Food for Thought: A Discourse on Deities

[Aldin]

@Dysole Thanks! I also value and appreciate what you have to say whether or not I find
myself in agreement.

As for you, JS... It's good to hear you are well. Things are proceeding happily on my end. My oldest is officially an adult now and graduating high school in a couple of weeks. That is... weird... but good, if that makes any sense.

I think I'm going to abandon trying to quote that entire thing in my response. Let's see if I can address everything:

I won't quibble about omnipresence. I think it's important to your argument, but it doesn't have an effect on my response since I assume it anyway.

And now time for a short comedy break:

YouTube

Forced belief and choice of belief are irreconcilable. If choice of belief is a necessary component of the desired end result, then belief can not be compelled as part of the process. The ability to compel belief is irrelevant at that point.

I would say that God has provided ample evidence of His existence in the observable world. It is not at all difficult to believe in some sort of higher power. As @leftonforya noted, most people do. So if the question is whether or not God has provided enough evidence to allow a reasonable person to believe in Him, the answer, based on general belief in a higher power, would seem to be yes. At that point, we're simply trying to determine if that higher power which has left sufficient evidence for belief to exist is the God of the Bible.

The claim that we can understand God is interesting. Clearly I would agree we can understand Him in part, but not in full. If that is an argument from ignorance, then all science is an argument from ignorance since we do not fully understand science. If we cannot fully understand science, how could we possibly fully understand the God who created it?

And as with science, there are things that I think we have a better handle on as it relates to God and things that are pretty difficult to even approach. His all-loving nature is something I think we have trouble with. Mostly, I think this is because of perspective. I would say we tend to think of love in terms of feeling loved when someone behaves towards us in a way that makes us feel good. I would imagine that God works toward the greatest ultimate good as defined by Him in a way that is not completely knowable to us. At the same time, I do believe He works very personally with those who have a relationship with Him to provide comfort, hope, and all the other "feel goods" we tend to associate with being loved.

I think that should adequately cover everything up to...

The Roman Catholic church. So here's the thing, I genuinely believe Roman Catholics can be Christians. I also think there's a lot of Roman Catholicism that isn't particularly Biblical. The traditions and add-ons of the Roman Catholic church are not something I would care to defend as important to Christianity, and in many cases are probably detrimental to the pursuit of a relationship with God.

I wouldn't really bring the point up for discussion except that I think the trip you are going on seems likely to be fruitless to me because I believe the Roman Catholic church is a bit off track when it comes to the miracle sites, holy relics, saints, popes, and other worldly touchstones that don't have a strong Biblical basis. So I don't really want to talk Roman Catholicism, except to say I won't defend it whereas I will defend Christianity.

And I will add you to my list of formerly religious friends who have found something about the God of the Bible that they don't like since you mention it. Tell me, if He does exist, do you want a relationship with Him as He is revealed to be in the Bible?

~Aldin, askingly