Posts by slimboyfat

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

If God is inscrutable, why did he make humans without the ability to comprehend him and/or the problem of evil?
Is it a design flaw? That makes him less than omnipotent.
Could he have designed us differently but chose not to? That makes him rather a jerk (i.e., not perfectly loving).

Among the things that we don't understand is, presumably, the reason why God made us in such a way that we don't understand. Is this compatible with goodness? Frankly it is hard to see how. But once again, that is precisely the point. Given that we don't know everything, is it impossible? I don't think we can say it is impossible that God has good reasons that we don't know.

If we encounter a maths problem we can't understand we might say, "I can't work out the answer to this".

It may be that there is no answer to the maths problem. It may be meaningless for all we know. Or it may have an answer, but we simply don't know what the answer is.

What would make no sense would be to say: "I can't work out the answer to this maths problem, therefore there is no answer to this maths problem".

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

I no longer believe that the Bible is consistent with itself. So I won't argue that there are parts of the Bible that claim God has revealed himself in various ways, especially Jesus. What I do know however, is that the inscrutability of God is a dominant theme of many parts of the Bible. Such as the following:

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

Job 26:14 Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?”

1 Corinthians 2:11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Isaiah 55:8, 9
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Pslam 147:5 5
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

Asked and answered.

With the only answers you ever seem to give: I don't like the question, or "that's ridiculous", accompanied by various insults.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

Events such as the Asian tsunami are incompatible with other things that christians claim to know about god. All attempts to explain god's actions result in a story that is internally contradictory.

If the Bible said that God was comprehensible to humans you would have a point, but it doesn't. It teaches the opposite. The Bible at various points says that God is:

1. Righteous and good.

2. All powerful.

3. Not comprehensible to the human mind.

So the fact that we cannot find a reasonable answer to the problem of suffering does not disprove the God of the Bible, it affirms his inscrutability as stated in the Bible. You are only looking at the fact that God is good and almighty when formulating your argument, and excluding the equally strong description of God in the Bible as inscrutable or incomprehensible to humans.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

Plus it does seem very odd claim that the God of the Bible does not exist because of suffering, when the Bible itself says that God's ways cannot be understood by humans,

If the Bible taught that God is understandable to humans, then the argument about the incompatibility of goodness and almightiness would make sense. But the Bible does not say we can understand the mind of God, it does not say that we can understand his ways, it does not say we can inquire of God about why he has done something and get a satisfactory answer. On the contrary the Bible says that 1) we cannot understand the mind of God 2) we cannot understand his ways and 3) we should not expect him to give an account of his actions. Given that's what the Bible says about God, it makes little sense to say that the problem of suffering disproves the God of the Bible. The Bible often states that God is inscrutable. The problem of suffering therefore does not disprove in the inscrutable God of the Bible.

You may say that the God of the Bible is undesirable or not worthy of attention, and give reasons for that view. But what doesn't make sense is to say that suffering is incompatible with the God of the Bible.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

I know of no logical way to exclude this possibility, therefore I do not think the existence of unicorns has been disproved.

This is a poor response because it is the atheist argument which is making the presumption in this case. What is being claimed here is that the inability of humans to find a solution to the problem of evil therefore disproves the existence of the God of the Bible. When actually there are two reasonable explanations for humans not finding a solution to any given problem:

1. No solution exists.

2. A solution exists but we have not yet, or may never find it.

It is only husbris, or wishful thinking, that says 1 must be true and 2 cannot be the explanation.

Unless you know some good reason why 1 must be true and 2 can definitely be discounted.

I am curious if there are any good arguments for this.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

What I said:

I know of no logical way to exclude this possibility, [a solution to the problem of evil we don't understand] therefore I do not think the God of the Bible has been disproved.

What Cofty said in the earlier thread he quoted:

It is my opinion that natural evil proves beyond all reasonable doubt that the god of christians, the god of Jesus does not exist.

Cofty in this thread:

WMy argument is not that suffering is incompatible with the existence of god.

Who is guilty of misrepresentation? I knew that your claimed "proof" only extended to the God of the Bible, that's why I worded my response in exactly those terms, confining it to the "Christian God" and the "God of the Bible".

So have you changed your mind, and no longer think the problem of evil disproves the God of the Bible? Or if you stand by the claim, that the Christian God is disproved, then how do you answer my question above?

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

It's atheists who are making the positive claim, if they say that, because God's goodness and almightiness seem irreconcilable to us humans, therefore they are reconcilable in reality, and therefore there must be no Chrustian God.

What is the basis for making the human mind the measure for what can exist in the universe in this way? Since there are certainly things about reality that humans can't understand, on what basis do atheists claim that a solution to the problem of evil cannot be one of the things we don't understand?

Notice I am not saying that God necessarily does exist or that there is a solution to the problem of evil. Cofty has claimed that the problem of evil proves that the God of the Bible does not exist. But in order for that "proof" to stand you would need to exclude the possibility that a solution to the problem of evil exists that humans don't or can't understand it.

I know of no logical way to exclude this possibility, therefore I do not think the God of the Bible has been disproved.

10

Revealing the wt "translators" now that gb are all over the place?

by carla in

back when me & my jw were still discussing anything jw related we had numerous discussions about just who the translators of the wt's bible were.

(i knew, thanks to this site and others like it) the answer was usually something to the effect that they (the wt) didn't want to give 'honor' to mere men by revealing who they were and what their education was.

now that the gb are all over the place, youtube, etc... why not reveal the 'translators' and their educational background?

slimboyfat

Because they are dead and can't give permission now.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

I have read the three posts quoted. I can't find a response to my question. If there is one a simple statement of it would suffice rather than sending to read lots of old posts looking for an answer that isn't there.

The question is:

What is the logical basis for ruling out the possibility that there may be a solution to the problem of evil that humans either don't or are not able to understand?

There are various aspects of reality that the human mind is not able to grasp. We are not equipped to conceptualise more than three dimensions for example, although we theorise that many more exist. This is surely only the tip of the ice berg in terms of what exists in the universe that we are not able to grasp.

So why should the inability of the human mind to conceive a solution to the problem of evil be proof that no solution exists?

I am interested to know what an atheist response to this is, beyond mere sneering.