Terms, Conditions, and God-Speak 101

This one is sort of a continuation of the previous post, "Comment Policies", albeit, it dives into something else later on.

So, aside from bloggers having policies set up for guests who may want to leave a comment, there is often times a disclaimer, which is basically letting your readers know your blog's terms and conditions. Most of the time a disclaimer works to avoid liabilities. For example, to attempt to make it so that you can't be held accountable if someone relies on your website/blog content.

Another thing that might be included in the terms and conditions is a copyright notice. This lets your readers know your writings are yours and that they are protected and should not to be copied or reproduced without permission.

Okay, so bouncing around the blogoshpere the other day I linked to a blog on which the blog's owner/operator delineates some copyright terms and conditions. In part, this stated that visitors cannot download or reproduce any part of the website in any way, shape, or form, without written permission. However, it goes on to say that just linking to the website or to a specific blog post is perfectly fine.

So, if, for example, I provide a link to a blog post on the above described website, my readers can then link to it directly and read this blogger's written work(s). However, if I copy that work and paste it here without written permission, I'm apparently in violation of the site's terms and conditions, unless I've misunderstood something.

I confess that I've not taken the time to look into the legalities of it, so I will just post a link to the website and specific blog post I want to address, and then take my chances:

  http://savedbygracebiblestudy.blogspot.com/p/how-can-we-know-god-exists-and-if-well.html

Disclaimer: any and all type herein that is in the color red was not authored by me and I am in no way trying to take credit for it. Furthermore, nothing in this post, "Terms, Conditions, and God-Speak 101" that is in red type reflects the views of this blog/website, Boomslang's Lair.

We know God exists because we see His creation all around us ~ SBG

False. You don't know that a God exists, and claiming that that which exists is "creation" is the fallacy of begging the question, aka, affirming your conclusion in your premise. It is also an argument from personal incredulity, which is a type of argument from ignorance.

It takes this form:

1. I cannot fathom how things can exist without a creator.

2. Therefore, there's a creator

When we see a fine watch, we know that someone had to design it because it is too complicated, beautiful, and high functioning for it to have "evolved" by accident from scrap metal ~ SBG

False. If we're walking around in nature and we come across a "watch" on the ground, whether it be "fine", or a broken piece of junk, we can know that it was designed because we know that watches don't occur in nature. In other words, we can distinguish between things that occur in nature and things that do not  occur in nature. Also, not everything in nature is "complicated"; not everything in nature is "beautiful"; not everything in nature is "high functioning". Rocks can be "beautiful" for sure. But are they "complicated"? Are they "high functioning"? No, and no.

As for "evolved by accident", for starters, how something evolved isn't necessarily the same subject as how it came to be. Origins is one topic; evolution is a different topic. As for "accident," creationists and ID proponents conveniently ignore the "selection" part of the process of "Evolution by natural selection."

 The same is true for the human body, the stars in the universe, and all the miracles of nature -- a Being of unlimited intelligence, power and good had to design and create these ~~ SBG 

False. Once more, calling things (or occurrences) in nature, "miracles of nature", is the fallacy of begging the question. If we observe a tapeworm hanging out of a dog's rectum, have we just witnessed a "miracle of nature"? Or is it simply nature? How about when a tsunami drowns ten thousand people? Does anyone call this a "miracle of nature"? No, of course not---it's just nature, albeit, some people do believe that bad weather is to punish people. This of course is superstition at work, and curiously, some of the worst weather in the U.S. occurs in the Bible Belt. Enough said.

God does not want to force Himself on us, so He made us with the ability to choose Him or to reject Him ~ SBG

We can still choose (or reject) an individual that we know for certain exists. In other words, we're being asked to accept God's existence on faith. So in essence, we're being told that the faith is necessary, because if we knew for certain that God existed, this would somehow compromise our free will and we'd be "forced" to accept him. This notion is as silly as it is false. The "Divine Hiddenness of God" argument has been thoroughly debunked. On top of it all, God was making personal appearances all throughout the Bible..e.g..to "The Twelve" and to over 500 other people, and this didn't harm anyone's "free will". And yet, today the only appearances God makes is on a piece of toast or on a tree trunk.

 There is no evil or darkness in God -- He is perfectly pure, holy, and just ~ SBG

False/false.

a) God created evil [Isaiah 45-7] . To bring evil into existence would require evil. To allow evil (when you can prevent it, but don't), makes you complicit.

b) to be perfectly "just" would require giving the deserved punishment each and every time, no exceptions. Thus, being merciful, aka, granting clemency, even once, precludes "perfect justice".

  So we have all broken the Ten Commandments ~ SBG

Yes? And? So, what? There is no evidence that we get morals (or ethics) from the Bible or its "Commandments". Besides, how would we even know good commandments from evil ones? What standard would you use to tell them apart? And what if God commanded Christians to kill all nonbelievers?? Would killing nonbelievers then become "good"? Is this a command that you'd obey? Be honest, now.

But God found a way to make peace between sinners and Himself. He loves us so much that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to take the punishment that we all deserve ~ SBG

Someone taking the punishment for what someone else deserves? So much for that "perfectly just" stuff. Christianity's Substitutionary Atonement spits into the face of justice.

He paid for all our sins, past, present and future ~ SBG

Then what's the problem? A debt that is paid doesn't usually require any other actions from the debtor. But yet, for some reason in Christianity words and language never quite mean what they actually say, and in the case of Jesus taking the punishment to pay off the "sins" of the "sinner", there are clearly strings attached. Yes, strings attached, aka, conditions. So, in the end, no, Jesus didn't pay "for all our sins"; he paid for the sins of Christians, exclusively, because they are the only ones who benefit from having their sins paid. Christianity amounts to favoritism.

  No matter what good things we do, it never outweighs the fact that we are sinners and deserve to go to hell ~ SBG

And there is it again. "Sinners" deserve to go to hell. The very definition of "justice" is giving someone nothing less than what they deserve. But does God give all sinners what we are told they deserve? No. Thus, the God described in the Bible is not "perfectly just". "Justice" and "mercy" contradict one another. This is how we know that Christians create and speak their own language. Colloquial word meanings are turned on their head. Only in God-speak 101 can an individual be both infinitely merciful and infinitely just.

 It doesn’t matter to God how many bad things we have done in the past or how terrible those things were, because He knows that each of us is guilty ~ SBG

And this is exactly the reason that those who actually care about things like reason, compassion, and justice should be denouncing Christianity, a philosophy by which a serial rapist can feasibly have their crimes swept under the rug and be rewarded a never-ending life of pure, unadulterated bliss, meanwhile, a person of another faith or no faith at all who has never harmed a hair on another human being's head, gets incinerated in "hell." A rapist need only profess Christianity and accept its god into their heart, and they're good to go. Despicable. Utterly despicable. Thank goodness there's no evidence that any of it is true.