Citing facts not in evidence is only digging yourself a deeper hole.

I can't deal with people who don't read the thread.

Seriously, if you EVER want to even have a discussion with me, you have to stop this "just asking questions" bullcrap. MAKE YOUR DAMN ARGUMENT.

Claim: lawdude has not presented an actual argument.

Argument: If lawdude had, he would quoted it by now.

Conclusion: lawdude has not presented an actual argument.

What is the real point?

It can't be this, because the conclusion does not follow from the premises (see Ancient Rome).

Aaron and Concerto:

Every time you focus on what *I* said rather than what *YOU* think, you make my point for me.

I missed the part of the New Testament where Jesus instructed you two to go out and be Internet trolls.

Again, *MAKE YOUR DAMNED ARGUMENT*.

You are pretending I argued a syllogism. I didn't.

And that's good, because syllogisms may make formal logicians smile, but they don't give you any new knowledge.

There is no argument except God works in mysterious ways or is camera shy.

According to convention, the first post in a thread sets up the topic for discussion. An unclear and convoluted OP is a great way to cause just this sort of multi-page exercise in clarification.

There's no "clarification", Concerto. You and Aaron are the only ones in the whole thread who are pretending not to understand the argument.

What this is is a threadjack by two people who don't want to talk about the actual point.

I see two issues here. But I'll admit I'm not the most well versed in the doctrine, so I apologize if I'm wrong about the following.

First, for what you're saying to hold regarding Jesus being sent at a sub-optimal time, you're assuming that your cost-benefit analysis is stronger than that of God's. If you accept as a given his infinite wisdom and all that jazz, that's not a great thing to fall back on.

Second, you're making some strong assumptions about what God wants (saving as many souls as possible, have the highest possible percentage of humans join him in Heaven, etc). This is where I could be wrong, but I don't think this is as obvious as you make it seem. God sometimes punishes, and sometimes has reasons for not doing things that seem to make sense to us, etc.

I think if you're steadfast and 100% sure that God didn't send Jesus at an optimal time, you can use that as evidence against the existence of an infinitely wise Christian God. Though I think a Christian scholar would say it's equally as likely (if not far more likely/certain) that God understands the big picture better than you. Although I admit it's unfalsifiable and not a pretty answer.

If you'd rather accept that his motivation isn't salvation for as many people as possible, maybe you can resent him for that. But while that may be a good reason not to worship him, it's not great evidence against his existence.

Edit: I should note that none of this is good evidence for the existence of God. I just don't think the arguments being presented are good evidence against his existence.

They have nothing.

And the actual point is...?

Is this it?

"Pics or it didn't happen."

Thomas Paine, one of the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution, wrote “All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe”.

Thomas Jefferson, principle author of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, edited a version of the Bible in which he removed sections of the New Testament containing supernatural aspects as well as perceived misinterpretations he believed had been added by the Four Evangelists.

Robert Ingersoll wrote, "Not 20 people were convinced by the reported miracles of Christ, and yet people of the nineteenth century were coolly asked to be convinced on hearsay by miracles which those who are supposed to have seen them refused to credit."

John Adams, second President of the United States, wrote, "The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"

Elbert Hubbard, American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher, wrote "A miracle is an event described by those to whom it was told by people who did not see it."

American Revolutionary War patriot and hero Ethan Allen wrote "In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue."

Apparently these quotes are in aid of an oh so clever point, but what is it?

1) Yeshua needed to arrive before the destruction of the temple and then was "cut off". Perhaps in any "possible world", that destruction would occur around 70 CE. Even before Yeshua arrived, a "voice in the wilderness" needed to be prepared.

2) Around the first century CE, writing was starting to be preserved in more common ways: e.g., Pauline epistles. Perhaps around that time, the "written word" was given much more respect than it does now.

3) There may have been some urgency, for we don't know what it means for a non-Jew before the time of Yeshua to "believe": e.g., around the first century, there were many "other gods". There were also Jews among the "lost tribes" of Israel who may have thought they had irrevocably broken the covenant and no longer had any of the promises; these people had to be reassured of a renewed and better covenant.

4) There's no reason to believe just because a human being thinks "G-d" ought to act in a specific way, is it necessarily the case that He does. Human beings often arrive at erroneous conclusions based on assumptions that do not necessarily hold.

amen thomas.

As always, very well said, +1

Wat?

Atheists on this board have been saying things like this non-stop for at least the past couple of years that I have read this forum, and you have done nothing but scream and throw your toys all over the room in response until now.

This misses the point entirely. The issue wasn't that there are asserted theological "reasons" for the time allegedly chosen by God/Jesus to come; it's that they just happened to pick the exact same time period (after recorded history, but before technologies that allowed for more reliable recordation of events) where someone fabricating or misremembering an event would place the event in history so that there was no way to verify the claim. And then, it is asserted that this (or this + 1 other appearance in the Americas) was the only time he came, with no appearance after verifiability.

Note that this argument says little about God's motives. I suppose I do, in the end, think it is utter crap that God would play hide and seek with us, but it is not really a large part of my argument and you can make my argument perfectly well without that element. Rather, the argument is premised on the fact that this pattern-- divine appearances and miracles when there was no technology to ensure accurate and verifiable reporting, no divine appearances and miracles when the technology improved-- is exactly what you would expect to see if the thing was a fraud or there was no personal God. Whereas if there is a God, it requires a bunch of convoluted theological explanations to get around the issue. Which is evidence that the story is, in the end, false.

Really? It doesn't seem odd to you that god designed humans to live for ~25 years (modern medicine increased it) and would only pop in to say "Hey, how are things going?" once every 200,000 years? That really doesn't seem odd, or dare I say, neglectful?

The best we could say in such a case is that god is the best dead beat dad there ever was.

i wish more christians thought jesus might not come back for 200,000 years. rather than telling me about all of the signs pointing to jesus imminent return very soon.

the signs are all there!!

Actually, a thread collecting all the good reasons why God isn't worthy of worship even if She exists would be a great idea.