The confusion comes from cognitive dissonance. You have believed for so long that atheists believe there are no gods that you try to project this on everything we say. Just slow down and read what we are writing.
What is confusing about it?
I happen to think it is an honest position. You make a claim, and I take the time to consider it, including making the best argument I can for your position. Perhaps this is confusing to someone who leans more towards dogmatism.
That’s not a definition Bill. Unless it’s your personal definition everything that exists is a miracle. But then that makes the concept of a miracle pretty worthless if everything is a miracle.
All this time and you’re still confusing function for purpose. How many times does the difference have to be explained to you?
No one has ever shown any evidence of external conscious “design” in biological life. “Bill doesn’t understand it” isn’t evidence of anything except Bill’s lack of knowledge.
I don’t know, would a virgin birth constitute haploid? Maybe it was divine fertilization?
Could have been parthenogenesis, but God would have to have contributed the Y chromosome. Otherwise Jesus would be a girl.
That is certainly apparent.
Colour me profoundly unsurprised that someone who thinks the universe is only 6000 years old is easily confused by the simplest of concepts.
You missed this question of mine so far today. I’m trying to help you understand a concept I think is pretty simple also. I was wondering if you had an answer - trying to answer it may lead to understanding the concept.
On the basis of how people would generally, by our nature, like to be treated, and whether his actions are consistent with that.
Golden rule, basically.
I understand just fine, thanks.
So even if the gods exist, you don’t believe in them? Otherwise it’s a distinction without a difference. If you’re admitting they can exist, then you cannot say a believer has the burden of proof.
If you have to consider whether several aspects of a hypothesis are correct before considering just one aspect is plausible, you aren’t actually being open-minded about the hypothesis.
Ok, so you’re judging God by the actions of people, so people are equal with God?
That question is meaningless to me. “Equal” in what sense?
For the sake of argument, I am defining “God” as a personal being who is all knowing, all powerful, and created the universe. He is the guy described in the Bible and did the things attributed to him there. He also has definite ideas about what we, as humans, should and should not do.
Obviously, no person is the equal of that. But, also, nothing in that puts him above my judging him in terms of his moral behavior.
Now, it could be that he is so different from us as a being that our moral standards are completely inapplicable to him. But that would then go both ways, wouldn’t it?
Atheists don’t make any real claims. This is why they complain about burden shifts. What burden do you think they have taken?
Yes. If I was presented evidence that supported their existence then I would believe in them. I don’t believe aliens have visited Earth and performed experiments on humans, but it could be true. I would believe in these claims if evidence supported them.
I most certainly can. Could exist and do exist are two different things. Does exist requires evidence, and the burden for providing that evidence rests with the person claiming gods do exist.
If you create people that experience physical and emotional pain, suffer loss, seek justice, and empathize with others don’t you have a moral obligation to treat people according to the nature that you created in them? Would a moral deity create a species to feel pain only to revel in the act of inflicting pain?
We would be judging God by our humanity, what it is to be human. We are judging God by what he allegedly created.
Wrong, as usual.
We complain about burden shifts when theistic apologists try to slough off the burden they bear of supporting their claims that a god exists.
This happens with astonishing regularity.
That’s an interesting question. I am not certain the answer is an unequivocal "Yes.
Morality, IMHO, is best viewed as as aspect of the interaction of members of social community or society. God, not being human, is arguably not part of our society.
I do not see morality as having any pertinence to a person who exists in complete isolation. If we took a person and sent him off to Pluto to live as the only life form, morality would no longer exist for him (except possibly as a vestige of his previous existence here on Earth). So perhaps the same applies to God, as the only being of his particular type.
OTOH, we often consider humans to have moral obligations towards other living things, so on that basis God might have moral obligations towards us.
But it is rare to think of animals as having moral obligations towards us, or for humans to set moral standards by which animals should abide. So on that basis, the theistic idea of God serving as our moral standards does not work on various levels. Certainly if theists insist that we are in no position to morally judge God, it weakens their position in claiming God as our moral standard.
If that person on Pluto gained control of a nuclear arsenal and caused such a large cataclysm on Earth that everyone but a single family was killed off I would think some sort of morality would apply.
We do have moral codes that apply to animals. We send people to jail for being cruel towards animals, and there are various social movements that are focused on the ethical and moral treatment of animals. From my experience in the sciences, there are very different rules for different species. The rules for how you treat 3 day old zebrafish embryos in the lab is entirely different than the rules for how you treat primates.
We are also told by Christians that God seeks a relationship with us. Is that relationship similar to a human and a dog? Or is it supposedly closer to a relationship between humans? I would think it is the latter.
If you want to really understand this start with the book of Isaiah and commentary books. I will provide a suggestion if you are interested. Suffering (on earth) is part of exaltation and a vehicle to get closer to God.