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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 06/15/2011 : 20:12:42 [Permalink]
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kingdavid8 said:
| Hold on. If good and bad are entirely subjective, then how does this work? If nothing is objectively good or bad, then God couldn't have created any bad things, since nothing is actually bad. It's just a matter of what people consider good and bad. Right? |
Once again, I'm just granting you things for argument.
If your deity is real, it decides what is good and bad, right?
Since it is also omnipotent, if it does bad things, then it isn't "all good". By it's own standard it can't be.
But you are right, (out here in reality) nothing is objectively good or bad, and that means your diety didn't create any good or bad things (or anything at all).
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2011 : 20:14:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
| I brought up the analogy of the omnipotent, omniscient computer programmer who makes a program to generate truly random numbers. |
He can't, if he's omniscient. "Truly random" suggests an unpredictable sequence of numbers |
No, just a random one. Random numbers tend to be unpredictable, but their being unpredictable isn't necessary in order for them to be random. Random numbers would still be random numbers, even if there is an omniscient being (or a really, really good psychic) who knows what they will be.
| All of the numbers the generator will ever generate will be known, in order, to an omniscient programmer before he even starts to write the code, and he knows what changes the will happen in the sequence if he changes the code. |
Okay. And how does this prove that his random numbers aren't random?
| Being omniscient, I will know ALL of the truly random numbers my computer will ever create, even though, since they are truly random, I don't control what number comes out. I just KNOW what numbers they will be.[/i][/bq]...is simply wrong. The programmer [i]does[/i] control the numbers, by controlling the code. |
And if the code is set up to create random numbers, then the programmer is not controlling which numbers come out. Your response seems to boil down to "but the numbers aren't random". Sorry, but my hypothetical involved the creation of random numbers. If they're random, then they're random. Unless you can show me that an omnipotent computer programmer would be unable to make a program that creates random numbers (and if he couldn't, then he's not omnipotent), then you're just changing the hypothetical to something it isn't.
| Of course, to an outside observer who [i]isn't[/i] omniscient, any of these sequences of numbers might [i]look[/i] "truly random," but that's only because they don't know how they were generated. |
Right, but I'm talking about numbers that are truly random, not just that "look" truly random. I know that we don't have the ability (yet, at least) to generate truly random numbers, but there's no reason that an omnipotent computer programmer would be unable to do so. If he could, his omniscience (if he had it) wouldn't make it so that he can't. |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2011 : 20:22:50 [Permalink]
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KingDavid8 says
| So if you're arguing that God isn't (per the Bible) omniscient and didn't give us free will, then why are you partaking in a discussion over whether God's omniscience is incompatible with our free will? |
Because like you, I have an opinion on the subject and have just as much right as you to express my opinion. Are you wanting me to keep it to myself since I gave the evidence of your god taking freewill away, which proves that he didn't didn't give it to begin with and he isn't omniscient? Too bad.
| No, I got that. But you're missing my point. You're arguing that God didn't give us free will (since He doesn't exist) but arguing, in the same sentence, that God took away our free will. If He doesn't exist, then He couldn't have done EITHER. But again, this discussion is over whether God's (hypothetical) omniscience is compatible with our free will. If you want to state for the record that you don't believe God exists, that's fine. I already knew you didn't. But if your counter-argument is just "God doesn't exist, so He didn't give us free will", then your counter-argument is irrelevant to the issue at hand. |
No, I am arguing that there is no evidence that your god gave freewill hypothetically speaking. And hypothetically speaking, your god is not omniscient either. Per the bible your god was no different than a common cult leader. My counter argument has never been "god doesn't exist so he didn't give us freewill", but I am sure if you repeat it enough times somehow magically that will come true: or not. I am not missing your point, I am just not buying what you are selling.
| So if (hypothetically) God created us, then where do you think the free will came from? |
Nowhere in the bible does it state that your god gave us freewill, so it must have been his creator, hypothetically speaking.
What evidence do you have that your god was our creator and gave freewill to begin with and what evidence do you have that proves that your god is the creator as apposed to Nut and Geb, Ahura Mazda, Enki or that we didn't have a creator? Because as stated by another forum poster, until you provide solid evidence for that, this whole discussion is all hypothetical.
Yes, because you know the evidence doesn't stand up to scrutiny, and were hoping that the skeptics here wouldn't scrutinize it, either (which I'm confident they would have, by the way).
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If the evidence didn't stand up to scrutiny, then why didn't you ever give counter evidence to prove it? The only thing that I ever see you do is create straw man arguments and deny it. To dispute evidence, you need to have counter evidence from reputable or scholarly sources. "No it ain't" is not counter evidence nor is it scrutiny or scholarly, it is just denial.
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"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2011 : 20:25:45 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
kingdavid8 said:
| Hold on. If good and bad are entirely subjective, then how does this work? If nothing is objectively good or bad, then God couldn't have created any bad things, since nothing is actually bad. It's just a matter of what people consider good and bad. Right? |
Once again, I'm just granting you things for argument. |
Except my argument is simply that God gave us free will and moral contrast. While I do believe that there is absolute good and evil, my argument doesn't depend on it. If I were to grant you that good and evil are subjective, I don't see what changes about my point.
| If your deity is real, it decides what is good and bad, right? |
Not necessarily. I believe He does, but I could be wrong (just like I could be wrong about anything regarding Him, including His very existence).
| Since it is also omnipotent, if it does bad things, then it isn't "all good". By it's own standard it can't be. |
But I'm not saying that God does bad things. Giving us the free will to do bad things isn't, in and of itself, bad. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2011 : 20:39:58 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by changingmyself
Because like you, I have an opinion on the subject and have just as much right as you to express my opinion. |
You sure do. Now that you've given it, can we get back to the discussion over whether God's hypothetical omniscience would be incompatible with our having free will?
| No, I am arguing that there is no evidence that your god gave freewill hypothetically speaking. And hypothetically speaking, your god is not omniscient either. |
If the question of whether God's omniscience would be incompatible with His having given us free will is answered by "He didn't give us free will and He's not omniscient", then you're basically refusing to take part in the discussion.
| What evidence do you have that your god was our creator and gave freewill to begin with |
Again, whether God exists and gave us free will is NOT what we're discussing here. We're discussing whether God's hypothetical omniscience is incompatible with Him having given us free will.
| and what evidence do you have that proves that your god is the creator as apposed to Nut and Geb, Ahura Mazda, Enki or that we didn't have a creator? Because as stated by another forum poster, until you provide solid evidence for that, this whole discussion is all hypothetical. |
Yes. It's all hypothetical. That's the point.
| If the evidence didn't stand up to scrutiny, then why didn't you ever give counter evidence to prove it? |
Because if evidence doesn't stand up to scrutiny, you don't need to provide counter-evidence. If I claimed to have a photo of Bigfoot and just showed you a picture of a teddy bear, you wouldn't have to provide counter-evidence. All you'd have to do is point out that my picture is of a teddy bear, not Bigfoot. |
| Edited by - KingDavid8 on 06/15/2011 20:41:57 |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2011 : 22:50:28 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by changingmyself
So you are claiming that historical fiction was rare in biblical days? You have got to be joking. All of the mythological gods were historical fiction because the stories they mention historical kings or pharaoh's and/or historical places like Mount Olympus, Egypt, and other cities. |
No, mythology does not equal historical fiction. References to known kings and pharaohs in the mythological stories themselves were very rare. If you were to read the actual stories of Zeus or his family, you wouldn't find frequent references to known historical characters, and even if they use known locations, it's almost always in the distant past, or in an era that isn't made clear. It's true that when the kings and pharaohs were written about in their day, the authors would make references to the mythological characters, but that's quite different than the mythological stories themselves.
Even if (hypothetically) the story of Jesus were a work of fiction, it would be closer to "historical fiction" and not mythology. The use of known historical characters and its use of nearby locations clearly differentiate it from "mythology". But what we know of as "historical fiction" didn't really come into popularity until around 1800, with Walter Scott's "Waverley" novels (though there are rare examples of it from earlier), so it's unlikely that four different authors around Jesus' day were setting out to write historical fiction when they wrote the Gospels.
| Using that premise, Harry Potter is a true story too because it mentioned the London Underground. |
No, I'm not saying that using known locations makes a story "true". If the Harry Potter novels used known historical figures and wasn't largely centered around a fictional location like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, then you might be able to argue that it's "historical fiction", but that still doesn't make it "true".
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...http://www.historicalnovels.info/Ancient.html
"The history of Ancient Greece stretches into prehistory, as myths and legends hint at what may have happened before the time of written history. After Hermann Schliemann unearthed magnificent gold artifacts in the 1870s at the Turkish site that he believed to be the location of ancient Troy, based on evidence in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, scholars gained new respect for the value of Homer's grasp of history."
The World's Progress: Hebrew literature. Greek mythology, The Delphian Society.
"Fiction is the work of the imagination; ficticious stories are imaginative stories. A writer of fiction may weave into his take historical happenings, he may describe with accuracy scenes in given localities; yet, if he gives vent to his imaginings, introduces ficticious or unreal characters into his story, his production is classified as fiction."
Why would scholars gain a new respect for the value of Homer's grasp of history if it was not historically accurate thus making Homers Iliad a historical fiction as well as Greek Mythology?
A reference guide for English studies By Michael J. Marcuse page 461
" ....historical fiction, defined as fiction that refers to actual past customs, conditions, identifiable persons or events, including those contemporary with the writer."
The work is organized into three main sections, antiquity to ca. 400 A. D.; the middle ages and early renaissance, ca 400- 1500 , and the modern world, ca 1500-1900. Within these sections, whihc are farther subdivided into periods and countries, a total of 6,455 serial numbered entries provide author, title, publication date and a description of the historical time and place of the novel."
You claim that historical fiction wasn't written at the time of the bible but yet...
Harper Collins Bible commentary By James Luther Mays,Joseph Blenkinsopp, Society of Biblical Literature Page 691
Historical Fiction.
"The work known as 1 Esdras (3 Ezra in the Latin Vulgate) might also be classified as historiography, since it is primarily a variant text of the end of Chronicles, Ezra, and part of Nehemiah. It includes, however, a narrative that is not paralleled in the biblical text and belongs to another genre....These tales fall into the category of historical fiction because they describe a setting in realistic historical detail but unlike the books of Maccabees they are scarecely constrained at all by the record or recollection of historical events."
Page 692
"A final example of historical fiction, 3 Maccabees, is set not in the eastern Diaspora, but in Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy 1V Philopater."
Page 719
"Tobit is a piece of historical fiction set int he Assyrian captivity... "
Apologetics Study Bible For Students By Sean McDowell
Page 997
"The Apocrypha includes fairly straightforward history books, wisdom literature and books that blend history and fiction (e.g. Bel and the dragon). We might call this category historical ficiton with a moral purpose."
The Hebrew Bible and its interpreters By William Henry Propp Page 29
"To put it somewhat differently, biblical scholars, especially of the Albright school, have not fully assimilated the results of literary and form criticism. In my understanding, the book of Joshua is historico-theological fiction."
Page 13
"If we recognize that much of the biblical "history" is fiction, in the sense of Ricoeur's poetic language, then we must also recognize that statements about God must be interpreted in the context of that fiction....The modern reader, however, who can no longer accept the historical truth value of Genesis or Exodus, can only choose between inaccurate historiography and imaginative fiction."
The Old Testament: a very short introduction By Michael David Coogan Page 6
"There is historical fiction, as in the books of Ruth, Esther, and Daniel. The Writings also include historical narrative: the books of Chronicles cover the same chronological span as the Torah and Former Prophets, and conclude with the return from exile in Babylon in the second half of the sixth century BCE."
The Oxford Bible commentary By John Barton Page 30
"The historical fiction whereby the lawgiving of Moses occurs at the behest of YHWH in the period between the creative event of the Exodus from Egypt and the entry into the land of Canaan promised to Israel anchors the law in the fundamental structure of the OT faith"
The Oxford Bible commentary By John Barton Page 30
"The historical fiction whereby the lawgiving of Moses occurs at the behest of YHWH in the period between the creative event of the Exodus from Egypt and the entry into the land of Canaan promised to Israel anchors the law in the fundamental structure of the OT faith"
Page 632
"Whether labelled novella, novel, historical fiction or romance, Judith should be regarded as fiction, as the opening lines clearly signal."
"The true purpose of this part of Genesis was theological rather than historical in the modern sense of the latter term. Like some other parts of the OT which must be regarded as historical ficiton (eg Job, Ruth, Jonah, Esther, and Dan 1-6) its purpose is to teach a religious lesson"
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"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2011 : 23:26:00 [Permalink]
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| You sure do. Now that you've given it, can we get back to the discussion over whether God's hypothetical omniscience would be incompatible with our having free will? |
No david, I am using the bible, you know, the book where you got the whole idea about your god from, to show that there is no claim that your god gave us freewill to begin with and you are getting mad about it. I understand, I am sure that cognitive dissonance is getting to you.
| If the question of whether God's omniscience would be incompatible with His having given us free will is answered by "He didn't give us free will and He's not omniscient", then you're basically refusing to take part in the discussion. |
No, I am not refusing to take part in the discussion, you just want me to not be in the discussion because I am using the evidence from the bible to prove you wrong. This is something that you have made up or heard and believed it without any proof what so ever, as a matter of fact, there is proof to the contrary, but yet, you still choose to believe it. I entertained your hypothetical for a few, but I am not going to continue to argue over something that you cannot prove to begin with, over and over, and over, and over, and over.
| Again, whether God exists and gave us free will is NOT what we're discussing here. We're discussing whether God's hypothetical omniscience is incompatible with Him having given us free will. |
Actually, it is part of the discussion because first and foremost, you are the one that claimed that your god gave freewill to begin with. Don't you think that you have to back up your claims with evidence or do you think "because you said so" is evidence? As I stated, I am not interested in going over the same ground with you 1500 different ways. The other forum members got the hypothetical covered, I am going by what the bible actually says now.
| Yes. It's all hypothetical. That's the point. |
What are you not understanding? When dave replied to you about Jesus not having freewill, his argument wasn't hypothetical, he was speaking biblically. You want it to be hypothetical because you cannot prove that your god gave it to us. Freewill given by your god is just your belief, so people have granted you your hypothetical god, but yet, even then, as everyone here has shown you, it is still not logical to be omniscient and give freewill.
Because if evidence doesn't stand up to scrutiny, you don't need to provide counter-evidence. If I claimed to have a photo of Bigfoot and just showed you a picture of a teddy bear, you wouldn't have to provide counter-evidence. All you'd have to do is point out that my picture is of a teddy bear, not Bigfoot.
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David, I have given you Egyptologists that have said these things, scholars that have studied these subjects for years to get PhD's. This goes a little bit deeper than big foot and a teddy bear and you know it. If you want to prove what they are saying is wrong, then you have to in turn provide scholars of the same degree.
The scenario goes more like this:
David says: Scholars don't say this stuff.
Change says: This scholar says it.
David says: You didn't give it to me in the right format.
Chris White plays the same exact game at his website. Is this where you learned it from?
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"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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| Edited by - changingmyself on 06/15/2011 23:31:47 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2011 : 06:17:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Your response seems to boil down to "but the numbers aren't random". Sorry, but my hypothetical involved the creation of random numbers. If they're random, then they're random. Unless you can show me that an omnipotent computer programmer would be unable to make a program that creates random numbers (and if he couldn't, then he's not omnipotent), then you're just changing the hypothetical to something it isn't. |
Two premises within the hypothetical contradict each other: randomness contradicts omniscience. With regard to a sequence of numbers, "random" really does mean "unpredictable," in that after seeing the first N numbers, you won't know number N+1. What else could it mean?
Since omniscience denies such unpredictability (by knowing all the numbers a random number generator will ever generate), this boils down to you simply declaring that god could make a rock so large that he couldn't lift it, yet he could still lift it anyway. And any dispute about such a ridiculous statement is (according to you) an attempt to change the hypothetical.
Or, you're playing word games and trying to redefine "random" in a way that you're not explicitly describing. What do you mean by "random?" Be verbose. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2011 : 08:51:01 [Permalink]
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Ephesians1:11 "In him we were also chosen,[e] having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,"
If a person is chosen and predestined according to the divine plan of the biblical god, according to his will, it directly contradicts the meaning of freewill.
free-will
2. The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or 'divine will'. |
"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2011 : 15:58:12 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by KingDavid8
Your response seems to boil down to "but the numbers aren't random". Sorry, but my hypothetical involved the creation of random numbers. If they're random, then they're random. Unless you can show me that an omnipotent computer programmer would be unable to make a program that creates random numbers (and if he couldn't, then he's not omnipotent), then you're just changing the hypothetical to something it isn't. |
Two premises within the hypothetical contradict each other: randomness contradicts omniscience. With regard to a sequence of numbers, "random" really does mean "unpredictable," in that after seeing the first N numbers, you won't know number N+1. What else could it mean?
Since omniscience denies such unpredictability (by knowing all the numbers a random number generator will ever generate), this boils down to you simply declaring that god could make a rock so large that he couldn't lift it, yet he could still lift it anyway. And any dispute about such a ridiculous statement is (according to you) an attempt to change the hypothetical.
Or, you're playing word games and trying to redefine "random" in a way that you're not explicitly describing. What do you mean by "random?" Be verbose.
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You have caught on to his methodology. He literally has to ignore accepted definitions! His arguments fall to pieces if he can't change definitions to suit himself.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2011 : 16:53:24 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by KingDavid8
Your response seems to boil down to "but the numbers aren't random". Sorry, but my hypothetical involved the creation of random numbers. If they're random, then they're random. Unless you can show me that an omnipotent computer programmer would be unable to make a program that creates random numbers (and if he couldn't, then he's not omnipotent), then you're just changing the hypothetical to something it isn't. |
Two premises within the hypothetical contradict each other: randomness contradicts omniscience. With regard to a sequence of numbers, "random" really does mean "unpredictable," in that after seeing the first N numbers, you won't know number N+1. What else could it mean?
Since omniscience denies such unpredictability (by knowing all the numbers a random number generator will ever generate), this boils down to you simply declaring that god could make a rock so large that he couldn't lift it, yet he could still lift it anyway. And any dispute about such a ridiculous statement is (according to you) an attempt to change the hypothetical.
Or, you're playing word games and trying to redefine "random" in a way that you're not explicitly describing. What do you mean by "random?" Be verbose.
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You have caught on to his methodology. He literally has to ignore accepted definitions! His arguments fall to pieces if he can't change definitions to suit himself.
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 I could have told you that, me and Jcm have a list of words that Christians think that they and they alone have the definitions for. I think our list has grown to around 20-25 words now. This is why I ask kingdavid what he thinks words mean. Didn't you notice that in the ZG 'argument' thread about the definition of scholars? Just wait, if you think this is bad, he is going to be splitting hairs, making up new definitions, and special pleading big time when the actual debate starts.  |
"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2011 : 17:36:49 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by changingmyself
You claim that historical fiction wasn't written at the time of the bible but yet... |
I said no such thing. I just said it was RARE in ancient times, not that it didn't exist at all. |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2011 : 17:58:35 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by changingmyself
You claim that historical fiction wasn't written at the time of the bible but yet... |
I said no such thing. I just said it was RARE in ancient times, not that it didn't exist at all.
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But yet it wasn't and more than a few books of the bible are known as historical fiction.
You apparently do not know what rare or historical fiction means. How about this, get a dictionary. |
"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2011 : 18:15:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by changingmyself
| You sure do. Now that you've given it, can we get back to the discussion over whether God's hypothetical omniscience would be incompatible with our having free will? |
No david, I am using the bible, you know, the book where you got the whole idea about your god from, |
No, I believed in God before I believed in the Bible. I was a Deist for about seven years before becoming a Christian, and not all of my beliefs about God come from the Bible.
But, once again, we're discussing whether God's hypothetical omniscience would be incompatible with our having free will, so can we get back to that topic?
| If the question of whether God's omniscience would be incompatible with His having given us free will is answered by "He didn't give us free will and He's not omniscient", then you're basically refusing to take part in the discussion. |
No, I am not refusing to take part in the discussion, you just want me to not be in the discussion because I am using the evidence from the bible to prove you wrong. |
No, I'd love for you to stay in the discussion, but you seem to want to get it seriously side-tracked.
| I entertained your hypothetical for a few, but I am not going to continue to argue over something that you cannot prove to begin with, over and over, and over, and over, and over. |
Okay, then I'll continue to the discuss the topic with those who want to do so.
| Again, whether God exists and gave us free will is NOT what we're discussing here. We're discussing whether God's hypothetical omniscience is incompatible with Him having given us free will. |
Actually, it is part of the discussion because first and foremost, you are the one that claimed that your god gave freewill to begin with. |
That's not what we're debating, though. We're debating whether God (hypothetically) having given us free will would be incompatible with God (hypothetically) being omniscient. We aren't debating whether God actually gave us free will, or whether God is actually omniscient, or whether God even exists in the first place.
| Don't you think that you have to back up your claims with evidence or do you think "because you said so" is evidence? |
I'm not making any claims, except that God (hypothetically) having given us free will would not be incompatible with God (hypothetically) being omniscient. That's what I'm arguing for, and the rest of the forum is arguing against. We sometimes get side-tracked with related issues, but we aren't debating whether God actually exists, is omniscient, or gave us free will. The other members are granting certain things for the sake of argument, which I'm grateful for, but we aren't debating what you seem to want us to debate.
| The other forum members got the hypothetical covered, I am going by what the bible actually says now. |
If anyone here wants to debate that issue, I'd suggest you create another forum so you can debate it with them.
| Yes. It's all hypothetical. That's the point. |
What are you not understanding? When dave replied to you about Jesus not having freewill, his argument wasn't hypothetical, he was speaking biblically. |
At that point, yes. But then we got into the issue of whether God's omniscience would be incompatible with our free will, which is what we've been debating ever since.
Because if evidence doesn't stand up to scrutiny, you don't need to provide counter-evidence. If I claimed to have a photo of Bigfoot and just showed you a picture of a teddy bear, you wouldn't have to provide counter-evidence. All you'd have to do is point out that my picture is of a teddy bear, not Bigfoot.
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David, I have given you Egyptologists that have said these things, scholars that have studied these subjects for years to get PhD's. |
Great, but what I'm looking for is evidence for the claims (such as the stories where these things happen), not someone just repeating the claims and saying "look at me, I'm an Egyptologist!" Just about anyone can call themselves an "Egyptologist" or a "scholar", even if they don't know what they're talking about. What do you think happened when the Horus claims were submitted to twenty of the world's leading Egyptologists? There's an excellent article about the results here: http://hnn.us/articles/6641.html
| This goes a little bit deeper than big foot and a teddy bear and you know it. |
Actually, for most of the claims, we don't even have the "teddy bear photo", but just the equivalent of someone saying that bigfoot exists without providing ANY sort of photo.
| If you want to prove what they are saying is wrong, then you have to in turn provide scholars of the same degree. |
No, if I want to prove what they are saying is wrong, I can just point out that these people repeating the claims aren't providing evidence to back most of them up. Skeptics demand at least SOME sort of evidence before they'll believe a claim. Someone simply repeating the claim doesn't suffice.
| Chris White plays the same exact game at his website. Is this where you learned it from? |
Pointing out that the people who are spreading these claims can't provide evidence for most of them? No, I've been doing that for years. |
| Edited by - KingDavid8 on 06/16/2011 18:40:10 |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2011 : 18:36:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Two premises within the hypothetical contradict each other: randomness contradicts omniscience. With regard to a sequence of numbers, "random" really does mean "unpredictable," in that after seeing the first N numbers, you won't know number N+1. What else could it mean? |
Just that the numbers are random. Randomness tends to be unpredictable, but it wouldn't be for an omniscient being. Though it would still be randomness.
You're saying that "randomness" and "omniscient being" are incompatible, so let's try this. Assume the "randomness" to be an undeniable fact, and let's try putting "omniscient being" to the test.
Without denying that the numbers are random, can you show me how an omniscient being cannot exist or cannot know what the numbers will be?
Or, you're playing word games and trying to redefine "random" in a way that you're not explicitly describing. What do you mean by "random?" Be verbose.
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I'll gladly go with the Cambridge Dictionary definition: "happening, done or chosen by chance rather than according to a plan". I've checked several other dictionaries, and their definitions are roughly the same. None of them have "unpredictability" in their definition. Wikipedia agrees that unpredictability is implied, but that wouldn't mean that someone somehow being able to predict a random sequence of numbers would make the sequence non-random. If it's random, it's random.
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The Mythicist position
