How is this to be interpreted if it isn’t “protesting anything”?

As far as filters, see my post above.

If all the gods of men supposedly do things and therefore should be detectable, then what other gods are there bedsides philosophical ones which hide their presence and are not detectable?

Take the germ theory. One doesn’t need to understand microorganisms to understand contagion. Yet there is more attention paid to washing feet than to washing hands. Both may have been important, but hand washing most certainly was.

To think men of the time the Bible was written couldn’t comprehend the Earth moving around the Sun but they could comprehend the Sun moving across the sky seems a stretch. How hard would it be to look at light shining on a ball and showing that was the same thing happening with the Moon? To acknowledge people in distant lands shouldn’t have been hard.

The claim it must have been a god telling people something they weren’t ready to understand sounds good until you look more closely at the actual details.

Perhaps I do, but I doubt I’m the only one, given that people seem to mean different things by that word. For instance, does omnipotence include the power to violate logical impossibilities – the old “could God make a rock so large he couldn’t move it?” argument.

>An omnipotent entity could walk on water simply because it wills it – quantum states and intermolecular cohesion notwithstanding. The process by which it happens would be undiscoverable because there would be no process.

I see my example was misleading. Skeptigirl saw my point. Whatever actions God takes in the world are discernable in the world. If God cures and amputee by growing a limb back, then there’s a limb on a person where there previously wasn’t one. We may not be able to discern the process, there may not be a process we can understand, but the changed condition of the world is present for study.

Evolving Squid Said:
>First and foremost, if god is omnipotent, he’d already know the strength of the faith of the sacrificer, so at best this is a wasteful act.

I think you mean “omniscient”. All knowing is different from all powerful.

Christian Burnham said:
>Not sure that you’re right. A truly omnipotent God could do all sorts of things to make herself untestable. She could make you suddenly want to eat ice-cream instead of investigating her actions. She could make any scientist fall down a mine-shaft- or change the data in their notebooks etc. etc.

I did explicitly state that the God had to be willing to stand around and perform on cue. There are plenty of ways the God could prevent testing. My example was intended to look at how to measure effects in the world. Perhaps it wasn’t a great example.

As a rather poor taste joke I once heard goes :

Moses comes back down from the Mountain and talks with Aaron .. Aaron hears him out, pauses a bit, knocks back some wine then says :

“Okay Moses, tell me again, the Arabs get all the oil and we have to cut the ends off our *WHAT*!!??”

Actually the most repulsive things in the Bible seem to come in the Old Testament with all this “Chosen People” and “Promised land” stuff ..very convenient. Worst of all as faras I’m concerned is that God actually commands the Israelites to committ genocide against the Canaanites, Amalekites and others. Perhaps that’s where modern Israel gets its ideas on what to do with the Palestineans?

Not to mention the story of internal Jewish warfare against the tribe of Benjamin sparked by a gang rape and murder of a young slave girl, theJewish warrior Jeptah sacrificing his own daughter -yes, human sacrifice to to Yahwah – and the apparently condoned incest of Lot with his daughters .. (Most of that is in ‘The Book of Judges’ somewhere if you want to check on me.)

Then there are the nice little commands of love, tolerance and impossibility to get right like : “Thall Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live” which when you combine it with ‘Thall Shalt Not Kill” means Divine Catch-22 : Killing a witch violates the commandmant, not killing her does the same and so .. AARGGH!!!

When you actually think and read the Bible its really a pretty sick book – Focused on a “Good and Merciful” God that deliberately selects ten tribes over everyone else, orders them to commit genocide, punishes people left right and centre for the smallest offences (Lot’s Wife, Jepath) describes Himself as jealous and on at least one occassion decides to kill everyone except one small family of fanatics (Noah akla Utnaptishtim) Oh and to top it off and save everything, he deliberately subjects his only son to torture, humiliation and the most brutal form of capital punishment.

Well excuse me for being objective & rational about beloved mythology but if God really is that Merciful and Good you’d think He’d find a better way and do things a bit differently wouldn’t you?

Yet you have people praying in the name of that sort of God or their belief of that sort of God and finding themselves and their beliefs “moral” and thinking they’re so superior to those who say worship nature or nothing at all ..

Just like in US politics where a consensual sexual affair by one President is considered grounds for impeachment but lying the nation’s way into a needless, bloody war that destroys a nation and kills hundreds of thousands of innocent people is all a-ok….

Its the same mob of people each time folks and they’re the ones praying here and running your country -and, pretty much, the rest of the world. Like it or not. I don’t care if people pray but I sure do hope enough sane people VOTE to change the course we’re headed in.

Funny world, funny species, funny beliefs.
———
“We’re just bright, pink-faced baboons
Inside we’re all dark
MWah-haa
But we can reach for the Moon!”
-Sabotaged song lyrics to the tune of & with apologies to ‘Roxette’s ‘Fine June Afternoon’ song.

As a ratherpoor taste joke I once heard goes :

Moses comes back down from the Mountain and talks withAaron .. Aaron heras him out, pauses a bit, knocks back some wine then says : “Okay Moses, tell me again the Arabs get all the oil and we have to cut the ends off our *What*!!??”

Actually the most repulsive things in the Bible seem to come in the Old Testament with all this “Chosen People” and “Promised land” stuff ..very convenient and God actuallys commands the Isrealites to committ genocide against the Canaanites and others. Not tomentionthestory of interanl Jewish warfare against tehtribe of Benjamina sparke dbya gangrape and murde of ayoung slave girl and the apparently condoned incest of Lotwith his daughters ..

Then there are the nice little commands of love, tolerance and impossibility to get right like : “Thall Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live” which when youccombine it with ‘Thall Shalt NotKill” means you’re prettymuch stuffed – kiling a witch violates the commandmant, not killing her doe stehsame and so .. AARGGH!!!

When you actually think and read the Bible its really a pretty sick book – Focused on a “Good and Merciful” God that deliberately selects ten tribes over everyone else, orders them to commit genocide, punishes people left right and centre for the smallest offences (Lot’s Wife, Jepath) describe sHimself as jealous and onatleast one occassion decides tokill everyone except one small family of fanatics (Noah akla Utnaptishtim) Yet you have people praying in the name of that sort of God or their belief of that sort of God and finding themselves “moral” and thinking they’re so superior to those who say worship nature or nothing at all .. Funnyworld, funny species
———
“We’re just fine pink-faced baboons
Inside we’re all dark MWah-haa
But we can reach for the Moon!”

-Sabotaged song lyrics to the tune of & with apologies to ‘Roxette’s ‘Fine June Afternoon’ song.