There's no paradox. 2 and 3 form a problem for mankind, which is rather different to a paradox - a problem that is solved by 4.
As for the terms of 5, they are very clearly defined by God in Scripture as being faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Additionally, the book of Romans is very clear that no-one is without excuse because God's existence is clear from nature, but denied by us because of our sinful nature, which goes against the problem you claim in 6. See Romans 10:9-17 for example - the problem of people not being able to believe if they haven't heard is brought up here and the solution is not for God to simply let them off the hook, but for messengers to be sent.
Also, you've missed the audience of the sheep and the goats. It's aimed at people who claim to have faith in Christ, not people who claim they're going to heaven. Helping people verifies that faith is genuine, it isn't the thing that saves i.e. helping people without faith doesn't get you saved, claiming to have faith without helping people shows your faith is false, but claiming to have faith and doing these things shows it to be true faith. This is somewhat similar to the teaching in the book of James.
If Dr. Hawking is to be saved, which I hope he will be, God has made it abundantly clear that he must trust in Jesus Christ, just like anyone else.
Should've seen it coming with how they handled the single atheist on the show (Gaius) and how all the scientific, logical cylons happen to be the evil ones.
Didn't Gaius waver back and forth and weren't the Cylons quite religious - monotheistic in fact?
There are good arguments for and against. I believe that where it was commanded in the Bible by God, it must have been right and the principle of wrong being punished is certainly right. In principle, I think I agree with it in certain extreme circumstances where the accused presents a continued threat to society or has committed a particularly heinous crime. In practice, I would be concerned about miscarriages of justice. Passages such as Romans 13 talking about the state's right to bear the sword suggest that it is in principle ok.
I think there's a difference between capital punishment and murder and a difference between life being purposeful and people deserving to live (particularly if they commit particularly heinous crimes), if that's what you're asking.
Narcissism is a human fault. What would a god need with worship?
Who said anything about need? I didn't.
If I were a god that "invented" the universe and the humans within it, I certainly would not "require", "want", or "need" any kind of worship whatsoever.
You're attacking a straw man argument. If it is right for God to be worshipped - infinitely so because he is infinitely worthy of worship - and he is a perfectly moral being, then it is a question of his morality being satisfied by him being worshipped, not an issue of vanity or need. Do you understand the philosophical issues being posed here?
Worship is something that was demanded, or desired by earthly kings, and is narcissistic. Worship probably arose out of the "alpha male" aspect of the human animal social groups, or "tribes". The whole idea of worship is utterly silly indeed.
That's a very limited definition of worship or worthiness and utterly silly indeed.
Monty Python's "Holy Grail" made the worship idea poignant in the following exchange...
In what way is it poignant? It's a cheap laugh and doesn't reflect the stated views of the God of the Bible, which is what I'm talking about here.
When most people argue or debate the existence of a "god"
Who's doing that? I'm merely pointing out out that a critique of God's morality requires a consideration of his nature because it affects whether certain actions are right or wrong. Question the morality of the God of the Bible and you had to take into account his infinite worth. Whether he exists or not is a totally different matter that I haven't been debating.
most of the time all the "believers" really want is that you "worship" something that they believe in. This is quite shameful actually.
If they believe in a God who deserves worship, then why would it be shameful?
Plenty of people do good things anonymously because they don't want people fawning over them.
But we're not talking about people, we're talking about a being who completely and rightly deserves worship and is himself totally moral and therefore desiring of the right thing to be done i.e. worship of him.
One might posit that an all powerful god is more than capable of revealing himself
Yes, that's why there are millions of Christians in the world.
Er, that wasn't me -- I just jumped into the conversation right in the middle:)
Sorry, too many posts to keep track of.
If you really have irrefutable evidence in the scientific sense of the word for the existence of God, please share it with us.
Why would I need scientific evidence? There are other valid fields of knowledge. And why would it have to be irrefutable? If it is more likely that God exists than he doesn't, then it makes sense to believe in him. This isn't a court case where extreme levels of evidence is needed. Additionally, I wasn't trying to convince anyone that God exists, I was saying that to evaluate God's morality you have to take into account other claims about his nature such as his worthiness to be worshipped because it has consequences for whether an action is moral or not.
Although I have to admit that if I discovered an infinitely worthy being, I'd much rather debate and argue with it, rather than worship it.
Would that be moral? And why would you debate and argue? Surely that implies that it might have something to learn from you, detracting from its worthiness.
Nobody wants a doormat, after all, and I'm sure the divine creator gets seriously sick of sycophants queuing up to grovel...:)
Think it through. If God is infinitely worthy of worship then it is right for him to be worshipped. If he is perfectly moral and wise, he will recognise and desire that and even take pleasure in it. Human tolerances for actions and desires are different to God's given radically different natures.
I was -- and still am -- stirring, just a little, and I'm sorry if I caused offence
No problem. You're a lot more polite than most people on Slashdot.
I have nothing against religion per se, and I do think Christianity (in the New Testament, at least) sets down some pretty sensible guidelines for living a good life.
But surely that only works if you pick and choose, in which case you're really just operating according to your own conscience? After all, moral behaviour in Christianity is tied into love of God and neighbour. Rejection of God renders the morals pointless and baseless.
What concerns me about religion is the way it has the power to influence stupid people
Sadly Christianity has been and is used as a pretext or tool for abuse. But neither it nor religion are unique in that. Nor or abuses a reason to write off the ideal.
Some things are more clear than others. Just because some things are hard to describe or pin down, doesn't mean that all things are. God describes himself as being some things, which we can therefore be certain about. Other things are worked out through observation of what he does. Still others are speculated about. The worthy of God is one of the things most clearly stated by the Bible e.g. in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Revelation.
You assume that more good won't come from what they do on earth and that people deserve to go to heaven, neither of which are logical necessities or the claims of the Bible.
Why does someone who wins a race deserve a gold medal? I have won a couple of races and never received a gold medal. Maybe it is deserved because in some races you have a contract(as in agreement not a necessarily a legal one) that the winner should receive a medal?
My point wasn't the awarding of the medal so much as what it signifies i.e. the recognition that they are the winner, and treating him as such. If after your race, the runner up was hailed as the winner, would you have thought that was right?
What contract?
But I have no contract with a supreme deity. I've never met one. But maybe i have received life and is therefore bound to the terms regardless of whether i accepted them or not? Some people here would call that a EULA and strongly immoral.
Updating a analogy in the Bible, that's like a set of lego demanding to know what right you have to build it.
What Deity?
Then we have the problem which deity's implied contract should I honour? No deity has claimed to create me. There are plenty of cults around the world that claim their deity did it, but how do I determine who is right?
Well, you could look at the central claim of each one, which in Christianity's case is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not the timespan of Creation. Incidentally, there are ways of reconciling a literal reading with scientific evidence e.g. the world being created in a pre-aged state and some scholars argue that Genesis 1 is written as poetry in which case it isn't intended to be read literally. This doesn't require that all text be discounted as metaphorical, it just means reading each genre appropriately. Anyway, Christianity stands or falls on the historicity of the resurrection, not different interpretations of Genesis 1.
Actually, it's 'do not murder'. Besides, just because man should not do something, does not mean that God should not e.g. man should not ask for worship, but God has the right to.
A god who wants anything specific should at least, you know, notify us that he's around.
You mean like having millions of people spreading the word about him? Or leaving written records of his works?
I mean seriously, it's not that hard. If it were me, I'd put an enormous floating obelisk in some highly public place, and make it do something extra-magical, like whoever looks at it seems my latest message in their native language.
That's not the way God does things. Jesus explicitly rejected giving signs like that. The followers God gathers are those who recognise their need for him, not those who demand grand signs.
Probably something better than "sending" various people to be his emissaries
But it's more than that. The God of the Bible also sends the Holy Spirit to convince people and his word in the form of the Bible. It's not the might or power or persuasiveness of individuals that results in converts. If God himself is at work in people's hearts by the Holy Spirit, then what could be more effective?
And stopping all the miracles once scientific principles became widespread.
Who said miracles have stopped? People becoming Christians is a type of miracle. Besides which, the gospel is not reliant on what are conventionally seen as miracles; it's about the death of resurrectin fo Jesus Christ on behalf of sinners.
That's all working off the assumption that children below a certain age automatically go to heaven, something which is far from clear in the Bible. It's also a selfish act in the sense that it puts your desire for your children to be saved above God's worthiness to be worshipped and obeyed. It's also an act of rebellion and trust in your own wisdom rather than trusting that by obeying God and raising your children in the love and knowledge of him, that they will have the opportunity to form their own relationship with him.
There are alternatives, such as bringing them up knowing God and trusting that they will come to have a relationship with him for themselves. And your first duty would be to God, which would mean not murdering anyone. God's plan for salvation doesn't require people to be killed in order to be saved; it works by his son dying in their place.
Does *anyone* have religious belief on the basis of evidence? My understanding is that there are certainly religious people who are rational thinkers and even scientifically minded, but they generally agree that a leap of faith is required.
Everything we do is a combination of evidence and faith or trust. In many cases that faith or trust is a result of evidence and even a tip-toe of faith would be overstating the issue, let alone a leap. At the moment the BBC News is reporting that South Africa are winning a cricket match against Australia. Given that the BBC are pretty reliable and cricinfo.com reports the same thing, it requires little faith to believe that is true. Certain Apple-oriented sites regularly report rumours about upcoming products - they provide varying amounts of evidence and have different track records, both of which affect the likelihood that I (or anyone else) will believe them. The realm of science requires certain assumptions to be made so that science can be performed. You always need some axioms to give you a starting place. Some of these are very basic such as 'my senses aren't lying to me'. But at some point, some faith or trust (however small) is required.
Similarly for evidence, very rarely does anyone decide to believe something out of the blue - there is almost always a reason why someone will take up a belief. The evidence or rationale may be very little e.g. hear-say or gossip, or it may be quite substantial e.g. the Michelson-Morley experiment. Various Christian beliefs rest on varying levels of evidence. The resurrection relies largely on testimony (a bit like having newspaper reports or eye-witness interviews as evidence) and the existence and history of the church itself. There are other reasons.
An intelligent mind would not leap to the conclusion that "worship" was at all helpful or desirable to that worthy being.
I should have added 'an intelligent, moral mind'. Intelligence is only useful for carrying data and understanding it. Morals are needed to decide on the right response.
Somehow that option is unavailable with God. Instead we have: * ancient & highly contradictory writings by people who claimed to have some kind of contact with God thousands of years ago * "messages" from God, in the form of natural occurrences that require aggressive interpretation.
Your recollection is in error. The problem was that man, made in the image of God, tried to become more than that and take the place of God by metaphorically taking the crown and putting it on his own head. As a consequence he became less than he had been and a broken image that would die as a slave to sin.
There are countless books and articles that treat this subject with a lot more depth than a glib two sentence post. You are assuming firstly that everyone deserves to live - that's not the worldview of the Bible, which actually says that we all deserve to die. You also assume that man's rights and God's rights are the same, which again is not the view presented by the Bible e.g. God can demand worship, man cannot. The issue you present rules out a certain type of god, but not the God of the Bible.
I wasn't trying to argue you into believing anything. Neither was I trying to prove that God is glorious - I was stating it as a premise in Christianity, without which nothing else makes sense. I am not trying to prove my premise ergo it is not a circular argument.
Infinitely worth of worship based on what?
It's a statement about his nature, a part of who he is. I would say that there are things he does which demonstrate his glory, but a Christian belief about God is that he would be glorious even without these demonstrations. It's axiomatic.
And what/who determines that? God.
Who better?
Or: You have to worship god. Why? Because otherwise you are deserving of death. Says who? God.
That's not what I'm saying; I'm saying that you should because he deserves it. Death is a consequence of failure, but it is not the reason to do it in the first place.
So basically you are saying that there is a god and we should all buy into what god wants.
I do believe that, though it's not what I'm posting about at the moment. I'm saying that in order to accuse God of being moral or otherwise on the basis of what the Bible says then ignoring what it says about his nature is intellectually dishonest. If God doesn't exist, then his morality is irrelevant. If the God of the Bible does exist (and I'm not trying to convince you of it) then in order to judge whether he is moral or not, you have to take into account his nature. The morality of his actions are contingent upon him being infinitely glorious. Accusing God of being immoral while ignoring the infinitely glorious bit of his nature is attacking a god other than the God of the Bible and one which I'm not in the least bit interested in defending.
Not by my standards.
Imagine for a moment that God is real (consider this an intellectual exercise, not a request for you to believe anything). Why should I think more highly of your definition of morality or worth than his?
Perhaps my view is colored by being an American--we don't care much for kings, someone who says they are over us, just because. Not good enough.
It's not an American view, it's an individualistic view where you want to be the boss of your own life. But why should you have a higher standing than God?
if there is a judgment day I just want to get close enough to spit on him/throw my shoes at him, this god of yours is a right bastard.
I hardly think that would be the case. What does blustering rhetoric add to an argument? If you really came face to face with God on judgement day, do you honestly think it would be smart to do that? Do you really think you would be capable of doing that to the God of the Bible?
You accused Christians for huddling together to condemn others and fantasise about their fate. Reading any Slashdot article on religion, I fail to see the difference between what Christians are accused of and what a lot of vocal posters actually do.
The early Christians -- who were not Gnostics -- were considered an apocalyptic cult by early writers. Since they considered the second coming to be relatively soon, families weren't exactly on everyone's mind and very early church/doctrine and teachings reflected this.
True in some cases, though as you say, they weren't Gnostics and their actions weren't made on the basis on a carnal/spiritual dichotomy, but rather on a belief in an imminent eschaton. Fair point about other religions though.
In order to accuse God of a low moral standard, you have to work off the premise that people are fundamentally innocent, or at least undeserving of death. The Christian stance is that everyone is deserving of death because of a failure to worship God - this is revealed in the Bible and is also the logical conclusion if you start with the premise of an infinitely glorious being who is infinitely worthy of worship - as I have explained in other posts. You may disagree with that worldview, but at least admit that it is consistent and that given such a premise about the nature of God, his morals are just fine in the Bible. Naturally, if you take away such a premise, things fall apart, but then you don't have Christianity (or Judaism for that matter).
There's also the small matter of God's morals only being relevant if he exists. And if he does exist, then his morals are the only relevant ones.
That's hardly a massive flaw. Even if he is "supremely worthy of worship" that doesn't imply that not worshiping him is a terrible wrong.
Actually it does. If he deserves it, then him not receiving it is wrong. The winner of a race deserves the gold medal - for him not to receive it would be wrong. An infinitely glorious being is infinitely worthy of worship - to not worship would be wrong, infinitely so.
Perhaps he'll be rather displeased that people waste a large proportion of the life he gave them sitting around telling him how good he is.
Let's take this infinitely worthy being and say that he's perfectly moral as well - he knows what is right and is concerned that right be done. Knowing that he is infinitely worthy of worship, that it is right for people to do so and wrong for them not to, he would expect worship, and rightly so.
I'm not asking you to believe it (though I hope that some day you might), but rather asking that you understand the worldview of orthodox Christianity and see the rationale for certain stances arising from taking things to their logical conclusion.
So you're saying it's more important to show respect to God, than to actually follow his/her/its teachings?
Where did I say that? You were the one with a quote saying that devoutness (i.e. adherence to God) was something God wouldn't care about, which I disagreed with.
I would have thought that if God made man in his own image, then she made a man that was innately curious, enquiring and sceptical.
Such reasoning takes Genesis 1 and 2, then fails to apply Genesis 3, which reveals man to fallen i.e. no longer a good representative of God, therefore our current nature is not what we are supposed to be.
In which case, a lack of blind faith would be rewarded in the afterlife
Who said anything about blind faith? I certainly don't have it and hope that people have faith on the basis of evidence.
since it showed you actually had some intelligence, whereas a senseless following of irrelevant precepts would see you chucked in the "try again" bin.
To give humans reason and intelligence, and then tell them not to follow it, is just ludicrous.
I agree that God gave us minds in order that we might use them (though I also disagree that his precepts are irrelevant). How is that at all relevant to what I posted? Surely a intelligent mind, upon discovering an infinitely worthy being, would worship it?
EXACTLY! It was probably fear that lead them to the church in the first place. Then they surround themselves with like minded people and yell at the rest of the world for how evil they are(really there just mad everyone else doesn't have the same irrational fears of the natural world.) and have nice fantasies of the rest of the world rotting in hell. Then on their deathbed they wonder... "Is god gonna like those fantasies of all those people burning and being tortured because that's about as much as I thought about my entire life...All I ever wanted was for OTHER people to die and goto hell".
Compare and contrast with:
EXACTLY! It was probably fear that lead them to Slashdot in the first place. Then they surround themselves with like minded people and yell at the rest of the world for how evil they are(really there just mad everyone else doesn't have the same irrational fears of other points of view.) and have nice fantasies of the rest of the world being wrong and terrified as they die. Then on their deathbed they wonder... "Is god gonna like those fantasies of all those people being wrong and terrified because that's about as much as I thought about my entire life...All I ever wanted was for OTHER people to die and be scared".
If you had seem the second posted, would you spluttering with rage, insulting the poster for daring to write such rubbish and mocking their logical fallacies?
The Christian Gnostics held that the spirit was imprisoned inside the body. As a result, anything vaguely carnal was bad: good food, sex, having kids, etc. (Strangely, the early Pauline Christians who would survive and become Catholicism changed their policy regarding sex and kids very early on..wonder why...)
You've got your history wrong: Gnosticism as a major movement came well after Paul. It has some roots in Greek philosophy, which Paul wrote against at various points. Additionally, the gospels and the Old Testament are quite positive about the physical world - Jesus turned water into wine, an entire book of the OT is written about sex and relationships. Gnosticism wasn't a precursor to mainstream Christianity in any way.
Not saying I agree with the fine-tuning argument or not but your analogy is poor. If Joe Blow was the only person playing the lottery, then it would indeed be suspicious if he won. Given that great number of people playing, however, it is not unlikely that someone will win it. If there are many universe, then it's more likely that one will be able to support life. If there's only one, then the fact that it does certainly provides room for asking questions.
As for God, he is posited to be an eternal, pre-existent supernatural being and therefore a somewhat different kettle of fish to a natural universe that obeys scientific laws. Not that I would go with that as an argument either.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no paradox. 2 and 3 form a problem for mankind, which is rather different to a paradox - a problem that is solved by 4.
As for the terms of 5, they are very clearly defined by God in Scripture as being faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Additionally, the book of Romans is very clear that no-one is without excuse because God's existence is clear from nature, but denied by us because of our sinful nature, which goes against the problem you claim in 6. See Romans 10:9-17 for example - the problem of people not being able to believe if they haven't heard is brought up here and the solution is not for God to simply let them off the hook, but for messengers to be sent.
Also, you've missed the audience of the sheep and the goats. It's aimed at people who claim to have faith in Christ, not people who claim they're going to heaven. Helping people verifies that faith is genuine, it isn't the thing that saves i.e. helping people without faith doesn't get you saved, claiming to have faith without helping people shows your faith is false, but claiming to have faith and doing these things shows it to be true faith. This is somewhat similar to the teaching in the book of James.
If Dr. Hawking is to be saved, which I hope he will be, God has made it abundantly clear that he must trust in Jesus Christ, just like anyone else.
Didn't Gaius waver back and forth and weren't the Cylons quite religious - monotheistic in fact?
There are good arguments for and against. I believe that where it was commanded in the Bible by God, it must have been right and the principle of wrong being punished is certainly right. In principle, I think I agree with it in certain extreme circumstances where the accused presents a continued threat to society or has committed a particularly heinous crime. In practice, I would be concerned about miscarriages of justice. Passages such as Romans 13 talking about the state's right to bear the sword suggest that it is in principle ok.
I think there's a difference between capital punishment and murder and a difference between life being purposeful and people deserving to live (particularly if they commit particularly heinous crimes), if that's what you're asking.
Who said anything about need? I didn't.
You're attacking a straw man argument. If it is right for God to be worshipped - infinitely so because he is infinitely worthy of worship - and he is a perfectly moral being, then it is a question of his morality being satisfied by him being worshipped, not an issue of vanity or need. Do you understand the philosophical issues being posed here?
That's a very limited definition of worship or worthiness and utterly silly indeed.
In what way is it poignant? It's a cheap laugh and doesn't reflect the stated views of the God of the Bible, which is what I'm talking about here.
Who's doing that? I'm merely pointing out out that a critique of God's morality requires a consideration of his nature because it affects whether certain actions are right or wrong. Question the morality of the God of the Bible and you had to take into account his infinite worth. Whether he exists or not is a totally different matter that I haven't been debating.
If they believe in a God who deserves worship, then why would it be shameful?
Nonsense since their tomes written describing God and his attributes. God is not by definition an incoherent concept.
But we're not talking about people, we're talking about a being who completely and rightly deserves worship and is himself totally moral and therefore desiring of the right thing to be done i.e. worship of him.
Yes, that's why there are millions of Christians in the world.
Sorry, too many posts to keep track of.
Why would I need scientific evidence? There are other valid fields of knowledge. And why would it have to be irrefutable? If it is more likely that God exists than he doesn't, then it makes sense to believe in him. This isn't a court case where extreme levels of evidence is needed. Additionally, I wasn't trying to convince anyone that God exists, I was saying that to evaluate God's morality you have to take into account other claims about his nature such as his worthiness to be worshipped because it has consequences for whether an action is moral or not.
Would that be moral? And why would you debate and argue? Surely that implies that it might have something to learn from you, detracting from its worthiness.
Think it through. If God is infinitely worthy of worship then it is right for him to be worshipped. If he is perfectly moral and wise, he will recognise and desire that and even take pleasure in it. Human tolerances for actions and desires are different to God's given radically different natures.
No problem. You're a lot more polite than most people on Slashdot.
But surely that only works if you pick and choose, in which case you're really just operating according to your own conscience? After all, moral behaviour in Christianity is tied into love of God and neighbour. Rejection of God renders the morals pointless and baseless.
Sadly Christianity has been and is used as a pretext or tool for abuse. But neither it nor religion are unique in that. Nor or abuses a reason to write off the ideal.
Some things are more clear than others. Just because some things are hard to describe or pin down, doesn't mean that all things are. God describes himself as being some things, which we can therefore be certain about. Other things are worked out through observation of what he does. Still others are speculated about. The worthy of God is one of the things most clearly stated by the Bible e.g. in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Revelation.
You assume that more good won't come from what they do on earth and that people deserve to go to heaven, neither of which are logical necessities or the claims of the Bible.
My point wasn't the awarding of the medal so much as what it signifies i.e. the recognition that they are the winner, and treating him as such. If after your race, the runner up was hailed as the winner, would you have thought that was right?
Updating a analogy in the Bible, that's like a set of lego demanding to know what right you have to build it.
Well, you could look at the central claim of each one, which in Christianity's case is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not the timespan of Creation. Incidentally, there are ways of reconciling a literal reading with scientific evidence e.g. the world being created in a pre-aged state and some scholars argue that Genesis 1 is written as poetry in which case it isn't intended to be read literally. This doesn't require that all text be discounted as metaphorical, it just means reading each genre appropriately. Anyway, Christianity stands or falls on the historicity of the resurrection, not different interpretations of Genesis 1.
Actually, it's 'do not murder'. Besides, just because man should not do something, does not mean that God should not e.g. man should not ask for worship, but God has the right to.
You mean like having millions of people spreading the word about him? Or leaving written records of his works?
That's not the way God does things. Jesus explicitly rejected giving signs like that. The followers God gathers are those who recognise their need for him, not those who demand grand signs.
But it's more than that. The God of the Bible also sends the Holy Spirit to convince people and his word in the form of the Bible. It's not the might or power or persuasiveness of individuals that results in converts. If God himself is at work in people's hearts by the Holy Spirit, then what could be more effective?
Who said miracles have stopped? People becoming Christians is a type of miracle. Besides which, the gospel is not reliant on what are conventionally seen as miracles; it's about the death of resurrectin fo Jesus Christ on behalf of sinners.
That's all working off the assumption that children below a certain age automatically go to heaven, something which is far from clear in the Bible. It's also a selfish act in the sense that it puts your desire for your children to be saved above God's worthiness to be worshipped and obeyed. It's also an act of rebellion and trust in your own wisdom rather than trusting that by obeying God and raising your children in the love and knowledge of him, that they will have the opportunity to form their own relationship with him.
There are alternatives, such as bringing them up knowing God and trusting that they will come to have a relationship with him for themselves. And your first duty would be to God, which would mean not murdering anyone. God's plan for salvation doesn't require people to be killed in order to be saved; it works by his son dying in their place.
Everything we do is a combination of evidence and faith or trust. In many cases that faith or trust is a result of evidence and even a tip-toe of faith would be overstating the issue, let alone a leap. At the moment the BBC News is reporting that South Africa are winning a cricket match against Australia. Given that the BBC are pretty reliable and cricinfo.com reports the same thing, it requires little faith to believe that is true. Certain Apple-oriented sites regularly report rumours about upcoming products - they provide varying amounts of evidence and have different track records, both of which affect the likelihood that I (or anyone else) will believe them. The realm of science requires certain assumptions to be made so that science can be performed. You always need some axioms to give you a starting place. Some of these are very basic such as 'my senses aren't lying to me'. But at some point, some faith or trust (however small) is required.
Similarly for evidence, very rarely does anyone decide to believe something out of the blue - there is almost always a reason why someone will take up a belief. The evidence or rationale may be very little e.g. hear-say or gossip, or it may be quite substantial e.g. the Michelson-Morley experiment. Various Christian beliefs rest on varying levels of evidence. The resurrection relies largely on testimony (a bit like having newspaper reports or eye-witness interviews as evidence) and the existence and history of the church itself. There are other reasons.
I should have added 'an intelligent, moral mind'. Intelligence is only useful for carrying data and understanding it. Morals are needed to decide on the right response.
You left out the Bible and prayer.
Your recollection is in error. The problem was that man, made in the image of God, tried to become more than that and take the place of God by metaphorically taking the crown and putting it on his own head. As a consequence he became less than he had been and a broken image that would die as a slave to sin.
There are countless books and articles that treat this subject with a lot more depth than a glib two sentence post. You are assuming firstly that everyone deserves to live - that's not the worldview of the Bible, which actually says that we all deserve to die. You also assume that man's rights and God's rights are the same, which again is not the view presented by the Bible e.g. God can demand worship, man cannot. The issue you present rules out a certain type of god, but not the God of the Bible.
I wasn't trying to argue you into believing anything. Neither was I trying to prove that God is glorious - I was stating it as a premise in Christianity, without which nothing else makes sense. I am not trying to prove my premise ergo it is not a circular argument.
It's a statement about his nature, a part of who he is. I would say that there are things he does which demonstrate his glory, but a Christian belief about God is that he would be glorious even without these demonstrations. It's axiomatic.
Who better?
That's not what I'm saying; I'm saying that you should because he deserves it. Death is a consequence of failure, but it is not the reason to do it in the first place.
I do believe that, though it's not what I'm posting about at the moment. I'm saying that in order to accuse God of being moral or otherwise on the basis of what the Bible says then ignoring what it says about his nature is intellectually dishonest. If God doesn't exist, then his morality is irrelevant. If the God of the Bible does exist (and I'm not trying to convince you of it) then in order to judge whether he is moral or not, you have to take into account his nature. The morality of his actions are contingent upon him being infinitely glorious. Accusing God of being immoral while ignoring the infinitely glorious bit of his nature is attacking a god other than the God of the Bible and one which I'm not in the least bit interested in defending.
Imagine for a moment that God is real (consider this an intellectual exercise, not a request for you to believe anything). Why should I think more highly of your definition of morality or worth than his?
It's not an American view, it's an individualistic view where you want to be the boss of your own life. But why should you have a higher standing than God?
I hardly think that would be the case. What does blustering rhetoric add to an argument? If you really came face to face with God on judgement day, do you honestly think it would be smart to do that? Do you really think you would be capable of doing that to the God of the Bible?
You accused Christians for huddling together to condemn others and fantasise about their fate. Reading any Slashdot article on religion, I fail to see the difference between what Christians are accused of and what a lot of vocal posters actually do.
True in some cases, though as you say, they weren't Gnostics and their actions weren't made on the basis on a carnal/spiritual dichotomy, but rather on a belief in an imminent eschaton. Fair point about other religions though.
In order to accuse God of a low moral standard, you have to work off the premise that people are fundamentally innocent, or at least undeserving of death. The Christian stance is that everyone is deserving of death because of a failure to worship God - this is revealed in the Bible and is also the logical conclusion if you start with the premise of an infinitely glorious being who is infinitely worthy of worship - as I have explained in other posts. You may disagree with that worldview, but at least admit that it is consistent and that given such a premise about the nature of God, his morals are just fine in the Bible. Naturally, if you take away such a premise, things fall apart, but then you don't have Christianity (or Judaism for that matter).
There's also the small matter of God's morals only being relevant if he exists. And if he does exist, then his morals are the only relevant ones.
Actually it does. If he deserves it, then him not receiving it is wrong. The winner of a race deserves the gold medal - for him not to receive it would be wrong. An infinitely glorious being is infinitely worthy of worship - to not worship would be wrong, infinitely so.
Let's take this infinitely worthy being and say that he's perfectly moral as well - he knows what is right and is concerned that right be done. Knowing that he is infinitely worthy of worship, that it is right for people to do so and wrong for them not to, he would expect worship, and rightly so.
I'm not asking you to believe it (though I hope that some day you might), but rather asking that you understand the worldview of orthodox Christianity and see the rationale for certain stances arising from taking things to their logical conclusion.
Where did I say that? You were the one with a quote saying that devoutness (i.e. adherence to God) was something God wouldn't care about, which I disagreed with.
Such reasoning takes Genesis 1 and 2, then fails to apply Genesis 3, which reveals man to fallen i.e. no longer a good representative of God, therefore our current nature is not what we are supposed to be.
Who said anything about blind faith? I certainly don't have it and hope that people have faith on the basis of evidence.
I agree that God gave us minds in order that we might use them (though I also disagree that his precepts are irrelevant). How is that at all relevant to what I posted? Surely a intelligent mind, upon discovering an infinitely worthy being, would worship it?
Compare and contrast with:
If you had seem the second posted, would you spluttering with rage, insulting the poster for daring to write such rubbish and mocking their logical fallacies?
You've got your history wrong: Gnosticism as a major movement came well after Paul. It has some roots in Greek philosophy, which Paul wrote against at various points. Additionally, the gospels and the Old Testament are quite positive about the physical world - Jesus turned water into wine, an entire book of the OT is written about sex and relationships. Gnosticism wasn't a precursor to mainstream Christianity in any way.
Not saying I agree with the fine-tuning argument or not but your analogy is poor. If Joe Blow was the only person playing the lottery, then it would indeed be suspicious if he won. Given that great number of people playing, however, it is not unlikely that someone will win it. If there are many universe, then it's more likely that one will be able to support life. If there's only one, then the fact that it does certainly provides room for asking questions.
As for God, he is posited to be an eternal, pre-existent supernatural being and therefore a somewhat different kettle of fish to a natural universe that obeys scientific laws. Not that I would go with that as an argument either.