That was not my question, I wasn’t asking you to list all possible wrong answers, you were claiming my answer does not address your challenges and questions, I need you now to defend your claim.
Well, lots of various rewards are listed for those who overcome, in Revelation 2-3, for example! Privileges, authority, and so on, too many to list here.
But you missed my question, somehow: How have I contradicted myself, for starters?
No, torture is really pejorative, but the rich man was in torment, specifically because in his life, he received his good things. Presumably now he is getting what he should have been getting by denying himself.
Here are my thoughts on purgatory, if you are interested, lots of Scripture, by the way! I agree that that my view is unusual, though.
Your example is quite different than my reasons, it is not a good analogy for what I said. “We are not omnipotent, we are not God” explains “we need help.”
I repeat this because it’s true! I even point out people applying this principle to what I say, in this thread. And nobody has demonstrated how what I say is untrue, instead they keep repeating their view, and I then try and address their view. But nobody actually has refuted my view, instead they give a flat denial, and then give a substitute.
Well, there is, people are being asked to treat the materialist’s argument as an argument like what people normally think they are doing themselves, where people consider that they are originating their argument, and they are not being moved around like a puppet.
Certainly, Henry Ford was not a car, I remarked to someone accusing me of being an essentialist.
A self-existent reason, is the answer that is the response that has been given by many. Which prevents an infinite regress.
Well, as I just mentioned in another reply, saying I’m speculating means I have a motive to speculate, such as wish-fulfillment, which someone accused me of here just recently. That would be pointing to a nonreasoning cause, as would saying I have an unthinking commitment to intelligent design, or that I’m stupid (someone did say that), and so on, I could present many examples of people dismissing what I say by pointing to an unreasoning cause.
Sure, we have to pick authorities to believe, with care.
How can you know Caesar wrote the book which he claimed to write, though? On authority, someone told you he wrote it, and it’s not pseudopigraphy. How do you know contemporary sources were not lying, and that he existed? You trust them as reliable authorities. I can do this with almost every claim of you examining evidence, I can get eventually to some appeal to authority.
I do distinguish them, I look for evidence that the person making a statement is reliable, and has training in the area of interest, and so on.
Really? When I quote people, I intend that to be evidence that their statements should be given serious consideration, for the reasons such as those mentioned above.
I’m tempted to apply your standard to your own statements, and call them just evidence that you hold this or that opinion.
Well, let’s go to Wikipedia: “Ad hominem (Latin for ‘to the person’), short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than the substance of the argument itself.”
“Obfuscation” would be attacking my character, people usually have an intent to obscure an issue when they do that, “contradicting myself” would be saying I am an oblivious person, who can’t see what he is doing, attacking a supposed attribute I have, and “wandering around at random” would be saying I am aimless, bereft of any good purpose, attacking my motives. And none of these statements address any actual arguments I have made.
I could point to many such examples directed at me in this forum…
Because it’s healthy for us to acknowledge we are not omniscient, and so on, we are not God, it’s sanity.
Your statement directly implies that the view that the causes of the delirious thoughts are illogical, is mistaken. And if they are not illogical, then they are logical.
I try and respond to your points, actually, and I don’t recall your response here. There is a lot of water under the bridge, here! And I can’t keep all the responses in my head.
A perfect machine might be unnecessarily complex, for example, in many applications, a three-wheel vehicle will do, or even a two-wheeler, four wheels may be more than is needed. But if you can afford it, buy a four-wheel ATM! So there may be tradeoffs we are unaware of in, say, making a particular flagellum or a cilium. Of which, may it be said, there are many types!
That’s a good reason, I hadn’t thought of that one!
Well, my view on that is a little different, I see three threads in scripture, eternal punishment, destruction of the wicked, and God “all in all”. Now how all these can be true, I don’t know, but there does seem to be good warrant in scripture for all three, and I don’t want to do what most people do, and pick one, and erase the others. I will additionally mention what I heard of one professor saying, “The people in Jesus’ day thought they had the first coming all figured out, and they were all wrong!” And they were.
One verse in reply, “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” (Rom.11:32) That’s one reason.
But I was applying that to the materialist view! So it applies to your view, not mine.
I could mention in passing Dawkins, in a debate with Lennox, presenting his prime objection to a Creator, asking “Who created your creator?” Lennox, in addition to replying that Christians believe in a self-existent, eternal God, turned the tables, and mentioned that Dawkins believed that the universe created him. So, Lennox asked, who created your creator? Still waiting for a response on that one…
They consider themselves real agents, though there is disagreement about metaphysics, such as a soul, or a mind outside the brain, and so on.
Are you saying now your thoughts are not generated ultimately just by the motions of atoms in your brain? Causes imply control. And I believe I mentioned to you to try telling a judge “my brain atoms did it!” and seeing how far that gets you.
He quite logically concludes there are snakes in the room, because he sees them. It’s logical to generally trust your perceptions. And the paranoid man is quite logical in not calling the police to help him, because of course, they are out to get him, too. Quite logical!
But you’re not pointing to my reasoning, or examining it at all! You’re pointing to the cause, I’m starting out confused, and because of that you dismiss what I say.
But as I mentioned, one arguably supernatural event undoes the whole materialist view.
“… if we examine the two vetoes we shall see that his is really much more of a pure veto than mine. The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. Poor Mr. McCabe is not allowed to retain even the tiniest imp, though it might be hiding in a pimpernel.” (Chesterton)
Well, they did a bunch of tests, one of which was a treadmill test, where the doctor kept saying “Save that!” Evidently something unusual was being observed. So I think it unlikely that I was misdiagnosed, as mentioned, any time I wanted, I could check my pulse and detect extra beats. Now I can’t, and the doctor firmly announced “You do not have mitral valve prolapse.” And an appeal to unknown recovery paths is dubious at best. I agree that any miracle can be dismissed as a confluence of extraordinary, or even unknown, natural causes. But it seems you are willing to take any escape route, no matter how improbable. So restoring limbs can be explained in the same sort of way, “Salamanders do it!” for example.
That’s a weird kind of refutation, especially after saying more miracles would be more convincing. But in Jesus’ day, people got healed a lot! And they weren’t some kind of special people. I know I’m not, so I recommend asking, I do know God can heal.
Well, Richard Lorenzo just prayed for the higher power to reveal himself! He didn’t put an address on the envelope. Keith Green pointed out that in his examination of different religions, everyone seemed to say Jesus was a way, and Jesus said he was the way. So he said, I think I’ll go with trying Jesus first. Just a couple of pointers…