On Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 10:52:48 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 7:08:27 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

....and yet, no single Christian has been able to actually move a whole
mountain by merely using their will power. If someone did, it wouldn't
go unnoticed, it would be clearly visible in seismographs all over the
world.

(1) Perhaps no one has that much faith.

If so, why does the Bible even suggests this? If faith beyond human
capability is required, then it is not possible for a human to do this.

Moses caused the Red Sea to part. Do you think he did this on his own?
He didn't. Faith is a principle of power, and that power comes from God.
And God doesn't do anything to satisfy someone's whim.

(2) Why would one who did have that much faith want to move a mountain.

You, yourself DO exercise restraint, don't you?

I do, but that doesn't mean everybody does. Why would anyone who is drunk
want to drive a car? They all know it is both very dangeous and illegal,
and most people refrain from doing it. But some people don't, and drive
drunk anyway.

Likewise, even if most people with faith enough to move a mountain would
refrain from doing it, some people wouldn't restrain from doing it. It's
a bit like e.g. distributing nuclear weapons to everyone under the motto
"Nukes don't kill people, people kill people". Most people would realize
that the nukes are very dangeous and would not detonate them. But it is
enough that only one or a few would detonate them for a great catastrophy
to occur. Most likely, people doing so would be strongly religious people
who believed they had "God's right" to do this to "destroy the infidels
and apostates"...

The faith to move mountains is based on righteousness, which is necessary
to receive power from God. No righteousness, no power, no mobile mountains.

Another example of exaggreated claims and false promises, this time from
the Bible itself.

However, you failed to answer the question: why is uncritical faith so
desireable?

Why do you believe true faith is blind?

Isn't that the very definition of faith? Trusting someone or something
without the tiniest bit of evidence...

Nope. True faith is believing in what is true.

Need I say more than this?

I already said it: All translations of the Bible that we have today have
been influenced by the translators. Also, the Bible uses simile, rhetoric
and metaphors. You claim "moving mountains" is exaggeration yet you now
demand literalness :-)

If so, why do you quote the bible yourself from time to time? You know
these quotes have been influenced by the translators (and I would add
also by the original authors) and therefore are corrupt.

There are basic truths in the Bible and there are errors. And people
misunderstand the truths and some cling to the errors. The Old Testament
had prophets to guide the people and Jesus corrected the religious rulers
who were teaching false doctrine. So you bring up a good point: Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes. Who will correct the people today?

And how do you even manage to form your own religious belief?

I believe that everyone that comes into the world has a sense of what's
right and wrong.

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" -- John 10:27

If YOU heard his voice, you would follow him too.

All of today's churches are corrupt, you say, because they don't follow
the Bible.

I didn't say that. I said ALMOST all do not teach the full truth.

But even if they followed the ible, that wouldn't make much of a
difference since even the Bible itself is corrupt.

You are conflating having errors with rottenness.

Still, you don't want to be "arrogant" against God's commands. But how do
you even know what God's commands are? You think all available sources to
them are corrupt, don't you?

No.

Carl Sagan, in his TV series "Cosmos" of the 1980's, gave an interesting
explanation for this. Near-death experiences often share some common
things, such as pushing yourself through a narrow tunnel and then
emerging into light were friendly beings of light are nice to you and
take care of you. Sagan suggests that this actually is a vague
recollection of an experience that all humans have - the experience of
birth!

Of course, that's just an opinion. If birth is such a great experience,
why do babies cry when they're born? Maybe it's because they just LEFT
a happy, friendly world and they have been cast out into the cruel world.

Babies cry to draw their very first breath of air.

My first child cried her eyes out for WEEKS.

I never said one's birth is all-through a pleasant experience. Being
born is probably just as painful as giving birth to a child (ask any
mother you know how that feels). Being hungry is not pleasant but
forces you to become active to get food so you don't starve to death.
Most diseases are not enjoyable - some are just more or less uncomfortable
while others are really painful.

In short, pain is part of life. And staying in your mother's womb to
avoid getting born into the cruel world is no option - quite soon your
mother and yourself would both die. If your mother dies first you will di
from lack of oxygen - is that a pleasant death?

Anyway, events in your life which you remember are not only pleasant
events. You will also remember unpleasant, or outright painful, events.

One tends to forget unpleasant experiences. Not carrying grudges is not
so much a virtue with me as a sign of a poor memory.

So maybe NDEs are a recollection of the world of spirits that they just
left, implying that there was such a world :-)

Is spirituality really a desire to re-enter your mother's womb? ;-)

Non sequitur.

Nah ... all of them were humans, with human waknesses, weren't they?

Yes, but some had more inspiration from God than others.

That's your belief, but you don't know that. You can only have faith ( =
uncritical belief ).

True faith is belief in things that are true.

We already have this extra CO2. Several scientists believe this
dosn't merely cancel any future "little ice age" but perhaps even
the next major ice age. Which of course is a good thing, if the human
civilization survives the heat wave in between.

I don't think focusing on the wrong cause helps survival.

I agree. The focus should be to avoid the heat wave in some 50-100 years
and not to avoid an ice age 100 times farther into the future.

This may be unavoidable;

"For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud,
yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh
shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them
neither root nor branch." -- Malachi 4:1

And your modtran results disagree significantly from empirical data...

And that's probably because CO2 isn't the main reason why global warming
is occurring.

Any idea what that extra warming is coming from then?

I wonder if we're having more cloudiness and humidity today than in the
past. CLoudiness would have a long-term cooling effect but a short-term
warming effect, and higher humidity would have a greater greenhouse effect.

https://www.climate.gov/news-feature...imate-humidity

"most regions experienced moister-than-average atmospheric conditions (in 2013
than in 1981-2010) including the midlatitude northern Pacific and northern
Atlantic, Southeast Asia, and most of tropical Africa."

Thus a larger greenhouse effect, which will warm the oceans and produce
more moisture in the atmosphere.

I'm just mimicing your way to argue, to (hopefully) make you realize
that it is flawed.

Your argument is flawed. There IS evidence that the earth is not flat,
and there IS evidence that there is a spirit which leaves the body at
death. The latter doesn't have near the confidence level as the former,
of course, but it's still data.

Precisely! It's the huge difference in confidence levens which is the
reason for different conclusions.

Millions of people have experienced NDEs. THEY are VERY confident about
life after death. Perhaps doubters should try for an experience rather
than doubt. After all, that's the scientific method :-)

Well, that's even worse for you.

No, it's not. It just demonstrates that CO2 is not the major cause
of GW.

Since you believe modtran is so flawless, can you suggest an alternative
reason for the excess heating?

See above response.

A rise in CO2 levels of somewhat less than 50% (280 ppm pre-industrial
to 410 ppm current) gives a temperature increase of 1.4 degrees, while
modtran says that an 100% in CO2 gives a temperature rise of 1.11
degrees.

"You still refuse to face the truth" -- J. J. Adams to Dr. Morbius

If modtran is as accurate as you claim, how do you explain this
discrepancy?

Why do you keep repeating the question when I have answered it?

I repeated it before you answered, silly. Now you've told me you think
that the excess warming has some other cause than rising CO2 levels. So
please explain these two things:

(1) What other cause would this be?

See above response.

(2) Why is this other cause in perfect synchronisation with the rising
CO2 levels?

Correlation does not confirm causation.

Again, that's even worse for you: a CO2 increase of 31% yields a
temperature rise of 1.4 degrees, while modtran claims a 100% rise in CO2
gives a temperature increase of 1.11 degrees. Why this discrepancy?

You still refuse to face the truth

I see you've found a new religion - it's MODTRAN. Well, I don't share
your faith that MODTRAN is the absolute flawless truth...

Of course it isn't flawless. There are studies on this, but it actually
works and gives excellent results.

And if I did, I would probably end up with the same result as you.
And we would **still** have a big discrepancy between modtran
calculations and empirical data.

When this happens to REAL scientists who have models with proven accuracy,
they start looking for other causes. Poor scientists just bang their
heads against a wall.

So why don't you help them by suggesting what this other cause might be?
And why this other cause is in perfect synchronisation with rising CO2
levels?

Perhaps CO2 levels are a result of GW and not a cause. Or they may be
independent. Modtran suggests that CO2 is only partly responsible for GW.

And will God send all the members of those majority of churches which
are wrong to hell because they are wrong?

Have you even LOOKED at some of those NDE reports? Did you find any of
that kind of rhetoric there?

The word "catholic" really means "universal doctrine". Orthodox churches
sometimes refer to themselves as "Roman Catholic" churches. They call
themselves "Roman" because they refer to "East Rome" i.e. Constantinople
(which became the capital of the Roman Empire around AD 300, and after
the split of the Roman Empire, the East Roman Empire survived the West
Roman Empire by almost 1000 years). And they call themselves "Catholic"
because they believe that their doctrine applies universally to all
Christians.
So we have two differnet "Roman Catholic" churches. Confusing, isn't it?

And so there is no such thing as "universal doctrine." Thank you for\
making my point.

True. But there are several claims for a "universal doctrine". And one
"universal doctrine" could be expected from one single God, couldn't it?

Man doesn't necessarily obey God.

But if we give up the idea of one single God, and instead view
Christianity as a method for several gorernments in the world to dominate
the other governments, then it becomes quite natural that several
mutually different and mutually competing, "universal doctrines" co-exist.

You're forgetting this:

"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee,
that they also may be one in us" -- John 17:21