Like Lazarus, I agree with this. I have many times said that, if God exists, he/she/it is the one entity who could settle this debate once and for all. So far, I'm still hearing crickets. But, I, too, am waiting to see whether or not God ever speaks up.

Come on, God! Could we get a couple of Damascus Road Experiences over here?! And hold the blindness, please!

If it weren't for the Bible, most of us would never have even heard of Jesus. And, as we have already seen, I can methodically and logically demonstrate that the Bible is not a reliable source of information, while you can revert back to claiming that God/Jesus talks to you every day. (Something I cannot disprove, no matter how much I point out just how unlikely that is.)

So, let's skip that part. Tell me this:

Are you absolutely certain that it is God/Jesus that you are talking to? It could be another spirit being, tricking you.
What does Jesus look like?
Does he speak to you in English?
If so, why didn't he just skip the Bible, with its many translation issues, and talk directly to all of us, in our native language, in the first place?
Why does he speak to you, and not the rest of us? What makes you so special? (I don't mean that as an attack. It's a legitimate question.)

I'm well aware of that. Do you believe in all of those stories? If not, why not? How do you determine which ones are true and which ones aren't? Please note that I am not saying that spirit beings do not exist. I don't know whether they do or not. However, since there is a dearth of actual evidence for such a widely attested phenomenon, my default position on it is that there are probably other explanations for what people are seeing.



My point was that not everyone believes in apparitions. You strongly implied that we all believe in such things to make your case.



This comparison does not support your earlier statement. You said:



As I said, just because many people believe in spirit beings, it does not automatically prove that there must be one who rules over them. Do you see the point? The second part of your statement is a non-sequitur. As for your example, yes, there are rulers, or pack leaders, in every group of people or animals on the planet, but there is no ONE leader over all the sub-groups. And that's what you were saying, because you're trying to prove God's existence.



As a loving father, I certainly wouldn't drown my children, and all their pets, as a form of punishment. And I certainly wouldn't punish one child for the misbehavior of another child.



Sorry, but I HAVE researched this topic, and continue to do so. And you know what I have found? So far, every supposed miracle worker has either failed to be able to produce any "miracles" when put in a situation where the phenomenon could be observed and/or recorded scientifically, or their "miracles" have been exposed as sleight-of-hand tricks.

Also...do you not see the conflict in your own statement above? Let's lay it out. You assert that:

1. In Africa, there is a show of supernatural powers.(Definite statement.)
2. God exists, because you have seen him at work when his name had been invoked. (Also a definite statement.)
3. You don't think that these things happened by chance. (Not a definite statement. A speculation. Why the sudden uncertainty?)
4. God has been called upon to counter supernatural powers, etc. (Another definite statement. Your evidence for this assertion, please?)
5. You have seen it, and you believe. (You "believe." A declaration of faith, not certainty.)

See what I mean? You don't seem to be 100% convinced of your own assertions, first of all. Second, some of your assertions are dependent upon things for which there is no tangible evidence. Something to think about.



Okay. I'm glad to see that you are able to admit that even the question of whether or not God has a gender is unknown. Perhaps the term has no meaning when it comes to God. Who knows? That's my point. It's pretty difficult to forge a close relationship with a being about which we can't even know something so basic as its gender.

Or, prove its very existence.

That is true. However, as Cowboy and I already discussed, there is little PROOF of much of anything. That said, there is quite a bit of evidence that it was made up.



There are lots of stories out there about a variety of gods and goddesses. It doesn't mean that they're true. It doesn't mean that they're false, either. I admit that. All we can do is to examine the available evidence and make our own determination as to what seems the most likely to be true.



Please read the last several pages of this thread, as well as the "Extra-Biblical proof of Jesus' Resurrection?" thread, and you will see that the paucity of solid evidence for Christ and the miracles that he supposedly performed were central to the discussion.



While I would agree that most of us believe in the existence of evil, belief in apparitions is hardly universal. It also does not logically follow that IF apparitions are real, then there "must be one who sits above them all." For example, we humans obviously exist, yet there is no one human who sits above us all.



That is the point of this thread. Lazarus contends that, based upon the observable evidence, if God does exist, he is NOT a loving god. I agree with his assertion, and have offered some examples from the Bible of loutish behavior on God's part to add to his case. Not that I think that everything in the Bible is true, mind you, but most apologists do, so I think it's fair to use such examples to make the point to them. I certainly don't think that the God described in the Bible is a loving god.



I respectfully request that you provide solid evidence to support this assertion. While you're at it, please provide some solid evidence that "he" is actually a "HE."

My Brother! I'm right there with you. I love to "play the her-monica" as well.
Perhaps we should form our own support group. Let's see...what should we call it? "Australian Kissers Anonymous?"

As a side note, I'd like to point out that the "water-into-wine" trick was borrowed from Greek mythology. The Greek god Dionysus was the god of wine, and some of the legends about him claim that he turned water into wine. It was also claimed by some of his followers that, during feasts in his honor, empty jars sealed in a room within his Temple would be filled with wine when the room was unsealed the next day. (Feast of Elis.)

Oh, and in some of the myths he was a demigod; born of a god (Zeus), and a human mother, Semele. He was also killed, but then rose from the dead.

Worship of Dionysus had also been around for over a thousand years before Jesus came along. (Or, was invented.)

No one that I am aware of, other than those arguing in favor of the global flood model, claim that it happened all at once. Quite the contrary.

Obviously I don't know it, since I wasn't there. But, that's what I strongly suspect happened. I think that Noah's story was built upon the framework of these other stories because of the fact that the Noah story shares so many similarities with these stories that are much older. It just makes sense to me that, if you have a later story that is very similar to an earlier story, or stories, then the later story is probably copying the earlier ones. It certainly doesn't work the other direction. We have to conclude that either the later story copied the earlier one(s), or we have to conclude that two or more storytellers, living many years apart, independently came up with remarkably similar stories.

While both situations are possible, option #1 is far more likely.

Scholars base their estimates for the time of writing on a number of things; writing style, to name one. Since I'm not a scholar, just a geek amateur when it comes to this sort of thing, there are a few areas where I have to trust that the majority of scholars have a pretty good chance of being fairly close on their estimates on such things. And, the consensus is that stories like the Epic of Gilgamesh are at least several centuries older than Genesis.

Of course, you can speculate about the Noah story being passed down in oral form long before it was written down, in the hopes of pushing it back earlier than EoG, but that would be mere speculation. Besides, I could play that card, too. Perhaps EoG was passed down in oral form long before it was written down, too.

Not only that, it would be pretty reckless to put a whole lot of faith in a story that had been passed down orally for several centuries before being written down, don't you think?

Finally, my opinion that the Noah story is a copy of another older myth fits in well with my overall paradigm that all of these stories are myths, and that that is why God is MIA, as he was never there to begin with.

The evidence might not be biased, but the interpretation of the evidence certainly is. If I wanted to invest the time, I could debunk every one of the items on their list. Since I really don't care to invest that much time on it, I'll just explain how their conclusion is incorrect on item #1:

The presence of fossils of sea creatures found at high altitudes is not the result of a worldwide flood. They are the result of plate tectonics. The plates colliding with each other formed mountains, like this:


As a result, some land mass that had been underwater jutted up out of the water. Thus, the fossils of sea creatures at high altitudes is not the result of the water once rising above the mountains, but rather the mountains rising up out of the water.

If you care to, you can easily find explanations for the other incorrect conclusions on their list.

Good luck finding solid, non-biased evidence of a WORLD-WIDE flood, but there IS lots of evidence for massive regional floods, which is hardly shocking. And, even if there was a world-wide flood, that still does not prove that God caused it, or that any of the other elements of the story are true. (I refer back to my Bunny Men illustration here.) Can you not see that?

Besides, I wasn't claiming that massive flooding never took place. What I was implying was that there are stories about a big flood in the older myths that are remarkably similar to the newer Noah story in the OT. (I can show you some of these similarities if you like.) Which makes it clear to me that the Noah story was most likely built upon the framework of the older myths, rather than being an inerrant, God-inspired and approved account of an actual historical event.

And, again, this is true of many of the other MYTHS of the OT.

Allow me to quote myself again:

Remember to keep things in context. :)

In the First Century, there was much unrest in the region, and many Jews were looking for a warrior-messiah to come and lead them to victory over the hated Romans. Don't take my word for it, research the time-period. 70 CE, in particular, was a real fun time for everyone in the area.

So, the Romans did have the motivation, at least, to attempt to introduce a new religion, that would possibly replace Judaism, that featured a new version of their messiah; a meek and mild-tempered one.

I'm not saying that that is what happened. I don't know. I'm just saying that the idea makes perfect sense, within the historical context.

There you have it. I stand by my previous statement.

The God you describe is a dick, then. For, vast numbers of people who sincerely cry out to him every day never receive an answer. I guess he just likes you better.

You can't see the oxygen, but oxygen can be measured and proven to be present. Also, oxygen is not a conscious entity, whose defenders claim loves us all, yet refuses to speak to us.

How intelligent were the people in the BC era, you ask? Well, here we are thousands of years later, with all of our advances, and we still don't know for certain how the Egyptians built the pyramids. So, they certainly weren't morons. Also, many of the laws found in the Mosaic Law, which many apologists erroneously believe reflect God-given wisdom and morality so far advanced of Israel's neighbors, are found in the older Hammurabi's Code and Principles of Maat.

And, yes, the fairy tales found in the OT did exist prior to its writing. They are found in the much older Mesopotamian and/or Egyptian myths. The flood, the talking snake misleading a woman to disobey god(s), a god confusing the languages, and more...

So, you're admitting that God is absent, then. That's what I said in the first place.

I agree totally about circumcision. It's one of many things that I can hardly believe has managed to hang on.

As for the NT, you could be right about that. Another possibility that I have seen advanced is that the Romans, likely with Josephus' help, created Christianity as a means to quell the unrest among the messianic-minded Jews of the First Century by replacing their envisioned warrior messiah with a more pacifist-minded one.

True, but within the context of the discussion, it certainly seems an obvious implication. After all, he's arguing against my assertion that God is absent, like a deadbeat dad. And, if he is saying that he sees God, and talks to him, but God doesn't answer him back...he is once again painting a picture of a God who is a dick.

Oh, that's okay. No need to be sorry. If he's anywhere near as loquacious, boorish, and repetitive in person as he is in the OT, I'd rather not talk to him anyway.

Wait a minute...

On second thought, please tell him that I have some questions I'd really like to ask him, if he wouldn't mind stopping by my place for a bit. Thanks.

Also, allow me to quote something I said a couple of pages back that's apropos here:

Well, as I implied in my earlier post, most of the stories in the OT were built upon the framework of older myths. And, many of the stories in the NT were built upon stories from the OT. Newer myths built upon previous myths. That said, I agree with you as far as the genius of some of the creators of these stories. A good example of this would be the Yahwists coming up with the idea that it was the PEOPLES' fault if Yahweh didn't save them from another nation. (You know:"Yahweh CHOSE not to save you, because you are all a bunch of shitheads.") Previously, it was pretty much accepted that if your nation got thumped on by another nation, then their gods were stronger than yours.

The Yahwists' stroke of genius not only played upon peoples' inner sense of guilt, but also guaranteed that, no matter what happened, it wasn't Yahweh's fault. Therefore, he would continue to be worshiped. And, they would cash in. Speaking of cashing in:

In addition to control, another reason for the storytellers to come up with these stories is that they figured out that, while getting a real job is hard, if they could spin some good stories about god(s), the rest of their fellow citizens would pay them for it! This is readily apparent when you read the OT. There are many places where the writers depict Yahweh as instructing the common people to give the priests lots of goodies.

Also..."baby dick mutilation." Haha!
(Ironically enough, even THAT likely came, not from God, but from the Egyptians.)