ludofl3x

...but you've got to know the basics.

its not always appropriate for you to take everyone off on some empirical tangent.  Imagine you're the one kid with ten thousand questions whose holding up the class from getting through the lesson. 

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. 

1 Peter 3:15 for one. There's more than a few that evangelists hold up as their sanctified call to arms. 2 Timothy 4:5. Mark 16:15. The problem is "biblical justification" is a problem in itself. You can biblically justify anything from stoning a woman who isn't a virgin on her wedding night to forgiving that same woman. There's no biblical justification for not stoning the woman but there are instructions explicitly about how to do it. No one ever says "and now that rule no longer applies."

Start a topic, argue it with other Christians! I'd love to see it, I'll even stay out of the first page. I would love to see the Christian arguments, seriously. Or better yet, argue with PGA about when Jesus came back. 

However, people's sinful choices, while not willed by God, may be used by God to accomplish judgment.

Early gnostics suggested that Judas was doing God's will by betraying Jesus to the Roman authorities, a claim that mainstream Christianity rejected.

The answer is we don't know what God's motivations are. Perhaps He sought to confuse the Jewish religious elites, who professed to be wise but couldn't even understand His relatively simple message. 

Christ spoke in riddles and mysterious sayings, to confound the listener and accomplish His good purpose.

...because their hearts were closed to higher truth they did not understand what believers earnestly seeking Him would discover the answer to.

His relationship with his brother was dashed to pieces, and Jacob thought he was going to be killed. He had to part ways with his mother and father, and ended up in two unhappy marriages. He was humiliated by his son Reuben, who slept with his wives, and he was led to believe that the son who he adored had died.

So yeah, I'd have to say that for all Jacob's shenanigans in the end he didn't get everything he wanted. A lot of things went sour for him. That he was able to be the father and namesake of the nation of Israel was only because of the grace of God.

If the stuff in the second paragraph is "only because of the grace of God," why isn't the stuff in the first paragraph "because of the grace of God" too? Honest question. You skipped my other honest question, so I don't really expect an answer, I guess, but maybe another Christian will engage?

Jeptha/his daughter.

Christ spoke in riddles and mysterious sayings, to confound the listener and accomplish His good purpose.

There are a few things you can be absolutely 100% confident about.

Interesting list of other possible possible creators. Now tell me, how many of those were British legend? None of them.

I'm simply that saying that other documents provide the context for which this document is to be interpreted.

 The only thing I'm getting out of this is that you seem to pick and choose what you think is hyperobole, and what isn't. You're comfortable with "plucking out one's eye" as hyprbole, but not "hating family".

Hating parents simply means abhoring the idea of favoring family over following Jesus as a disciple. Very simple. Luke was a physician, so was probably quite intelligent. He wouldn't contradict himself like that. Or claim Jesus did. For some reason, that form of hyperbole doesn't sit well with you. But the authors just weren't concerned about Ludo's understanding of scripture in the 21st century. So I might just as well ask you how do you tell what is hyperbole? 

So being that both verses being referred to in Luke were probably from the same author, contradiction is unlikely.

We can't use the authors contradicting each other idea, because this verse is in the Book of Luke.

How can these commandments be useless today if we follow many of them? 

I'm not sure what you're referring to. Are you thinking of this scripture?

If your parent were racist, you think you'd be dishonoring them by not becoming a racist?

Where was this advice?

This passage undeniably demonstrates 'love your family' is not central to the Christian faith. After all, if Jesus was not bothered by dividing family, and came to do exactly that, then one could hardly say it is a Judeo-Christian value.

I think what you're implying is that this scripture contradicts other scriptures that employ 'love your family' like

Exodus 20:12  - "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

I think you agree that this passage doesn't contradict the idea of family love. Right?

I was taught that was about obedience, not love, but at least you can agree that while it doesn't countermand the idea of family love, it DOES contradict the idea of hate your brother that he cited, right? So how do you pick which one's right? Is it the one that makes you feel better, that makes the most sense, in this case?

Wouldn't not becoming a racist NOT be honoring your father and mother, putting you in violation of that commandment? If not, why not? Because don't hate, don't be a racist, those aren't commandments. 

Therefore, unfortunately division would be unavoidable. 

Do you think a soldier should be executed for running from the battlefield?

The 10 commandments were placed at a time that was pretty brutal. Some of the things that were not only legal, but mandated would be unthinkable today.

Today, society at large tends to view the Ten Commandments as sort of an obvious gimme ("of course we shouldn't murder!"), So, some may view even the obvious morality by today's standards as originating/influenced from/by the creator, some just a progressive understanding of human morality. 

Where in the bible are you instructed specifically as to which rules to follow versus the ones that are "unthinkable" to enforce today? And three of the ten commandments have to do with how much you should love, fear or revere god, one has to do with thought crime, and NONE have to do with rape or slavery. That leaves six that are sort of the "gimme" you talk about, but they are insufficient in dealing with modern morality and overly broad. The moral code we should favor is the one that changes over time, not the one that a book says was written in stone, via magic, in an illiterate society, from thousands of years ago. 

Which commandments do you advise ignoring? Which Levitican laws no longer apply, and how do you know?

This particular atheist is the type who adapts to Hollywood's version of atheism (He's a Trekkie). Many of our sci-fi themed media outlets contribute a lot to the thoughts and philosophies of many of it's viewers. The idea of evolving into a higher life form is seen as a non-religious alternative to non-existence. And at the same time doesn't seem to violate any laws of naturalistic evolution.

An atheist once told me he thought that when he dies he will evolve into a higher life form. Does such a notion qualify as a magical realm?

Do you think it's inevitable then since I think for the most part that's what we're trying to do? At least I'm not aware of any restraints on human similarity.

. The questions you're posing sound right out of a Bible skeptics book. It's almost as if you're equating it's 

interpretationwith

Bible refutation arguments. I don't think Mary Shelly had the Bible skeptic 

mind frame

that I'm aware of. 

Jesus figured out what we were looking for, then decided to make foxes look like dogs, meaning that our efforts to do all that genetic engineering weren't ACTUALLY working, they just looked like they were working, but were actually responding to divine intervention. Feasible?

Not particularly. No.

Why not?

Maybe you could clarify a bit more?

Your statement looks something along the lines of God fooling us into theorizing Darwinian evolution.

Can you give me an example of something AI/sentient related being faked?

It might be a good reason to avoid attempting creating life other than service only programmed AI.

On their own, or by our invention?

 I haven't run into any challenges to the Christian belief. Only proposed challenges.

Back then the only Creator was God. 

In saying “creator”, they outright said “God”.

they believed those rights came from God.

 it doesn't matter if there's a little variation in the stories, or there's different cultural versions of the NDE, they are still by and large very similar with similar elements, seeing a being of light, meeting dead relatives, having a life review, being told it's not your time etc etc. (in "evidence for the afterlife' the doctor shows that the percent of times each of those elements happens is the same for young kids and people who have never heard of NDEs and non-western NDEs too.... showing the consistency) every story is different, but they are generally the same. if it was just a bunch of random visions or something, then you could rightly call it random hallucinations. but that's not what happens. i cannot see at all how you think your position isn't that there is a story embedded in our brain. it's the only logical conclusion that that's what atheists think. 

No, it is not the only conclusion that atheists think NDE's are a 'story embedded in our brain.'  That's an idiotic strawman as has been pointed out. There are many conclusions available, the best one being that sharing a somewhat similar experience, in some cases, BEFORE death has no bearing at all on if there's an afterlife, because THOSE PEOPLE AREN'T DEAD, they're near death. Drawing a conclusion that there must be an afterlife because of a similar pattern (not the same, similar) is terrible science, which is why it's not science at all, it's wishing. I'll show you: WHICH AFTERLIFE IS IT EVIDENCE OF?

You've yet to address the conclusion I've given you: the human brain has one primary drive: survival. It's why we are here, literally. Without the supreme drive to survive in our DNA (and its secondary drive, to reproduce), a species fails quickly. What's wrong with the explanation that the brain evokes whatever imagery and experiences it can to get a few more breaths out of you? The light is meaningless, it's a deprived oxygen state. The dead relatives are people from your memories, the "not your time" is just your brain saying you should try not to die, the life review is basically the brain flipping through the photo box in your mind to find ANYTHING that will keep you going. Which one of my explanations does not work with what we currently know? Which one of those things is so mysterious?

I think one of the problems is that you're looking at this issue as something that's threatening to God 

So how about you? What is your definition of sentient?

Do you think robots could go renegade? Like in movies and sci-fi tv shows where a robot(s) takes on their own personality, acts independently from human control, etc.?

Do you consider robots sentient?

If there's a creator, there's no way to dictate how he can or cannot create a universe. God is sometimes described as light. 

Are you saying, that anything other than not existing after death would mean "magical afterlife"?

Do you think it  would be wise to manufacture AI to have independent free will?

The rest of it I don't want to assume have nothing to do with the story, but feel free to expound by all means. I don't remember any pondering on Doc Frank's part as to whether or not he should give the creature full knowledge, free will (which I think was already assumed as I don't think Doc Frank wanted a slave). Or giving it the ability to love (I think just getting it'sheart to beat was enough)

That's a good question. What do you think?

Jesus figured out what we were looking for, then decided to make foxes look like dogs, meaning that our efforts to do all that genetic engineering weren't ACTUALLY working, they just looked like they were working, but were actually responding to divine intervention. Feasible?

Not particularly. No.

In other words, selecting against aggressiveness incidentally made the foxes look like dogs.

I don't make the claim that we haven't done it yet is a reason we will never do it.

You did say:

 All we can say is "maybe one day we'll figure it out". But that's just one of those coin phrases to put off the reality of human limiation.

 Ironicallty, this is an argument a number of people use to suggest the Bible is fiction. "We don't see evidence of King David's or Solomon's kingdoms, therefore they never existed".

Are you claiming that anything other than complete unconcious existence after death means "magical afterlife"? If it's something that science doesn't (at the moment) touch a concious afterlife, it would have to be magic?

Rather, it's impossibly possible. I don't rule out the possibility of producing sentient life, but in my opinion the creator has rendered it impossible.

Would it be moral? This question gets posed in a number of fictional writings like "Frankenstein", where the question comes along "should we play God"?

When it comes to questions of the afterlife, I think the most atheistic of atheists understand that this is much deeper than creating healthy energy drinks. It would present a challenge to deityship, therefore has appeal as the idea tantalizes us with proving the non-existence of an ultimate creator of divine nature.

So you have 2 creations. The display of emotions the robot possesses were a result of your engineering. But what about the emotions the dogs you helped breed possess? Did you assist them in the breeding process to obtain feelings and emotion?

In the past I've had problems with people using fictional stories (stories that are universally understood to be fiction) as some sort of proof though.

I can understand the initial confusion one might have with my statement. It makes sense to ask what I mean (instead of implying what I mean), but this should really be clear now. 

Define the sentient category in which a human is contained and a theoretically super-advanced AI could NOT be contained. I'm not disagreeing with you necessarily, I'd just like to hear you flesh this out more. 

If a dog's feelings are hurt because he was scolded for chewing up the carpet, is that hurt the dog feels human emotion, or dog emotion?

sentience or consciousness involves feelings, and the ability to be self aware, and the ability to learn, and to do more than programmed to do. as i said, robots also dont goof off or enjoy recreation, or doing 'naughty' things, or be altruistic

robots also might learn, but there's no cognition involved,

 i dont know, there are too many possible explanations. 

Would we even want to develop an AI that couldn't control its emotional outbursts?

We tend to project "sentience" or "consciousness" onto others as long as they seem "mostly human" even if it's a dog or a cat.

I'm not sure though why you're asking me to define sentience?

Beyond simple and advanced technology, we wouldn't have a clue as to how to even go about attempting to create a sentient being.

It's just like trying to scientifically discover what happens after death.