My Debate with a Pastor (Continued)

(9/11/07)

Saul & Mike,
Just a quick question I had: Why don't we see God demonstrating himself more like he did in the Bible? In the Bible, He led the Isrealites with a column of fire by night, and cloud by day, fed them with mana from the sky, parted seas, rained down brimstone, stopped the sun in the sky for a day, spoke from heaven, raised people from the dead, cured blindness, destroyed armies with columns of fire, etc.
Why don't we see any of that today? I'd find it easier to believe He existed if I saw any of this.
-Infidel


(9/11/07)
Infidel,
I think for several reasons:
1. I don’t know fully. How’s that for a start!
2. Sometimes our lack of faith. I do hear about this stuff happening more in 3rd world countries where they aren’t as “intellectually sophisticated” and perhaps hindered by this.
3. It is happening in ways that I think we often miss really recognizing. Every time our blood clots I think it is a miracle of God.
Just a few quick thoughts before I go to a meeting. Good to hear from you. I am back on the air on Saturdays from 11 – noon.
Saul


(9/12/07)

Saul,
See my replies to your responses below:
Saul wrote:
I think for several reasons:
1. I don’t know fully. How’s that for a start!
I can appreciate this as an honest answer.

2. Sometimes our lack of faith. I do hear about this stuff happening more in 3rd world countries where they aren’t as “intellectually sophisticated” and perhaps hindered by this.
Interesting. So the reason god doesn’t show his power by raising the dead, wiping out disobedient nations with divine fire, etc is because of our lack of faith? Seems far more reasonable to me that these 3rd world countries that are “intellectually unsophisticated” are simply wrong in interpreting events as divine. I’d be willing to bet that if I took a TV and a remote to an isolated tribe who’d never heard of one, they would regard me as a god for my power to create images at will from across a room. These cultures you mention probably still believe rainbows are magic and do rain dances. This is not an illustration of God’s willingness to show himself to these people, it is instead an illustration of their lack of knowledge about how the world works.

3. It is happening in ways that I think we often miss really recognizing. Every time our blood clots I think it is a miracle of God.
So is it a miracle when a chimp’s blood clots? How about a bird’s? Is it a miracle when DNA replicates? How about when there are errors during replication? Is it a miracle that my pencil falls to the floor reliably when I let it go? Is it a miracle when the sun rises every day? Is it a miracle that there exists this computer for me to type on? How do you differentiate between what is a miracle of God, and what is simply nature?
This skirts the question I posed. Where are the columns of fire? Where are the parted seas? Where are the men with superhuman strength? Since none of it has been reliably witnessed, it seems far more likely to me that they are simply fables.
-Infidel


(9/12/07)

Infidel -
A question about the problem of evil/suffering. Would you personally believe that it is evidence against the the existence of God because:

(a) Any evil/suffering at all exists?- or - (b) The degree to which evil/suffering exists?
I find that the vast majority of atheistic philosophers would not claim (a). Considering the amputee site, I was wondering what your position would be.
Mike


(9/12/07)
Mike-
I guess I'm not not sure how to answer that. I'd say the problem of evil becomes more obvious when major events happen (natural disasters, severe birth defects, etc), but I suppose that when it's boiled down, one could say that it's a problem with the presence of evil at all. And personally, I'd say it's more a problem of pointless pain/suffering- end-stage cancer, etc. It's clearly a contradiction to the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being.
-Infidel


(9/13/07)
Infidel,
Great to hear from you again. I only have a little time today so this will be brief:


Evil due to man’s action is simply because out of love God gives us freedom of the will, and because we do not obey Him we do bad things that hurt others and God. God as a loving Father hurts more than anyone over how the people He created misuse their freedom of the will and thus bring evil into the world.


As for the other issues, pain in life and suffering is not pointless and certainly doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist, because through pain and suffering many have come to experience the love and mercy and compassion of God.
Saul


(9/13/07)

Saul,
Where was the god-father in this instance?- http://midwestatheist.blogspot.com/2007/08/boy-5-doused-in-gas-set-on-fire-by.html


Where is the “love, mercy, and compassion” with these children?- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXfIop5ZOsY


Also, I’m still waiting for god to show himself to me. Why don’t you think that he has? Is it moral of him to cast me into hellfire because I will not believe without good evidence, especially because he is the one withholding that evidence? Like I said, if god exists, I want to know, so why won’t he show me the evidence?

Infidel


(9/14/07)

Infidel,
He has give you evidence! Look outside and behold His creation. Look at your awesome body and behold His marvelous creation in giving you blood and kidneys and a heart and ….. And He has given the greatest evidence of His reality in coming to earth as a man (Jesus) who loved you enough to die for yours sins so that you could be forgiven and have a living, daily, intimate relationship with the God of the universe. I don’t say these things as some religious cliché but as the truth declared in God’s Word. I truly believe if you are willing to open your heart (not just your mind) He will show Himself to you, it just might not come in the exact package you are expecting.

Let’s keep talking,
Saul


(9/15/07)
Saul,
Let me point out the problems I have with your last e-mail:

Infidel, He has give you evidence! Look outside and behold His creation.
As I've said, there's nothing that can be seen in nature that requires a supernatural creator to explain it. In fact, when looking at nature and observing geology (strata layers, fossils, etc), plate tectonics (look at how the continents used to fit together), biology (the fact of evolution), and many other fields, it actually is evidence against the bible. If the world is only 6000 to 10,000 years old (as the bible says), then there is no way to reconcile this timeline with the timeline necessary to form the geological, continental, and biological remnants that we can witness today.

Look at your awesome body and behold His marvelous creation in giving you blood and kidneys and a heart and …..
I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but evolution is more than adequate to explain all of the biological evidences you cite. Evolution is a fact (and a theory), and is almost universally accepted among elite biological scientists. There is no need to posit a supernatural creator to explain natural phenomenon which need no such supernatural intervention.
Even Francis Collins (evangelical head of the human genome project) said:
Evolution is about as solid a theory as one will ever see....
you cannot claim that the earth is less than 10,000 years old unless you're ready to reject all of the fundamental findings of geology, cosmology, physics, chemistry and biology. You really have to throw out all of the sciences in order to draw that conclusion.

And He has given the greatest evidence of His reality in coming to earth as a man (Jesus) who loved you enough to die for yours sins so that you could be forgiven and have a living, daily, intimate relationship with the God of the universe.
There is little evidence to confirm that jesus even existed. There is no contemoporary account of his existance. Even the earliest gospel wasn't written until at least 40 years after Jesus' death. Your previous example of Josephus has been shown to be a forgery, and it's a shame that it keeps getting trodded out as proof.
Next, I question the logic and sense behind the self suicide of God. See my previous post for this.
Also, where is this "living, daily, intimate relationship with god" that I'm supposed to have? I've told you that I desire to know the presence of god, and that it would be extremely easy for god to show himself to me. Yet he refuses to do so, so I must continue to question.

I don’t say these things as some religious cliché but as the truth declared in God’s Word. I truly believe if you are willing to open your heart (not just your mind) He will show Himself to you, it just might not come in the exact package you are expecting.
Again, I've said that I'm willing and eager to know of god's existance. I'm not sure what is meant by "open my heart". It is an overused cliche. My heart is an organ that pumps blood, nothing more. But I am desirious of this knowledge, so I don't know what more you think he expects of me. So I continue to wait for some real evidence or experience to change my beliefs. Until then, I maintain that it is immoral of God to punish me for his withholding of evidence that he knows in his omniscience that I require to believe. Belief is not a choice. It is a result of experience and knowledge. One cannot choose to believe something. They either do or do not believe it based on their knowledge and experience.

-Infidel

See The Full Debate Here