You're not what you think you are.

I'm teaching Sunday school tomorrow. The kids I teach are from 1st through 6th grade. In tomorrow's lesson we are going to draw cartoons. There will be six panels in our cartoon. In the first panel, we will draw a character that knows that they are a character and that you are their author. In the second panel, we will create a dialog between us and our character.
In the 3rd, we will have our characters ask their authors for something. …. You can see where I'm going with this.

One of the things that I count on when I teach this lesson is that there's always a kid, usually a boy, who messes with his character. He'll erase the legs, or give his character horns, or some such thing. They may even kill their character. That gives me a wonderful opportunity to show them how God is not wrong for revealing what He is not, what He hates, what He punishes. God, as the author and creator, can do to His characters anything thing He wants to, and He's no more guilty of wrongdoing than we are guilty of wrongdoing when we author a bad guy, or a tragedy.

Many of the children that I will teach tomorrow are children of children I taught many years ago. I find that it's easier for a child to get their head around a sovereign/subject relationship than it is for adults. They are less likely to think of God as an equal or their relationship with God as one between equals.

 

The comparison is asinine, as human authors may create "characters", but they sure as Hell don't create souls.

 

Your belief is based upon your own Confirmation Bias since there is ZERO EVIDENCE of any deity.

 

Thank you for providing an excellent example of why children should NEVER be exposed to any mind altering indoctrination BEFORE the age of 18.

 

The difference between a human author and his character is so vast as to be "asinine" to be sure, but they are both finite,
therefore the difference between them is finite. It is vast, ridiculously vast, but it is finite. The difference between a finite and a finite is finite, but the difference between a finite and an infinite is infinite. In some way, somehow, God is infinitely more sovereign over His creation, and His novel characters, than a human author is over his novel works.

GOD DOES NOT READ MINDS; HE WRITES THEM.

The human soul is an individual expression of human spirit. All human souls are composed of human spirit just as all human bodies are composed of human flesh. The word 'spiritual' means meta-spatial or non-spatial. In other words, your soul is comprised of the parts of you that do not take up any space. Our spirit is comprised of the parts of us that are metaphysical and meta-spatial - the immaterial and spiritual parts of us.

Human beings are defined by our changes. If we stop these very particular changes, we are, in that regard, dead.
Human beings are complex of intellectual, emotional, willful and corporeal processes. A process is a prescribed sequence of changes. We are a complex of intellectual processes, emotional processes, willful processes and corporeal processes. It can be argued, from a first-glace perspective, that we are 75% spiritual beings in that only our corporeal processes take up any space. The other three are spiritual. Our thoughts, our emotions and our wills are very real, but they're also immaterial and spiritual.

 

Effect is empirical evidence of cause. I see cause, I infer effect.

Only human beings can recognize an arrowhead in a streambed of the same types of stones as something that has been made. As creators of things, we recognize created things. People separated by thousands of miles, and thousands of years, people who never even knew of each other's existence, all made the same observation. They all made what is perhaps the most common observation ever made by human beings. They all made the same observation that lead to all of the various world-views. "This did not happen by chance", is perhaps the most common world-view shaping observation ever made by humanity.

This did not happen by chance. If I see effect, I infer cause. A cause and effect sequence cannot, by definition, begin with an uncaused-effect. However, it can begin with an uncaused-cause. This uncaused-cause, I call God.

 

You seem to example well the attitude of one who is not.
"Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

 

That's not true. I can prove my accomplishments & credentials. God cannot even prove he exists.

 

This is meaningless...

...and as I demonstrated years ago by way of an observation you didn't dare respond to, this is nonsense. Nevertheless, you are welcome to try to reconcile it with Matthew 9:4.

 

Provide an example of this imaginary "empirical evidence of cause" of yours.

 

Your quote PROVES my point about iniquitous theist INDOCTRINATION of children!

 

I think the whole god thing is probably fake news... but your argument about criminals isn't true. I don't think prison needs to be about punishment at all, it's about incapacitation. Stopping people from victimizing others by keeping them away from innocent people, basically. We institutionalize out-of-control insane people because they are a threat to others or themselves, not because they are guilty.

 

Effect is empirical evidence of cause.

 

Proof is an inference. Truth is an implication; it is necessarily what it is. Proof is not -necessary; it is subjective.

Your capital letters prove nothing to me.

 

So you don't have even one single example to support your utterly BOGUS allegation of there being "empirical evidence".

I am beginning to doubt that you ever understand the MEANING of the term.

Sad!

 

Now you are just tying yourself into semantic knots and the net "effect" of that "empirical evidence" is that you are desperately trying to distract attention from the vapid vacuousness of your position.

 

The existence of god is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn't. It's not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions but you can't have your own facts

 

Effect is empirical evidence of cause.

 

effect is empirical evidence of cause.

 

That's how you end up living in a cave your whole life, afraid to go out into the darkness. Teaching people not to question things is idiotic.

 

Regurgitation of meaningless DRIVEL above accepted as a de facto concession that you cannot produce a single shred of "empirical evidence" because you have NONE WHATSOEVER!

Sad!

 

Yet more meaningless drivel!

Sad!

 

It's easier to teach children about this god of yours because kids are gullible...see Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy.

 

One of the most resounding messages of Jesus is something he didn't do, although he clearly knew how to.
He left no writings.
By the way, neither did Buddha.

 

Good point.

I imagine Jesus replying, if asked why he left no writings, 'everything you need to know of me is in The Bible.' Also I suspect that his writings would have been counterproductive, lending credence to his opponents common claim that he was a false prophet trying to undermine Judaism. This is, of course, pure speculation on my part.