On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:14:41 -0400, Christopher A. Lee
<calee@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:47:30 GMT, Antares 531
><gordonlrDELETE@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:53:02 -0000, "BIll M" <wmech@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>I can't help but notice that no one can accept the God challenge.
>>>
>>>I posted a similer item several days ago and the message was deleted by
some
>>>religious wacko. He doesn't mind 'sinning'!
>>>
>>>" Can anyone provide objective verifiable evidence that ANY REAL God
>>>actually exists except in the imaginations of religionists???"
>>>
>>>There are hundreds of different God beliefs and religions.
>>>Why does not any real God smite all the fakes and confirm to his entire
>>>flock that he is the real God and all the others are fakes???
>>>
>>First, to answer your core question, no, it is not possible to
>>"empirically prove" the existence of God.
>
>Apart from the fallacy of special pleading (which begs the question
>of its existence in the first place, which you cop out of answering),
>the conclusion is obvious to everybody except those who already
>believe.
>
>And the questions wouldn't even be asked if believers had the common
>sense and courtesy to keep it within their religion.
>
>But they have neither. So the question gets asked in the "put up or
>shut up" sense. And the repeated cop outs and other dishonesty of the
>non-answers tells us plenty both about them and the hypothetical
>object of their belief.
>
How would you suggest God should have handled this? If we start with
the premise that God wants us to develop into mature sovereign
individuals who volitionally choose to conduct our selves in
compliance with His own will...not as puppets, but as sovereign beings
who do God's will because it is exactly and precisely our own will.
Could we ever achieve this state without going through a developmental
phase during which we are exposed to all the vagaries of sin and
rebellion?
Lucifer didn't have this background experience when he made his big
blunder. And, had God stopped Lucifer, it would have been only a
matter of time before the next created being headed into the same
quest for understanding. God would then have had to stop this second
being, then the third being....and so on until none remained as
sovereign beings.
Or, God could do as He has indicated to us that He chose to do...let
Lucifer run his agenda and explore the whole regimen of sin and
rebellion, with all of us partaking of this exploration.
The bottom line is that we are to learn enough about sin and rebellion
to insure that we will never, ever want to go back and explore it
further, once we have been granted immortality.
>
>>But, if it were possible to prove the existence of God, would you or
>>anyone else have anything approximating sovereign will? Or, would we
>>all be overwhelmed and left with no choice but to go along with the
>>program? Wouldn't this equate to us all being mere puppets with no
>>sovereign will? Is this what God wants?
>
>Irrelevant, question-begging red herrings.
>
Irrelevant, only to the extent that you chose to make it irrelevant.
But, you do have this sovereign choice. Had God slam dunked you into
"KNOWING" that He existed, would you have any ability to make such
sovereign choices?
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