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 Jason:
 Redone: What do you mean "it proves nothing"? God, that is Jesus  Christ,
is a
personal God and He acts on a personal level, as well as public. It might
not prove it to *you* specifically because it's not your experience, but it
does prove that God does work in individual lives.

POOBAH (past)
Fallacy of special pleading. Jason would not accept such arguments for
Allah, Vishnu, et. al.

STB
Would you accept them Poobah?  I venture not.  So you and Jason agree on
that.

POOBAH
Of course I wouldn't Shawn, and that's why Jason commits the fallacy of
special pleading, because he advances an argument for his god that he would
not accept if applied to a different criteria.

There's the old saying that the only difference between an atheist and a
monotheist is that the atheist just doesn't believe in one more god.

POOBAH (past)
Fallacy of false analogy. Murder/rape/love/depression, or the effects
thereof, can all be objectively witnessed. Jason's personal god, on the
other hand cannot.

STB
What if someone experienced an encounter?  Say a miracle?  What if I told
you I had a degenerative disease in my bones and was healed?  And the
bone actually shrank back in its place.  That was observable by numerous
family, friends and doctors.  I prayed that God would heal me.  Why me?
Don't know.  But he did.

POOBAH
Just because an event is not explainable in medical terms doesn't mean it is
miraculous. There are many examples of spontaneous remission of these types
of disorders in medical lore. I have no idea why it occurs. Neither do you.

The problem again, of course, is that this still in all likelihood results
in an argument of special pleading. If a Hindu holy man causes a miraculous
cure, would that convince you of the existence of Vishnu? I am afraid if I
accept the criteria you provide, I am left accepting any & all religions,
since "miracles" seem part & parcel of just about all of them. As the saying
goes, that which proves too much proves nothing.

I've read recently about more than one young child in India who recalls a
past life in eerie detail; does this prove to you the existence of
reincarnation? Why or why not?

While Christians see the face of Jesus in clouds, tortillas, on billboards
and in varnish, Muslims see the name of Allah in pomegranates and on
sneakers. What am I left to conclude?

STB
I believe that creation is another way of seeing God, or at least His works.
I just can't believe it happened by chance.  It's far too perfect.

POOBAH
Well you haven't studied creation or probability very much. As many have
pointed out, the wiring of the optic nerve and the sinuses to name a couple
that show the imperfection of our design. Your own religion calls this an
imperfect  or fallen universe. The problem of evil gives a lie to the notion
of perfection.

Even if I concede a first cause (which I don't), the fact that there are
beautiful sunsets, planck constants, et. al. is quite away form showing that
a bronze-age tribal war-god named Jehovah is behind it all.

Which is the point of this group; not arguing about presuppositions, not
arguing about evolution, first causes, but the question of whether the bible
is correct in all of its details. Do you have anything to offer on that
subject?

How about this question: Did God cause the Israelites to sacrifice their
children - yes or no? See Ez20 & Jer7.

POOBAH
Fallacy of affirmation of the consequence. While it is true that if  nothing
is absolute then morals are not absolute, it does not follow that if morals
are not absolute then nothing is.

STB
What are some examples of absolute truth?

POOBAH
It is irrelevant to my argument; there may or may not be absolute truths,
but it doesn't change the fact that his argument is not logically sound. If
A then B does not say that if B then A.

Discussing absolute truths is off-topic for this list. Let's instead discuss
an issue of Biblical errancy. Would you like to tell us when the flood
occurred?

POOBAH
Does anyone think that Jason will put forward even a single argument that
doesn't contain one or more logical fallacies? I'll wager that he is
incapable of doing so.

STB
He is doing ok  :-)  But I am biased.

POOBAH
The question is not whether he is doing okay; the question is whether he has
presented a logical argument. Nothing you presented above refuted my
explanations for why each & every one of his arguments is illogical. This
isn't the first time that Jason has dazzled us with his lack of critical
thought.

If by doing okay you mean that you think that Jason is presenting sound
arguments, well, the fact that you would think so shows that you have no
idea what you are talking about. None of his arguments are sound unless you
can show how I erred in my analysis.

But why don't you instead try to defend your Bible. Pick a topic. If you
don't like the two I suggested, I'm sure there are plenty of others here
that are happy to supply you with others.

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