So you allege that somebody else claims. Third-hand gotcha questions are not an effective argument.
It’s not the Far Side, it’s Sidney Harris.
No reason to suppose it would. Why do you think so? And if I recall the “other reasons” were to make us rely on God. Why would he want that?
How would I do that? It’s like proving a negative.
Ah, so the rewards are in this world, not the next? God gives you little presents when you suffer? That doesn’t accord with observations.
I’m supposing that “torment” is another word you have a different meaning for. Isn’t the rich man in a fire? How is that not torture? And why should one be tormented/tortured because in life he received good things? Does that mean that those who get rewarded for overcoming also go to hell?
The question wasn’t about purgatory but about Lewis’s idea of hell.
You have to remember that the original topic was God being asked for release from suffering that he himself has caused.
In fact it’s more or less an ad hominem argument: what X says is false because X is insane. It doesn’t even matter whether people do it, though in fact you’re the only one here who’s doing it. Everyone else, when accused, has explained that you have it backwards.
This whole “moved around like a puppet” think is yours and yours alone. It doesn’t describe anything that materialists think. And there’s no tacit request.
What is the self-existent reason that causes the reasoning process in your mind, specifically? If it’s God, doesn’t that make you a puppet?
Sure. Saying anything means you have a motive to say it. But saying you’re speculating doesn’t say what that motive is. Your logic is nonsensical.
Still backwards. People dismiss what you say because it’s wrong. One could go further to express an opinion on why you say wrong things, but what you’re claiming is the reverse of that. You are trying to claim that an ad hominem argument is valid, though apparently you eon’t think the ad hominem arguments you suppose people are making to you are not valid. Go figure.
But you don’t believe authorities. You believe some things some authorities say, but not others. How are you picking?
Sure, based on a host of other sources that say he did, often criticizing his prose style. What I trust is the repeated claim from independent, contemporary sources about matters of simple facts they could reasonably know.
And yet you reject your reliable sources when they say things you don’t like.
Yes, and the quotes are not evidence for that. They’re only evidence that the quoted people said, perhaps believed, that.
Not my standards. You are quoting claims, not arguments or evidence. Those are different things.
You have to read a little further into the paragraph, where the basic structure is explained. Briefly, person A has a bad quality, therefore his statements are untrue. That’s your thing. What other people are doing is saying that your statment is untrue, and that’s evidence for some bad quality of yours.
Only if you misunderstand what’s being said.
But I already acknowledge that I’m not omniscient, and so on, and that I’m not God. And I do it without depending on God. So what does depending on God have to do with that? And again, why does God want us to depend on him? What you say can’t be it.
Sorry, but it doesn’t. No idea where you got that.
I’ve done this several times. Please try to remember at least the core of the argument. Here we are again: natural selection isn’t random.
No, an unnecessarily complex machine wouldn’t be perfect. And then you appeal to mysterious, unknown reasons. Just more ways to avoid having to defend a claim.
What had you thought of? And why is it good for us not to be uppity?
So what about the rich man in the fire? And what about C.S. Lewis? Anyway, if you can’t know what to believe, why are you making claims?
That’s creepy. That’s tripping people so you can help them up again.
Ah, but that isn’t the materialist view. It’s your caricature. I was just showing that your caricature was silly. Still, it applies nicely to your idea, if you put the soul in the position of the puppeteer.
Ah, another likely apocryphal, third-hand gotcha. This isn’t helping you.
What is the soul, and how does it work? This is not something you have thought about, and you need to.
No, I’m not saying that. And causes don’t imply control, whatever you think that means. Causes are causes. My thoughts are the result of things happening in my brain. Sure. How is that different from your thoughts supposedly being the result of things happening in your soul? At least I can point to my brain, and we know that things happen in it, even something about what sorts of things. But you can do none of that for your supposed soul. Again, what in your soul causes your thoughts, and how does that work?
Doubtful that he does a lot of thinking about that. The process is likely just automatic. See a snake, yell “snake!” Calling that “reason” is stretching a point.
I always do. Just did, in fact. I showed your reasoning in this particular case to be wrong because it’s exactly backwards.
I did nothing of the sort. Backwards again. How can you not see this?
No, one unmistakably, irrefutably supernatural event would. “Arguably” is not close to sufficient. Chesterton isn’t helping you at all.
Find one and we’ll see.
More miracles from independent sources would. More miracles from you personally just makes your credibility lower.
How do you know? The only sources for these healings were written many years after the supposed fact by people who had not witnessed them. Anyway, we’re talking about the present. Most people who pray for healing are not healed, and yet it happens to you many times. Statistically unlikely.
You didn’t answer the second question, and I already knew what your answer to the first would be.
So I should sincerely address a prayer to “whoever might be there”? Can’t do that either. I think it’s necessary to start by half-believing, which I can’t do.
Then why doesn’t he? Why didn’t he give most of the world faith? (I presume faith in Krishna or Allah doesn’t count.)
No, they are not. Your response was just a repetition of your backwards claims. “We don’t believe you because you’re nuts” is ad hominem. “We think you’re nuts because you say absurd things” is not. See the difference?