So I’ve decided to bring the “Kathy” series to an end. However, we’ve had some fun in those threads when the conversation has gone off into interesting tangents, so I’d like to keep that part of it going for anyone who’s interested. These new threads will no longer focus on Kathy or the things we were discussing with her. So thanks for your time, Kathy! Take care.
There are no real rules for these threads. But to kick off the conversation, I’ll go back to the discussion on Paul that a few of us were having. Laurie views Deut 13 as a prophecy about Paul, so why don’t we take a quick look at it?
“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.
12 “If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you to dwell there, 13 that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, 14 then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you, 15 you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. 16 You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again. 17 None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers, 18 if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.
I can see how one could apply this to Paul. However, I can also see how Jews could have applied it to Jesus as well, especially if he was claiming divinity for himself. And I’m sure this could have applied to lots of people during Israel’s history. Why should we think it’s pointing to Paul specifically, and why wouldn’t it also apply to Jesus?
Finding Truth 
“Up until a certain point, it had truly been enlightening … and definitely mentally stimulating. But now we’re back to the same-old, same-old. *frustrated sigh*
I agree Nan. I stopped participating in Nate’s 3,4 & 5 Kathy posts for this very reason. Now it’s back to this and it’s very unproductive. “Frustrated sigh” is right.
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“He did it to save you from righteous judgment.” – if that’s the only way he could think of to do that, I’d have to say his imagination is extremely limited.
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“I only want to debate the points.. and if you want to make personal accusations, that’s fine.. but back them up.. in the right context.. which you omitted earlier.” – kathy
I’m too lazy to copy and paste thousands of comments – let these threads serve as evidence. Rereading them may do good.
And kathy, no one likes be called names, I get that. I would say i’m sorry for the part I’ve taken, but since you’re the one who’s dodged the points and refused to answer questions and has called names again and again and assigned negative motives to others, then i dont really feel bad for it – in fact, i feel like I’ve been fairly restrained.
dont throw rocks from a glass house, is all i know to say to you – other than try following your savior’s golden rule. it’s a good one and if his own believers refuse to live it, then why on earth would you criticize anyone else for not?
This is a small thing, but why not try having a discussion instead of a debate?
I have asked you repeatedly for more evidences other than the 5 I keep seeing you referenced. I and others have addressed each of those many, many times while asking you if we’ve missed any more. you provide none.
I have repeatedly asked you to clarify your question about which religion had more credentials for being true. We answered it many times, but you dont like the answers. You even said that you werent asking which was truer in the sense of it’s claims of divine origins. I have asked in what other way do you mean “true” then – you have yet to answer.
Most recently Portal asked “what would make you stop believing in god,” and i doubt you;ll try to answer that either.
so without your refusal to add anything new or substantial to the table, we’re forced to keep addressing the same poor points of yours, if we’re going to address them at all.
what questions would you like answered that you feel were avoided or unaddressed? Please list them numerically, to help prevent them from be overlooked again.
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No, don’t list a whole ton of questions, Kathy. William has made points about your 5 “evidences” numerous times. If you want to keep commenting here, then start by addressing the 1st of his points. Not all 5 at once — let’s keep this in manageable chunks.
To everyone else, please don’t get too frustrated. If Kathy comes to the table for an actual discussion, great! We’d all enjoy that. If not, then I’ll ask her to stop participating. Either way, we’ll be getting back to something substantial very soon.
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Oh William! Puleeeze … don’t ask her again! Don’t you know how hopeless it is by now???
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What Nate said:
I love this thought experiment! I may have to use it one day, and I’ll cite you.
There has been only twice in my life that I thought something occurred might actually be a miracle. One I can’t talk about. The other, well actually it wasn’t so much a miracle now that I think about it. It was a very lucid dream. Of course, dreams are natural phenomena, but the contents are what can be so odd and lucid that it seems like it was placed in your head by an outside force.
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Ah, thanks Brandon! 🙂
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Of course, dreams are natural phenomena, but the contents are what can be so odd and lucid that it seems like it was placed in your head by an outside force.
Either I don’t dream very much or I can’t ever remember what I’ve dreamed. I’ll wake up and know that I definitely dreamed something but have no idea what. The ones I can remember are usually very strange – way out there – but I’ve never felt impressed that these were the work of some outside force. Maybe just some bad pork? 😉
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@Arch,
Thanks for that recommendation Arch. I just added it to my bookmarks of must reads.
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“Is there a nicer way that I’ve implemented to point out that I don’t feel you are being honest on certain things? Please tell me.. – kathy
is there a nicer way to say that you’re completely removed from reality and utterly devoid of anything resembling rational thought?
maybe somethings are better left unsaid as they don’t help the points you’re making and really only serve to ensure your better points are missed (if any exist).
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“Is there a nicer way that I’ve implemented to point out that I don’t feel you are being honest on certain things? Please tell me.. – kathy
is there a nicer way to say that you’re completely removed from reality and utterly devoid of anything resembling rational thought? – William
I feel quite confident that Kathy is well aware there’s a nicer way to have a discussion. She has repeatedly said she’s not after discussion. She doesn’t want to chat. She wants to debate and has somehow gotten the impression that all blogs and comment sections are for precisely that purpose. Another erroneous assumption.
She has repeatedly said she isn’t interested in being nice. She’s saving lives by being confrontational.
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And, no, I’m not going to go back through all of these comments and copy and paste the words of other people to “back up” my conclusions. All the words from over 5000 comments are there for all to see.
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and I’d rather not discuss the merits of martyrdom or review the conclusions that can be drawn from it.
If kathy wants to add some new insights to those 5 points of her’s, then okay, but I don’t want to go back through same ole crap. If she had something new to bring up, a point number 6 or 7, then i don’t mind kicking that around for awhile, but think we all suspect that she has nothing else.
I only ask her to debunk her claims that no one wants to engage her. Not only is that completely false, asking her for more info further illustrates that it is she who is the guilty party when she refuses to address it.
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“I see things on a larger scale.. these are the very same things that go on with world leaders and in our own government.. and that’s why we don’t have progress and peace.” – she sees thing we don’t, does that sound like pride and ego to anyone but me?
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More importantly, how does she see things that “go on with world leaders and in our own government”? Does she have inside spies that report back to her? Or does she read the same news reports as everyone else and makes her own evaluations/assumptions?
Bright idea! Maybe we should elect Kathy as our president so she can bring progress and peace!
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“– she sees thing we don’t, does that sound like pride and ego to anyone but me?”
it sounds like Kurt Russell and his colleagues of Kung Fu Asian Dudes from “Big Trouble, Little China”
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Excellent movie!
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@Nan,
I’d like to jump in here because I think these are very cool questions (or points – I’ve heard it said that 90% of questions are really assertions. 😉 ). I’ve given a lot of thought to these questions and I totally agree that in the blogosphere we seem to be stuck on the Christian concepts. I always wish there were people of many different worldviews in here in the discussion because I love getting to understand different points of view, and I believe many could benefit from such a thing. But the practical matter is that most of the English speaking world is familiar with Christianity, and on top of that it tends to be one of the most proselytizing of beliefs (has anyone ever tried to convert you to Judaism?). Given these 2 things I think we’re stuck with what we’ve got.
I have actually tried to answer that question in the last post that I wrote on my blog. By the way, I reserve 99+% confidence levels only to things that are very clear – things like “if I stick my hand in fire it will hurt.” But even so, when it comes to the fundamentalist Christian concept of God I would probably put it somewhere in the 90’s as far as my confidence in non-existence. Of course Dave’s point is very well taken that “supernatural” things may be outside of even being able to put a probability number on it – I’ve often wondered whether “inscrutable” is the right word for it. But there is also a difference between a personal confidence number and an actual probability calculation.
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Interesting article: If Jesus Never Existed, Religion May Be Fiction. Neuro should be particularly interested in Sri Kumare.
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Arch’s mention of Sri Kumare is worth noticing. I watched the movie “Kumare” about a year ago and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in ultimate questions and belief.
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Stephen Hawking makes it clear: There is no God
He does admit, however – for all you “furriners” out there – that his new voice synthesizer, with an American accent, makes it a lot easier to pick up chicks.
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@Howie
I know this wasn’t directed at me, but I was wondering if you could explain the problem a little more. You implied that if everyone knew that God existed that the problem would be solved. There are people who do express high certainty in the existence of God. Alvin Plantinga says God is a real to him as a tree! Is it that not everyone has this level of confidence? Or is it that the omni- traits or some other trait is key to the problem of hiddenness?
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I recommend against watching Kumare because his stupid song will get stuck in your head! 🙂
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@Brandon – Yes, it is that not everyone has that confidence. Actually it’s a lot worse than that. A very high number of people do not have that confidence. And it’s not just the generic God, but a particular God, because that specificity is required according to mainline evangelical Christianity.
A small percentage of people in the world have this very high confidence that this specific God exists. Many Christians even concede this.
One way to solve this is to say that the Christian God is not interested in a relationship with all humans, and in fact that he is only interested in relationship with a small number of them. That would solve why he is hidden. But it does not solve the problem that he would punish those he has not revealed himself to.
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So true Brandon! 😀 Still worth it though if the volume is turned down during the singing. 🙂
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