HerPapaPikin88:


Oh shut up! A baby is not capable of logical thought...YOU are!
By your ridiculous logic, allow me to market you this device. It's the most amazing piece of technology you could ask for; everything you've ever wanted in a smartphone, you'll find in it. It is perfection. In fact, lemme show you all the documentation; manuals and all as well as various photos of what the phone possibly looks like and testimonials of people who have seen the device. Now that you have all of this 'evidence' a percentage of everything you earn every single month is to be paid to me and the manufacturer and then one day in the uncertain future, you will surely get the device. Do we have a deal?

Mindfulness:


My brother, the fact that the-all-knowing-Bible-God exists in people's minds is a fact.
Whether he exists beyond thoughts nobody knows for sure.

PastorAIO:


Since you appreciate it as a good use of metaphor why don't you just enjoy it like that. You seem to be missing the point the other way you look at it.

Babies will face delivery one day whether they like it or not. Just as we all will face death one day whether we like it or not. In your counter example nobody has got to jump.
If jumping with an inevitable thing they had to do and one fretted while the other was calm that would be a closer analogy. If the calm guy also suggested a means of perceiving the invisible rope that would help. Like if he said, 'if you squint your eyes lightly you will see the rope' that would be closer. The baby tells the other baby that if he is quiet he can hear their mother's voice.

joseph1013:


No sir. that it exists only in the minds of people shows that it is NOT a fact. You dont have to rewrite the English Language to make your case.

Here is the definition of what a fact is in the Oxford dictionary

fact
Pronunciation: /fakt/
noun

[b]A thing that is known or proved to be true:[/b]

Mindfulness:


You misunderstand me.

I didn't say that it is a fact that God exists.

I said it is a fact that God exists in people's minds / imagination.

That is a HUGE difference.

joseph1013:

I think I've explained fairly elaborately in my second comment. Like you pointed out here, it's a metaphor. The same metaphor that would have favoured the skeptic baby if it was a conversation about a dragon that eats baby because of the sound they hear when the mother is in traffic or a noisy environment.
No one knows what happens after death, so this metaphor is useless. Someone might say he has been listening and he is not hearing or perceiving anything about the afterlife like someone predisposed to superstitions will do.
And yes, we could finetune the cliff analogy and make the skeptic guy the winner. It depends on how creative the storyteller is.
The analogy of the two babies is a silly story that does not deserve a worthwhile argument.

PastorAIO:


What I get out of the metaphor is that the truth may not be evident to us due to our limited perspective. Just like the babies in the womb don't know what happens after birth.
Check out the difference between the two babies. One speculates cautiously on the basis of experiences it's had when it was quiet. The other one is cocksure and dismissive and 'knows' for certain that there is nothing after delivery.
If you weren't so bolshy perhaps you might also have appreciated as a metaphor cautioning against closed-mindedness.

PastorAIO:


I was going to butt in and point that out. But you've done so already.

I think perhaps we all need to step back for a few minutes and take a few deep breaths. Otherwise we might find ourselves just gainsaying each other for the sake of it. There is no need to be feeling embattled here.

joseph1013:


[color=#550000][b]


[color=#550000][b]What you have written above is called gibberish. Which God is the support? How has God demonstrated that he is the support of the earth? You talk of when the Earth quake, does he mean he no longer supports when there is earthquake? If he indeed is the pillar as you posited, is he not strong enough in support for thousands to die via earthquakes every year.

For your information, that verse does not say God is the pillar. it says God holds the PILLARS, meaning there are pillars. Stop changing the CONTENT of these verses.

joseph1013:


You are grasping at straws. Herein lies another inaccuracy of the Bible. The heavens are not stretched out over EMPTY space. The space is not empty! Research that...

And you are twisting it. When scientists say the universe is expanding, they are not saying that it is stretching. It is not stretching. What scientists are saying is that more distant galaxies are moving away from us faster than closer ones. I repeat, they are not stretching. The Bible knows nothing about astronomies.[/b]

joseph1013:


There are so much assumptions in your writeup that one would think that you were there when God was making all these things happen. If the sun, moon and stars had existed as planetary bodies before Genesis 1, why would there be darkness on earth? Why would he need to create light into existence before there would be day and night?

This writeup lacks substance. The apologists you quoted have a poor grasp of the hebrew language that the Old Testament was written in and your submission is even at variance with their explanation.

What you have up there is your own interpretation that is not supported except by your mind, and you have no evidence to tell us that they happened in the same sequence as you posited.

joseph1013:


[b]That may be true...but that analogy would be a great one to be used by a religionist who believes in the afterlife. Demonise the skeptic baby and make the believing baby a hero. A 'scientific' baby will never say 'walking is impossible'. A 'critical thinking' baby will never say eating with the mouth is ridiculous after being born. All those statements attributed to the skeptic baby are tailored towards ridiculing the baby. Scientists and critical thinking persons are not typically that close-minded. They withhold decisions and verdicts UNTIL good evidence is provided.

That metaphor is HOGWASH in this instance! It's false representation.

Like I said earlier, the reason the believing baby is giving a medal is because we know a mother exists. It was crafted so well so that she takes the victory. Twist it another way and make the believing baby say that there is a dragon out there who will devour them because they keep hearing strange voices of traffic, sound from horror movies watched by the mother and violence in the neighbourhood, and then have the skeptic baby ask the believing child to relax and tell him they dont know for sure and that they should withhold 100% certainty. With that, we will surely give the skeptic baby a medal for that act of holding back judgement.

In other words, that analogy was crafted to give a false premise. Too bad you say it taught you not to be closeminded.[/b]

PastorAIO:
The analogy IS a great one to be used by a religionist who believes in the afterlife. it does not 'demonise' anybody or make anyone a 'hero'.

A 'scientific' baby will never say 'walking is impossible', but a baby that took it as a creed, the way some atheists do regarding spiritual matters, not a 'critical thinking' baby, but a baby that holds it as a philosophical position adamantly without proof (either way), would say that 'walking is impossible'.

I believe its that adamant attitude that is being criticised here. Neither baby has proof but the analogy shows how the future can totally confound our current experiences and so one should allow for the possibility that there is more than what we now know.

In the story the skeptic baby does not say 'relax we don't know for sure'. Why? because in real life the Atheist don't say that neither. That is why it is such an accurate analogy.

rabzy:


I never said the verse is saying God is the Pillar, i said God is the one supporting the pillars so he is the ultimate support, just as most pillars rest on the foundation. I didn't change anything. The Bible using the pillar is a figurative sense and its not literal, for it to have literal pillars, then that means God is also literally holding it in his hands. It is a figurative use of language. The Bible talked about the seas having bars and doors, the snow having storehouses and uses other symbolic and figurative terms to pass its message across
And God is still supporting the earth with his powers such that no quake has actually destroyed the planet. He never said there would be no quake, but that he would be there to support it, no quake would be strong enough to topple the earth, destroy it, moved, make it to totter on its foundation...New International Version
He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Holman Christian Standard Bible
He established the earth on its foundations; it will never be shaken.
International Standard Version
He established the earth on its foundations, so that it never falters.
NET Bible
He established the earth on its foundations; it will never be upended.

So talking about pillars, bars and doors does not mean there are actually pillars. The Bible said the earth is God's footstool also, does it mean he has his hands on the pillars and his legs resting on the earth?. You can take it as literal but i believe it to be a figurative expression and there are thousands in the Bible.

rabzy:


I don't know what straws you are talking about, just because the bible said empty space, you have to say space is not empty. There is nothing else that can be emptier than space. This is what science says:

Vacuum is space void of matter. Outer space is the closest natural approximation of a perfect vacuum. It has effectively no friction, allowing stars, planets and moons to move freely along ideal gravitational trajectories. But no vacuum is truly perfect, not even in intergalactic space where there are still a few hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter. (For comparison, the air we breathe contains about 1019 molecules per cubic centimeter.) According to modern understanding, even if all matter could be removed from a volume, it would still not be "empty" due to vacuum fluctuations, dark energy, transiting gamma- and cosmic rays, neutrinos, along with other phenomena in quantum physics.

So if there is anywhere that can be said to be empty it is space. I don't know why you want to dwell in the realms of absolute. If you say space is not empty, then you would have to tell your wife anytime she says the tank is empty that, no it is not empty but there are billions of dust particles, petrol residues, and billions of microbes, no plate can be empty, no room or bag...empty as a word would have to be unused. Everyday life is not about dark matter and black holes and electromagetism occupying all space, that is why empty is valid and the Bible is right by saying empty space.

The Book of Job says the earth hangs upon nothing and it is valid and true. The last time i checked, expand and stretch are still synonyms of each other, the bible said God stretches the heaven in space, scientist says it is expanding. To an observer in the universe, it is expanding, the person applying the force that causes the expansion can say he is doing the stretching. The nitty gritty and minute details of how and why it is expanding is the job of the scientist. The Bible was not written to explain science nor astronomy, so it might not used the exact words scientist may want it to use. It uses expressions understandable to all. Its astronomy is still valid.

joseph1013:
[b]THEY ALL LAUGHED EXCEPT...

When I told my Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish friends that 14 million people in the world believe that glass must be broken at weddings to mourn the memory of a destroyed Temple in 70AD, to remind them that even at the happiest of moments they should still be unhappy, they all burst into laughter except the Jew.

When I told my Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu friends that more than a billion people believe that an angered monkey named Hanuman once tried to eat the sun, they all burst into laughter except the Hindu.

When I told my Christian, Hindu and Muslim friends that more than 1.5 billion people in the world believe that small birds carrying small rocks in their beaks devastated an entire army of elephants they all burst into laughter except the Muslim.

When I told my Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Christian friends that more than 2 billion people on planet Earth believe that when a man named Jesus cursed a fig tree, it withered from the roots, they all burst into laughter except the Christian.[/b]

PastorAIO:


How do you want me to answer you when you've told me to shut up? Or does your device give voice to sealed lips?

rabzy:


I don't know what straws you are talking about, just because the bible said empty space, you have to say space is not empty. There is nothing else that can be emptier than space. This is what science says:

Vacuum is space void of matter. Outer space is the closest natural approximation of a perfect vacuum. It has effectively no friction, allowing stars, planets and moons to move freely along ideal gravitational trajectories. But no vacuum is truly perfect, not even in intergalactic space where there are still a few hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter. (For comparison, the air we breathe contains about 1019 molecules per cubic centimeter.) According to modern understanding, even if all matter could be removed from a volume, it would still not be "empty" due to vacuum fluctuations, dark energy, transiting gamma- and cosmic rays, neutrinos, along with other phenomena in quantum physics.

So if there is anywhere that can be said to be empty it is space. I don't know why you want to dwell in the realms of absolute. If you say space is not empty, then you would have to tell your wife anytime she says the tank is empty that, no it is not empty but there are billions of dust particles, petrol residues, and billions of microbes, no plate can be empty, no room or bag...empty as a word would have to be unused. Everyday life is not about dark matter and black holes and electromagetism occupying all space, that is why empty is valid and the Bible is right by saying empty space.

The Book of Job says the earth hangs upon nothing and it is valid and true. The last time i checked, expand and stretch are still synonyms of each other, the bible said God stretches the heaven in space, scientist says it is expanding. To an observer in the universe, it is expanding, the person applying the force that causes the expansion can say he is doing the stretching. The nitty gritty and minute details of how and why it is expanding is the job of the scientist. The Bible was not written to explain science nor astronomy, so it might not used the exact words scientist may want it to use. It uses expressions understandable to all. Its astronomy is still valid.

kobosmalls:


Each one of these worlds religions think that they are superior to others and that theirs is the right one and the others ar wrong, and is very similar to the way people view their cultural heritage and background.

Those religious stories and beliefs were all evidently made up by some primitive humans back then.

They all have one common characteristc; They are all full of sh!t.

kobosmalls:


Hes just telling you that you have been scammed!