Intellectual Lightweights: Vacula

I really enjoyed Vaculas response. Not only were his logical errors more humorous the 2nd time around, but it seems he read my post about typical skeptic responses and decided (unintentionally I'm sure) to provide us with some nice examples, which I will will be its own post in the future. At the present moment we'll deal with his response to me, which can be found here.

As I noted, I didn't argue that divine hiddenness serves as a defeater for belief in the Christian god, but rather responded to the defenses theists give to answer the problem. "Truth in Fighting," though, assumes this throughout the post - which is obviously problematic

Laughable and ironic since I never once said nor assumed that your argument is a defeater for God.  I was simply pointing out the holes on your argument.  Looks like the misunderstanding was on your part.

I would wager that engaging in more than fifteen personal attacks in one post while responding to someone's comments makes a person look really bad and would lead readers to not to even take the person seriously - and for good reason

Really just had to point this one out.  Another sensitive skeptic whining about how personal attacks is silly since these personal attacks backed by evidence.  Calling you ignorant and clueless is about as much as a personal attack as calling a tall man tall.  Both assertions are nothing more than statements made after observing the availae evidence.  I see a man who is 7 ft I call him tall.  I see a skeptic say ignorant things, I call him ignorant.  It's that simple.

I agree that the Bible doesn't describe God as all-loving. This is not, though, a problem for me, but rather the theists. The 'god concept' typically described to me is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing - and this is how many academic theists and Christian philosophers believe God to be. Some, like William Lane Craig, for example, profess that God is all-loving even in the face of slaughter. Others, particularly in problem of evil discussions, will try to argue that evil is needed for 'soul-building' and that we can know what good is. Some even argue that God has sufficient reasons, of course, for permitting evil and he still remains all-good. If the all-loving attribute were removed from God, the problem of evil wouldn't even be a problem; all-loving then, it seems means all-loving in the sense that most persons understand it.

You need to work on your reading comprehension Vacula.  I said the bible does not describe God as all loving if the definition of love is defined as "some sort of fuzzy, feel good, warm emotion." since the bible does not describe Gods love in said way and you have yet to provide a definition of the word love in a sense that most persons understand it, I'm going to just mark this as another failure for you.

This analogy fails; persons have good reason to believe that CEOs and military leaders exist. the belief that these persons exist is overwhelmingly reasonable while the belief in God, as theists would even admit, is not on par with belief that Wal-Mart has a CEO. The person applying to be a Wal-Mart worker or a solider additionally has no good reason to meet the CEO or military leaders before enlisting. I would wager, though, that persons should want to have good reasons to believe God exists before 'enlisting' in the Christian faith. I would get a job or enlist in the military not because I have sufficient warrant to believe that CEOs or military leaders exist, but rather because I want to make money, serve the country, etc.

 
This is about existence now? it's not about God hiding? is this more skeptic double standards? Vacula had absolutely no problems skipping the question of whether or not God exists and assuming His existence in order to ask why He is hidden from us.  It's pretty clear at this point that this whole 'divine hiddenness argument' assumes the existence of God.  Rather than questioning if God exists in the first place, Vacula already assumes His existence, then moves on to asserting that God ought to be morally compelled to reveal Himself.  We see the hypocrisy of Vacula in full swing here.  When he is criticizing God, its ok for him to assume His existence, but as soon as he is forced to defend his argument, he immediately decides that the assumed belief in God is inconvient to his argument and thus declares that the existence of God is now in question as there are no good reasons to believe He exists.
Secondly, the confirmed existence of the CEO/military leader is beside the point, since people enlist in the military and apply for jobs completely unaware that the CEO/military leader even exist. Only when applied to religion will you state the leader/CEO i.e. God, should make himself known before you decide to sign up. 

The thrust of the "Why doesn't God reveal himself to me" reasoning is that God ought to be morally compelled -- and for good reasons -- to reveal himself. A god who wants persons to believe he exists and knows that many people are killing each other because of religious differences should feel morally compelled to do so.

An all-powerful and all-knowing being, I would wager, should have a tremendous amount of moral responsibility - and much more so than humans do. If I were all-knowing and all-powerful and, at the same time, I wanted persons to believe I existed and knew that persons were killing each other because of me and I could prevent much of this by revealing myself, I would feel obliged to do so. Persons would be horrified to see me sitting at my computer, for example, doing nothing about this situation. If I should be compelled to reveal myself in this hypothetical scenario, why shouldn't God? After all, he should have much more moral responsibility.

Wait what? Vaculas argument  is entirely based on 'what he would do' if he were God.  Basically God is wrong for not acting how Vaculas would act if vacula himself were in that situation.   Sorry but 'what vacula would do'  is simply more bad logic and special pleading, since basing an argument off of 'what vacula would do' is no more logical than basing an argument off of 'what I would do,' or what 'billy graham would do'.

 Again, I'm not making this argument, but rather am posing a hypothetical. Perhaps, though, in the future, I might craft a divine hiddenness argument. If I were to do so, though, I'd spend a great deal of time supporting the premises of the argument mainly arguing why we should expect God to reveal himself if he existed. As many know, though, absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence, so the atheist ought to be careful when crafting a divine hiddenness argument.

Yes, you are.  Whether you're not making an 'official divine hiddennes argument' is another story, but you are making an argument.  A very very bad argument, but you are making an argument nontheless.

 
The terms 'belief' and 'faith' are very 'open' terms that can have many different definitions. I would, though, generally define 'belief' as 'assenting to the truth value of a proposition' and 'faith' as 'belief in a proposition that is not backed by reason, argument, and evidence.' Depending on the context, I may define these terms differently and many others may disagree with my definitions. Regardless, those are the definitions I would generally give. My "elementary" or "non existent knowledge" of Christianity has nothing to do with this.
 
Just to note: this idea of "lack of knowledge about Christianity" is quite peculiar because all sorts of Christians disagree about certain matters...and then claim that atheists lack knowledge. 

Yes they do, i never said they dont, but most Christians  usually tend to agree on the basics, like God wants faith, not just belief,  the type of stuff you've shown to possess no clue of.

The Bible, even, defines faith quite differently throughout. Is faith "belief in things not seen?" Is faith "hope and trust in God?" 

Yes, your ignorance and non existent knowledge of Christianity has a lot to do with it.  The definitions of words must be used in the proper context.  If using the word 'vessel' when talking about an airplane, you do not use the definition "a tubular structure that transports such body fluids as blood and lymph," because we are talking about airplanes, not anatomy.  Similarly, when talking about the type of faith God wants, faith is not defined as "a belief in a proposition that is not backed by reason, argument and evidence."  Not only is that definition false, that definition isn't found in a single credible dictionary.  Neither is belief.  If you possessed a shred of knowldge of Christianity you would know that in the proper context, faith is defined more akin (not exactly) as "trust in God and His actions and promises."  Again, anyone with a brain knows that people aren't going to agree on the exact definition, but they usually agree on the context of a definition.  Most people (that aren't atheists) might not agree on the exact definition of vessel when discussing an airplane, but all of them agree that the anatomy definition doesn't apply.

I use the term unequivocally throughout the post to generally mean " relatively undoubtable." A charitable reading of my post should lead the reader to this conclusion when they especially take care to think about my ideas regarding God "compelling" persons to believe if he revealed himself.

Hilarious.  Now the Vacula is simply making up definitions.  Sorry but 'unequivocally' does not mean that.  Furthermore, even if it did you would still be wrong no matter how you define it since it is very clear you intended  from the begining that God revealing Himself 'unequivocally' is a greater revelation than God revealing Himself through nature and prayer.  God revealed himself in nature, your definition of equivically is obviously taken to mean revealing Himself  in a better way than He is percirved to be now.  Basically Christoans say God revealed Himself in nature and you say God should reveal Himself in a better way than that.  A simple equation is as follows.  Christians say God revealed himself in way X and you say God should reveal Himself in a way greater than X.  Whatever way you define 'unequivocally,' it still means greater than X.  So you still fail since unequivocal does not = revealed in nature, prayer etc. so you cannot argue that Christians will continue to sin If God reveals Himself unequivocally because they do so when Hes revealed Himself in nature, prayer etc.  You've early committed yet another logical error, incorrectly assuming that an unequivocal revelation of God is somehow the same thing as God revealing Himself through nature, it clearly is not.  You're assuming that because we sin even though God hasn't revealed Himself unequivocally(and christian really believe and know!)that we will continue to do so even If He reveals Himself unequiviolly.  The two revelations are not the same, therefore you cannot reasonable state we will act the same.  Its like saying that because people arent getting hurt when they jump off the curb, therefore when they jump off the empire state building they wont get hurt.  

The creative liberties you take when making up these definitions reminds me of humpty dumpty from Alice in wonderland. 
 

    “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
    Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
    “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
    “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
    “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
 

Vaculas 'definitions' aren't too much different than humpty Dumpty.  They both seem to think its ok to make a word mean whatever you want it to mean.

This is an example of circular reasoning of the form; it is true because the Bible says so because the Bible says it is true.  

Hey look, another example of your double standards.  It's ok to use the bible to attack Christianity, but when a Christian uses it to defend it, suddenly its circular reasoning.

Let's assume, though, that "Truth" can provide an argument as to why persons should believe this statement regardless of it being in the Bible to be charitable. The verses "Truth" links are concerned with seeing God's face. God is not limited when revealing himself is concerned; showing his face is not the only way he can do so. The 1 Timothy verse admits of a problem with God's omnipotence; if God is all-powerful, he would be able to reveal himself so that persons can see him.

The 2nd verse says nothing about a face.  I put the first one up there to show how you once again fail to be consistent.  Since the word unequivicol (the real definition, not the made up one that Vacula created to convieniently fit his argument) states the following:
 
 
1. not equivocal; unambiguous; clear; having only one possible meaning or interpretation: an unequivocal indication of assent; unequivocal proof.
2. absolute; unqualified; not subject to conditions or exceptions:
 
If no one can see Gods face and live, then human beings seing God unequivocally would be deadly.   one hand you assume that lack of a source won't compel you to believe, and yet on this hand, you have no problems believing despite lack of a source.
Nothing to do with Gods omnipotence.  It says man can't see God, nothing in there about God not being able to do anything.

While we're on the topic of the Bible, several verses actually seem to admit that persons can see God including Genesis 12:7, Genesis 17:1, Genesis 18:1, Genesis 26:2, Genesis 26:24, Genesis 32:30, Genesis 35:9, Genesis 48:3, Exodus 3:16, Exodus 4:5, Exodus 6:3, Exodus 24:9-11, Exodus 33:11, Exodus 33:23, Numbers 14:14, Deut. 5:4, Deut. 34:10, Judges 13:22, 1 Kings 22:19, Job 42:5, Psalm 63:2, Isaiah 6:1, Isaiah 6:5, Ezekiel 1:27, Ezekiel 20:35, Amos 7:7, Amos 9:1, Habakkuk 3:3-5, and Matthew 18:9.

These are completley beside the point, as neither of these sightings show an unequivocal revelation of God.   Hilarious how it says appeared and vacula has no problem assuming that ALL of God appeared and yet in other statements he just assumes only part of God was revealed.

Dare I say it...but my concern is not with demons, but rather humans. Demons obviously play by different rules and are quite unlike humans. I don't, though, find any compelling reason to believe in demons or Satan, so perhaps my previous comment was a silly one.

Try as much as you like to make your cluelessness go away, you aren't fooling anyone, or are you really that idiotic to think I put that scripture there to show you about demons? 

Perhaps, to be charitable, "Truth's" point is to argue that belief alone is not sufficient, but rather something else is needed. What, then, is this something else? "Truth" says that it is impossible to please God without faith. The problem, though, while we are on the topic of the Bible (and this is more testament to why I think arguing about the Bible is often useless), is that the Bible, in Matthew 12:37 says that you can be justified by words.

2 Corinthians 5:10 says that persons are judged according to works. Additionally, faith without works is dead (James 2:17). 2 Corin. 11:15 says that minister's salvation is dependent on works and it is "no great thing" that they are righteous [in faith]. Ezekiel 18:27 says that turning away from wickedness and doing what is lawful and right will save persons...and there's so much more.'

Let's forget your poor attempt at a red herring (since works and words go hand in hand with faith, one is useless without the other and your attempts to seperate them just does more to highlight your ignorance of basic Christian theology) and just focus on the fact that the bible clearly says belief isn't soley what God wants, which shows your original statement to be ignorant.  Again, you are pretty much clueless when it comes to basic theology.

Shifting responsibility here doesn't solve the problem because the 'ball is in God's court.' The issue at hand is "Why doesn't God reveal himself," not "Why should it be up to God, humans should find God." Shifting responsibility might solve problems in other cases, for sure, but it's not going to here.

Yes it does.  We are the ones that messed up and sinned not God.  Just like in any relationship, it is the offending party, not the victims, responsibility to make amends. Who on earth would tell the victim of a rape or the victem of an affair, that she must operate on the terms, conditions, and demands of the person that raped her or the person that cheated on her? again yet another example of how the logic a skeptic applies to religion would be considered ridiculous if it was applied elsewhere.

Typical Skeptic Responses.

It's so obvious when a skeptic doesn't have a clue about how to respond to a complete and utter destruction of their argument. While the order my differ, their rebuttal almost always contains the following responses.

1. Highlight the insult.
This skeptic cries AD HOMINEM! YOU'VE INSULTED ME! clinging to the false belief that anyone that uses insults must be automatically losing the argument. The skeptic is too ignorant to grasp the fact that you can insult someone and make a good argument at the same time. The two aren't mutually exclusive. It's like looking at the end of the Ali vs Terrell fight, saying the winner of the fight was not Ali because Ali insulted Terrell during the match, even though Ali doesn't have a scratch on him, Terrell has both eyes swollen shut, a broken nose and a couple teeth missing, and the judges and the crowd scored Ali the winner. It's also a red herring logical fallacy since you're concentrating on the insults contained in the argument instead of the argument itself.

It also shows the skeptic can't tell the difference between an ad hominem and an ad hominem fallacy. An ad hominem is just an insult, and ad hominem fallacy is saying an argument is wrong because of a quality the person presenting the argument possess. Example:

Ad hominem: Your feet stink.
Ad hominmen fallacy. Your argument is wrong because your feet stink.


2. Miss the Point.

There are so many variants of this. Skeptics usually don't possess a lot of knowledge regarding Christianity, logic or history so when they're confronted with something they don't understand, an argument or rebuttal that can't be found on google, a popular skeptic website, and isn't a regular talking point or argument, they usually pick out a couple words or concepts from your argument and begin to think you're talking about *insert popular atheist christian argument here* and make an argument to that. It's a strawman fallacy, since the skeptic is responding to an argument that was never made.

3. Ignore it.

They simply ignore the point or argument and continue on as if it was never said.

4. Appeal to authority

The skeptic parrots an argument given by some authoritative figure that holds some sort of credentials that are supposed to be impressive. A bad argument is a bad argument, no matter who says it. 2+2=5 is wrong no matter whos mouth it comes from.

5. Run Away and Come Back.

This almost always happens in conjunction with #3. The skeptic will simply leave, then come back at a later time. (usually giving the same bad argument that was refuted).

6. Baseless Assertions.

The skeptic simply asserts and provides absolutely no evidence to back up what he says. These baseless assertions can be found in many forms, ranging from "The logic in your argument is wrong." to "Your argument is easily refutable." Skeptics usually engage in #5 when pressed to provide evidence for their assertions.

7. Sarcastic snide remarks

These are the sarcastic, snide rude insults. We've all seen them, no need to go through them. The same skeptics that whine about ad hominems from Christians are conveniently silent when their peers do it.

8. Emotional arguments

When reason and logic and science no longer work, the skeptic resorts to arguments filled with emotion designed to tug at your heartstrings. "What about all the babies that died in the flood." "Your God is a cruel mean God that doesn't care."

9. Hypocrisy and Double Standards

The skeptic starts off by criticizing God with a poor argument along the lines of the following: "God is all loving, all powerful, and all knowing and sending people to hell for their sin is wrong." The Christian responds with bible verses showing the skeptic how ignorant he is in regards to Christianity and the characteristics of God. The skeptic then replies with something along the lines of, "How do you know what the bible says about God is true?" or "You haven't demonstrated the bible is true or God exists."
So it's ok for the skeptic to use the bible to criticize God and Christianity, but when the Christian uses it to defend God and Christianity, it's not ok to use the bible? Last time I checked, this is Christianity, and the religion of Christianity is found within the bible. The characteristics of the Christian God are found in the bible.

The Hiddenness of God?

I found it rather ironic that Justin Vacula decided to open his argument with a excerpt from Calvin and Hobbes, since his argument contains all of the illogical and emotional reasoning one would expect from a child the age of Calvin. Enter the argument from Divine Hiddenness:

Atheists (and theists) wonder why -- since it is the case that theists profess God wants everyone to believe he exists – God simply doesn't unequivocally reveal himself so that persons can 'enter into a relationship' with God, no longer doubt, stop fighting one another because of religious differences, and go to Heaven. An all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing god should have no problem revealing himself to persons and should want to do so considering he is all-loving [he wants persons to avoid Hell and enter into Heaven]. Why, then, doesn't God just stop playing hide-and-seek and reveal himself?

This argument is already a non starter due to the fact that Justin, like so many other ignorant skeptics and theists, think that the "the all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing god" somehow accurately describes the Christian God. It doesn't. The problem here how people inaccurately define the 'all-loving' part as some sort of fuzzy, feel good, warm emotion. It's more synonymous with 'happy' or 'wants to make people happy' than it is with the word love. One look the bible will see that God does things that do not match up with the warm, fuzzy, feel good definition of the word love.

Not only is his inaccurate description of God a major problem, his argument typically displays the same ol' double standard of logic and reasoning that skeptics only apply to religion and not to anything else. When people want to work for walmart, they neither demand nor expect the CEO of walmart to meet with them before they apply. When people enlist in the military, they neither expect nor demand the leaders of the specific branch to personally meet with them before they enlist. If the CEO of walmart or the leader of a military branch doesn't meet with the average joe before they enlist in the military or send in an application for walmart, why would anyone expect God, who is the creator of the universe, expect such a thing?

Rebuttals I predict from skeptics:

Rebuttal A: "Difference between the CEO, military leaders and God is God loves us!"

This is an emotional argument. Since when does love logically entail person X must personally meet with person Y before person Y joins in a cause. Furthermore, it reveals the ignorance of basic Christian theology. God loves us, and yet God has done some things that would seem very unloving according to the feel good fuzzy warm definition of 'love' that is presented in rebuttal A. Love, especially the feel good fuzzy definition of love that would be used in rebuttal A, does not logically entail God would meet with people personally before they want to become a Christian.

Rebuttal B:
"The CEO and the military leaders can't meet with everyone at once, but God is omnipotent, He can do anything! He has the power to meet with everyone at once."

Just because someone has the power to do X does not mean they are required to do X. I certainly have the power to track down Vacula (with my knowledge of programming and computers) and beat the snot out of him (being trained in fighting) and yet I am not required to do that. Secondly, while the CEOs and military leaders cannot meet with everyone, they can meet with some, and yet they do not.

That's about the gist of it. This 'why doesn't God reveal Himself to me' line of logic not only fails, but it never had any start to begin with. Like most 'arguments' skeptics give, their logic applies SOLELY to religion and if one were to apply the same type of logic to anything else, they would rightly be considered an idiot.

His argument isn't the only thing sorely lacking in this department. He also can't seem to tell the difference between belief and faith, which I believe stems from his elementary or non existent knowledge of Christianity. This guy has created 7 rebuttals to 7 'defenses' he claims theists bring up in response to his argument. A lot of these defenses I would never use, so I will only go over the ones I myself would use.



Defense (1): Humans would not have free will if God unequivocally revealed himself.

Is it really the case that persons would lose free will if God unequivocally revealed himself? I'm quite skeptical. Many persons today will profess that God does exist and really do believe. Some, for whatever reason, will attest that their belief in God is warranted, profess belief in Heaven and Hell, and believe that their sins could result in eternal torment. Despite all of this, theists who profess very strong beliefs continue to sin. While God hasn't unequivocally revealed himself to everyone, these people will believe that God has revealed himself through the 'design' of the universe, an answered prayer, or something else...and they still sin. Additionally, these people, theists will allege, still have free will. It seems that defense (1), then, fails.

First off, God revealing Himself unequivocally is not the same thing as revealing Himself through nature or a prayer. That failure of logic is enough to destroy his 'rebuttal of defense (1), since an unequivocal revelation of God is not the same thing as revealing Himself through design and prayer, but it would be wrong not to continue on. His second error is asserting that Defense 1 fails because Christians continue to sin. Again, this bad reasoning all boils down to complete and utter lack of even the most basic knowledge of Christianity. First off, Christians continue to sin and will continue to sin, because we are imperfect and we live in an imperfect world. Belief in God, faith in God, doesn't stop all sin. It should severely limits it, but it will not stop all sin. God revealing Himself to man unequivocally will kill us since it clearly says in the bible "None who see my face sha'll live." (exodus 33:20.) and that "God dwells in a light unapproachable that no man has seen or can't see." (I Tim. 6:16).

Defense (3): Faith is important and is only possible if God doesn't unequivocally reveal himself.

Defense (3) assumes that faith is important and seems to assume that without faith, belief in God is worthless. Why is this the case? Is not belief the important thing regardless of faith? Are those who currently believe and do not profess faith (but rather profess that arguments alone are good enough reason to believe) somehow 'doing it wrong?' Will these people not enter into a proper union with God?

Vacula is severely lacking in basic Christian theology. These are easily answered with common scripture.

"Defense (3) assumes that faith is important and seems to assume that without faith, belief in God is worthless. Why is this the case?"


How he thinks he is qualified to refute a single thing regarding Christianity when he doesn't even know Hebrews 11:6 is beyond me.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God.

Also, he wonders why without faith belief in God is worthless. Again, a very common scripture in James 2:19 answers his question.

James 2:19
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder.

To answer his question, yes they are doing it wrong. The demons obviously believe in the existence of God. Satan, obviously believes in the existence of God and yes, they are doing it wrong.

Defense (5): God can't intervene often because there would be no stable natural regularities. (Swinburne argue this although this is probably more relevant to natural and moral evil theodicies).

Defense (5) is very suspect and ignores the fact that God is all-powerful and all-knowing. Why should we assume that there would be no natural regularities if God intervened in human affairs? Suppose that God were to strike down Hitler in order to prevent World War II (and such an action would indeed stop World War II). Would we then believe that this would suddenly entail that there would be no natural regularities? I don't see any good reasons to believe so.

The idea of God's intervention removing natural regularities (or, perhaps, to be more charitable, causing us to believe that some natural regularities might not be constant) seems quite funny [and leading to special pleading] considering that theists believe God has intervened in human affairs including but not limited to God raising Jesus from the dead. Some theists also believe that God answers prayers that would interfere with the free will of other persons. If theists maintain that Jesus raising from the dead and God's answering of prayer doesn't take away free will or natural regularities, how can they possibly maintain that God's intervention in there here and now, the future, or even in the past (minus the miracles, of course) would take away free will or natural regularities? The theist, it seems, would be forced to argue -- if he/she were to maintain that God's intervention would not take away free will or natural regularities – that free will 'works differently' from time to time, God's intervention in times past somehow did not take away free will, the free will of people in times past was not cherished like it is for people today, or something else.

Vacula is right, this is more along the lines of problems of evil than it is about God hiding. In anycase, the key word here Vacula is the word OFTEN. If God often intervened than there would be no natural constant. If God often raised people from the dead, instead of doing it for specific number of people some 2,000 years ago, this planet would be vastly overpopulated. If God often answered prayers that messed with the free will of people (I'm not even going to argue that He does that, I will just assume HE does for the sake of argument) then there would be little to no free will. The key word here is, often.

Yes, I will maintain that God raising Jesus and a specific amount of people from the dead some 2,000 years ago does not disrupt the natural regularities as much if God raised everyone from the dead all the time. Yes, I will maintain that God affecting the free will of others through the answering of the prayers of a specific number of people does not disrupt the natural regularities as much as if God did that for everyone. It has nothing to do with whether free will is cherished as much back than as it is today and everything to do with how much can prayers like that be answered before there is no longer any natural regularities.

Defense (7): Why expect God to reveal himself? It is the responsibility of humans to find God, not God's responsibility to reveal himself to humans.

This objection largely misses the point of the problem of divine hiddenness to being with: if God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, why shouldn't he reveal himself to humans? If the theist contests that it is the responsibility of humans to find God, this doesn't address the problem, but only shifts the responsibility. Further, if humans are to find God, doesn't this mean that God should have devised a more effective way of aiding humans to this goal? The 'ball' is back in 'God's court.'

Framing this in terms of responsibility might also be unhelpful. The problem really isn't about responsibility, but rather is that God -- since he is all-loving and all-powerful -- has no good reason to remain hidden and has every reason to make himself known.

Who says shifting responsibility doesn't solve the problem? that is just a baseless assertion with absolutely no evidence to support it. Here's an example of how shifting responsibility solves a problem. Problem, my iphone broke because of a hardware issue. If I shift the responsibility from my dog, who has absolutely nothing to do with my phone being broken, to the apple company, who sold me a busted phone, the problem is solved because I get a new phone. God didn't design an effective way? that's yet another baseless assertion. You don't think its effective? go ahead and give me something other than your bare opinion to back that up. A free gift that gets you out of eternal torment is pretty effective to me.

As you can see, Vacula is neither competent in logic or Christian theology. Just another lightweight intellectually shallow skeptic that thinks his arguments are something new under the sun. Laughable.

Praise be to God!!

Thank you God for the gift of your Son, so that I might be redeemed.

Psalm 144: Christian Fighters

I am excited to see what God is doing and is going to do with these extremely gifted Christian fighters.

Andre "S.O.G" Ward

His nick name is the Son of God. He won the gold medal in the 2004 Olympic Games. He is currently the WBA Super Middle Weight Champ and the number one fighter in the Super Six tournament.

Jon "Bones" Jones

With Philippians 4:13 tattooed across his chest he has broken the record and become the youngest UFC champion. I pray He continues and more importantly grows in the Lord and doesn't let his new found fame go to his head.


Up next; Rampage and Rich Franklin.

Psalm 144:1
" Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. "

Go ahead and say she can't do it.

Go ahead and say Anne can't do it.

After much speculation, Warner Bros. confirmed today that Selina Kyle, AKA Catwoman, will be in Chris Nolan's new Batman movie. And she will be played by...wait for it... Anne Hathaway.

They said the same thing about Heath Ledger.