The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 2)

J C wrote: »

You could say that allright.

I could have come up with a somewhat heavier-weight expletive.

You put in your thumb and pull out the plumb of "we don't know whether there were infants around" immediately prior to the flood as a (valid) response to someone wondering why the apparently high moral horse?


Are we truly to assume that unless the Bible positively states the patently obvious then that obvious is open to question. Sufficiently open to suppose that a valid response?

I'm not against liberals ... I'm a liberal myself.
However, the pseudo-liberals are a different thing entirely ... they protest their liberal leanings ... but they only behave liberally towards those who agree with them ... and they have no problem persecuting those with whom they disagree. The very definition of illiberalism actually.

I'm not arguing for the anti-Trumpers position, whatever the hue. I'm merely astonished you'd hitch yourself to him in any positive way. The guy is a patent creep on any number of fronts.

You don't have to support him as a way of decrying something else you don't like. You can not like any of it.

I'll not dignify that piece of godwinning with a response.

A ho-ho-ho response.

The point stands. What you posit as a positive needn't be a positive. It wasn't in Hitlers case and probably hasn't been the case (should I bother to look) in any number of other people who figured out the formula that would appeal to the disaffected

Where is the trouble with what he is saying?

If you can't discern what's wrong with what he's saying then there isn't a person on earth who will be able to show you. He is the most powerful case against himself.

(D'ya know when we're talking to unbelievers, trying to convince and defend and promote the real vs. cardboard cut out view of God. And they just don't get it. And we remember: they are blind and simply cannot see?. Well something similar seems to be going on with you and Trump)

Leroy42 wrote: »

..like the slave owners used to think!

This objection assumes (for the sake of itself) that God exists, so I'll run with that assumption to explore the problem with the objection.

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The maker of something, who uses his own materials and skills is, in the first instance, the rightful owner of the product he makes. Any objection you might have, which utilises ethics, legality, etc are objections that have no absolute basis - they fly only insofar as mankind shares your view.

Mankind can't, independently from it's creator, generate a view which trumps the view of the Creator. Not because he's more powerful, but because we are not independent of him such as to find foundations for our argument apart from him.

You would be trying to hang the Creator with a noose who's other end is attached to the Creator.

The usual objection is that free-willed being have that detachment, such as to judge independently of the Creator. That only works if the free will is enabled for that purpose. If it's not, that is, if the free will is constrained to work within limits, then you're back to the paragraph above.

Leroy42 wrote: »

Not entirely true. Certainly in the case of inanimate objects you are completely correct but are you really sawing that should we ever get to the stage of being able to develop life from a lab then whomever creates it can destroy it? Not a practicable question at the present time I'll admit, but one which will possibly be a moral question in the future.

I can see the moral problem** in the event man creates man: the lab would merely be copying the natural processes which already sees man produce man. It's not the process of his production which produce inalienable rights (witness abortion), it's his existence. The created life is on a par with us because of that and enjoys whatever we enjoy.

We do need to define our terms though.


Producing life: although we might produce life, we don't own all the processes involved in the production of it. Rather we manipulate the natural world, relying on a myriad of natural process (atomic forces, gravity, biomolecular interactions ... of which have nothing to do with us.

Creating life: where each and every aspect of it: the raw materials, the physical laws, etc., all stem from within yourself. That gives you intrinsic ownership. There is nothing at all about it that doesn't stem from within you. Indeed, because all of it stems from you, it is intrinsic to you until such time as you designate it separated from you. Since it is God who designates our life as something separated from himself, he also gets to set the T&C's regarding the degree and confines of separatedness. He giveth and can rightfully, taketh away

You have lost me a bit here tbh. My understanding of what you are saying is that mankind cannot judge God because we are God (or part of him, I don't we are gods). Is that right?

That we suppose life (man's life) of supreme value is something imbued in us by our Creator. He instilled that in us because he considers us of supreme value and because he wants us to treat each other according to the objective value we have. I'm continuing to assume God exists for the purposes of discussion.

We can't use the sense he's instilled in us, regarding treatment of each other, as something that he is identically bound to. He has other aims regarding us that make acceptable, his dealing with us other than he says we ought deal with each other.

We have no basis for turning the sense he instilled in us regarding our treatment of each other, towards his treatment of us. In order for us to do so, he would have to grant/have granted us the capacity to do so. If he hasn't, then our assuming we can hoist him by the petard which only applies to our dealing with each other, is hollow, misdirected.

The point I am trying to make it that JC deems it acceptable that God can murder newborns and unborns on the basis that they would only sin anyway or that the earth (that God created) is terrible place anyway and they are better off dead.

Murder is unlawful killing, so the unlawfulness of God killing anyone would have first to be established before those charges could be laid. Other than that, I think JC's rationale (assuming you are reflecting it accurately) is pretty poor.

As an aside: I've started reading an interesting book recently which attempts to reconcile the warlike attributes of the OT God with the dove like NT God*. Long story short: God doesn't desire killing or sacrifices and the like. Rather he takes a pagan people and gradually steers them in the direction he wants them to go in - according to their ability to evolve and mature in that direction.

An example would be sacrifices. This people are used to sacrificing to pagan god's before God choses them. And so, as a first step, he has them sacrifice offerings to him. Stepwise, as one would guide a child, rather than simply coming down heavy and supposing instant turnaround.

This ties in with the NT process of sanctification (the process starting at new birth and which aims to steer the new believer more and more into the image of Christ). Now, you could use the cardboard cutout of God and ask why an omnipotent being could just bring about the transformation overnight. But it would fly in the face of the drumbeat of scripture: God urging, wanting, desiring but not forcing.

First, that begs the question why God did not have the power to redeem the sinners rather than simply kill everyone (including all the animals which surely had nothing to do with any of this).

God hasn't the power to redeem sinners with the sinners say so. Regarding the flood, I'll have to finish the above book first

Second, if ones deems it ok that God did that, based on him being the creator, then surely one must deem it acceptable for people to treat their own children any way they see fit since they may believe that they created them.

Answered above I think. What is and what is believed are two different things.


* a bit of a simplification. The OT God displays a lot of tenderness, pain-at-our-pain and forebearing in a lot of places. Jesus, though an admired model for mankind, was the one in the NT who spoke most about Hell and the casting out into darkness where there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Nevertheless, the disconnect between the two God's who are the same needs reconciling one way or the other

** I can see the moral problem. That's because I suppose us subject to laws which arise outside ourself. I don't see how an atheist necessarily has to see a moral problem. The laws stem from within mankind and are, per definition, subject to be changed as seen fit. It becomes then a matter of personal preference. The same kind of thing applies to the abortion debate.

J C wrote: »

The Law of Biogenesis is still valid i.e. scientific observations haven't invalidated it ... so the belief in the spontaneous generation of life is in the realm of a belief in gnomes at the bottom of your garden.:)

I was countering your use of the law to render the notion of life from non life a non-starter. You've used the law in that way any number of times.

I can understand the belief people would have in spontaneous generation if they lack a theistic worldview. It's a logical conclusion (especially in light of ToE) and a person is not being unreasonable in supposing that the case, even if awaiting scientific confirmation.


The law of biogenesis oughtn't to have any impact on that faith position - given the law has nothing to say about the likelyhood or otherwise of S.G. I'm not sure what you mean by it being "valid" given it places no restraint on the science looking in that direction.

Thanks Antiskeptic, for your answers on the ownership by God of His Creation.

Thanks JC. I've never understood the difficulty folk have with the idea. Emotionally difficult, yes, but not rationally.

Leroy42 wrote: »

I don't have any difficulty with idea, I understand it completely. The notion that all of this, the universe, us, all living things, came from something, was designed and preordained is certainly compelling.

The human need to think that we are special, that what we do is important, that there is more than just this life and the unfairness of this life will be balance by some great legal system in the heavens.

But that is all it is. An idea. It has no more standing than thinking it we are just a strange happenstance. So basing any position you may, or may not hold, on the basis of something that is made up (as far as we can tell) is bizarre. To then argue about what qualities this made up deity may have, and how they go about operating these powers seems quite a step.

Remember from whence we came:

Leroy42 wrote:

The point I am trying to make it that JC deems it acceptable that God can murder newborns and unborns on the basis that they would only sin anyway or that the earth (that God created) is terrible place anyway and they are better off dead.

First, that begs the question why God did not have the power to redeem the sinners rather than simply kill everyone (including all the animals which surely had nothing to do with any of this). Second, if ones deems it ok that God did that, based on him being the creator, then surely one must deem it acceptable for people to treat their own children any way they see fit since they may believe that they created them.

The only difference in the moral justification is ones belief of who "owns" the life one is about to take.

You are raising an objection to the actions of God. You don't have to believe he exists on order to raise that objection. You are assuming, for the purposes raising the objection, that God exists. It can be, from your perspective, a thought-experiment and nothing more.

And I can respond on that basis, assuming God exists for the sake of argument. Whether or not I believe in God or not doesn't make any difference. An atheist could make the same points that I made - assuming God exists for the sake of argument.

But that is all it is. An idea. It has no more standing than thinking it we are just a strange happenstance. So basing any position you may, or may not hold, on the basis of something that is made up (as far as we can tell) is bizarre

As far as you can tell. There is no need for me to be bound to same process of evaluation that you are. Continuing the though experiment (assuming God exists for the sake of discussion)

The means whereby God manifests himself need have nothing to do with empirical evidence. IF it is the case that there are spiritual antennae AND it is the case that some have this spiritual antennae turned on, on rebirth, THEN no issue that some detect God loud and clear and others do not. The continued insistence "no empirical evidence" affects not one jot, the THEN conclusion.

One can go round the houses on this but ultimately, the notion that empirical evidence is the surest way to conclude the truth or otherwise of an observation, is a philosophical one only. It is not something that can be demonstrated to be true.


Simply supposing that the only way that God could evidence himself is via the empirical, and if not empirical then no basis for my position is just that: simply supposing.

We are, recently, discussing the murdering of young innocent children by this deity and that, due to them creating us they have every right to do whatever they want, but that parents do not have the same right despite the fact that they created the life of their child. One of course can argue that its not the parents but nature, but then surely that argument can be used for all the young people than your God killed. The belief is that he created Adam and Eve, nature did the rest.

I've raised an objection to the use of the word "murder". Before continuing with it's use, you would need to counter the objection. You can't do as JC often does and simply assume your position true

I have pointed out the difference between creation and production so perhaps we ought isolate the word creation for use with God only. It helps keep things precise?

I'm not quite sure of the point you're making in the italicised bit. Could you elaborate?

To then take the view that anybody with a different idea is wrong on the basis that their idea isn't the one that you were taught is baffling.

Again, you are engaging in a JC-type approach. You are not dealing with the argument as it is presented you. It is okay that you personally feel that I have been taught what I posit. But it is not okay to suppose that for the purposes of argumentation.

Certainly, my understanding of the God-set up is informed by the Bible (but not solely so, the Bible, for instance, doesn't specifically make the legal argument about possession of goods that I make). But overarching that is a personal encounter with this God. It's that which gives the Bible credence for me. You can argue about personal encounter but you can't suppose I hold what I hold simply because someone else told me and I'm undergoing a white-coat syndrome or holding what I hold to simply because I have a need to.

So it is not a difficulty with the idea of a god, it is an appreciation that it is no more than an idea and should be treated as such. We don't pray to string theory, or give special status to the leader of the multi-verse belief organisation. We don't tell people how to live their lives based on the Spagetti Monster, or teach our kids to pray to leprechauns at the end of the garden.

Again, there's a royal "we" here that hasn't been established by you. "No more than", for you. Not necessarily for me. At least, you haven't shown the necessity for it, rather, you assume it.