincewind on the edge there?

boomzilla

@ASheridan said:

I'm not saying I comprehend a god (it's a bit difficult to comprehend a thing you don't believe in at all) but I'm saying that if you can make one assumption about god, why can't you make another?

NO. THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU WERE SAYING. YOU WERE TRYING TO LIMIT THE ASSUMPTIONS AND FORCE nonpartisan INTO ANSWERING WHEN HE STOPPED BEATING HIS WIFE.

@ASheridan said:

Like I said before, you can't have it both ways. Either you stick to your own arguments that humans cannot comprehend the actions of a deity or you accept that a human can. If one can, then you accept all the comes with that; if you believe a human can't comprehend a gods actions, then you must also accept that to claim god was behind a particular set of circumstances is also attempting to comprehend gods actions, which you can't do.

No one is trying to have it both ways. The only thing we must accept is that you cannot argue your way out of a wet paper bag.

dhromed

God is the BOFHeaven.

boog

@Peraninth said:

@boog said:
I find prayer to be a lot like calling tech support: I never get any straight answers and I'm always better off trying to solve the problem myself.
I bet god is up there in his helpdesk chair thinking: "These dumbass users. They call tech support but then they don't listen to a damn thing I have to say. This is why developers shouldn't have to do support. <grumble, grumble, grumble>"

To be fair, I was implying that prayer (like calling tech support) is a waste of my time. But I suppose the notion that prayer is a waste of God's time is funny too.

boog

@Sutherlands said:

Oh my gosh... so many... false dichotomies... brain... exploding...

It's fun to accuse people of logical fallacies, but what's even more fun is to actually point out how what they said was fallacious.

ASheridan

@boomzilla said:

@ASheridan said:
I'm not saying I comprehend a god (it's a bit difficult to comprehend a thing you don't believe in at all) but I'm saying that if you can make one assumption about god, why can't you make another?

NO. THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU WERE SAYING. YOU WERE TRYING TO LIMIT THE ASSUMPTIONS AND FORCE nonpartisan INTO ANSWERING WHEN HE STOPPED BEATING HIS WIFE.

You don't even seem to know what you're saying anymore.

@boomzilla said:

@ASheridan said:
Like I said before, you can't have it both ways. Either you stick to your own arguments that humans cannot comprehend the actions of a deity or you accept that a human can. If one can, then you accept all the comes with that; if you believe a human can't comprehend a gods actions, then you must also accept that to claim god was behind a particular set of circumstances is also attempting to comprehend gods actions, which you can't do.

No one is trying to have it both ways. The only thing we must accept is that you cannot argue your way out of a wet paper bag.

@boomzilla said:

@ASheridan said:
I'm not saying I comprehend a god (it's a bit difficult to comprehend a thing you don't believe in at all) but I'm saying that if you can make one assumption about god, why can't you make another?

NO. THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU WERE SAYING. YOU WERE TRYING TO LIMIT THE ASSUMPTIONS AND FORCE nonpartisan INTO ANSWERING WHEN HE STOPPED BEATING HIS WIFE.

@ASheridan said:
Like I said before, you can't have it both ways. Either you stick to your own arguments that humans cannot comprehend the actions of a deity or you accept that a human can. If one can, then you accept all the comes with that; if you believe a human can't comprehend a gods actions, then you must also accept that to claim god was behind a particular set of circumstances is also attempting to comprehend gods actions, which you can't do.

No one is trying to have it both ways. The only thing we must accept is that you cannot argue your way out of a wet paper bag.

You are trying to have it both ways. You are saying that a person (nonpartisan) can claim a person (nonpartisan) was in a certain place at the right time because of gods actions. Then you say that I can't infer that gods actions were what caused the people to be in the accidents that nonpartisan arrived at. Why is one assumption fine, but mine not so? Both are assumptions attributing certain events to the actions of a god. I see no logical reason why one set of actions cannot be attributed whilst another can.

Ps, I've just argued my way out of your wet paper bag, but I've yet to see you explain any of this logically. You just keep reiterating that I can't make assumptions while defending those who make assumptions that agree with your own viewpoint.

nonpartisan

@boomzilla said:

[url=http://forums.thedailywtf.com/tags/logic+is+hard+-+let_2700_s+go+shopping/default.aspx]logic is hard - let's go shopping[/url]

Barbie?

boog

@nonpartisan said:

@boomzilla said:
logic is hard - let's go shopping
Barbie?

I thought it was Malibu Stacy.

nonpartisan

@ASheridan said:

You are trying to have it both ways. You are saying that a person (nonpartisan) can claim a person (nonpartisan) was in a certain place at the right time because of gods actions. Then you say that I can't infer that gods actions were what caused the people to be in the accidents that nonpartisan arrived at. Why is one assumption fine, but mine not so? Both are assumptions attributing certain events to the actions of a god. I see no logical reason why one set of actions cannot be attributed whilst another can.

I don't believe that's what happened. That said, I'm open to the possibility that He made them have an accident for my sake. So while I am open to the possibility, right now I have no evidence that this is what happened, nor do I believe that He would do that for me. But I can't say with 100% certainty that He did not make them get into an accident for me as a result of my prayer.

boog

@nonpartisan said:

I don't believe that's what happened. That said, I'm open to the possibility that He made them have an accident for my sake. So while I am open to the possibility, right now I have no evidence that this is what happened, nor do I believe that He would do that for me. But I can't say with 100% certainty that He did not make them get into an accident for me as a result of my prayer.

I think the question that folks like ASheridan and blakarino are trying to get across (and apparently failing, but not for a lack of effort) is why you can say with such certainty, with no evidence, that he put you in the right place at the right time? Because it seems awfully convenient to believe one positive thing without evidence, but disbelieve one negative thing for the same reason.

If it's because you choose to believe it, that's fine, go nuts, but please realize that how-you-feel shouldn't be enough to convince anyone that your belief holds water.