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@Polytheist-Witch
Never change, PW. I'm not sure how you got homophobia out of that, but as you were. I like how keith is a fucking idiot, but you apparently find a way to believe in all gods at all times, and magic. At least you and Christians share the same self awareness!
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@keithprosser
I kinda figured it was headed that way, but that doesn't in any way demonstrate that an ultimate reality exists. It seems sort of special plead-y. There is literally no way to demonstrate that somehow without god 2 +2 would not still equal 4. It's certainly presuppositional, no?
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@keithprosser
Wow, that list of twelve names ended with a bit of a twist if you ask me.
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@Mopac
That isn't what I am saying at all.
Cool. Then show us the decision tree that leads you from 'amorphous consciousness that designed and created all there is' to 'character from the bible.' That's what I'm asking. I'm starting to think maybe you can't do it.
The Ultimate Reality is not creation. It is God no matter what anybody says. No one can undermine that.
Sounds like we're really in for a great discussion: I will believe this no matter what anyone says!!! Come on, if you're not going to participate, then just don't post.
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@Mopac
It is to distinguish between that which is relatively real or real in a sense with that is real absokutely and without contingency.The Ultimate Reality.It is real independent of perception or conception.Television might be a reality, but it is not The Ultimate Reality.Ultimate Reality is reality in the truest and most complete sense of what that means
My point exactly. This is meaningless word salad. There is no difference between 'truest an most complete sense' of reality, and reality. The term is all encompassing from the start.
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@Mopac
SO, all that is to say you do not have any path from creator to your version of god, right? You are just taking what one set of rules says is true as true, by your a=own admission eschewing intellectualizing about it in any way. Adopting an attitude of skepticism is how we've made every advance in science there ever was. If we weren't skeptics, then we'd still believe the earth was flat, the sun revolved around it, and there were three planets. There's no reason to explore if you believe you know what's there already. I didn't ask you for an exhaustive profession of faith. I asked you how you got from creator of the universe to your specific version of whatever god you believe in.
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@Mopac
Please differentiate your ultimate reality from regular reality.Do you believe that there is Ultimate Reality?
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Yeah, I guess this doesn't apply to people who believe in all gods.
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@Mopac
I am not using a juvenile trick to invent a "god" into existence. I am telling you what God means. As you do not respect merriam-webster as a valid source for the defining of terms, I have little doubt that you would also reject any writings from the church fathers or even the bible.
You already said that without this definition in the dictionary, it would still be what you believe. There's no reason to invoke the dictionary, it does not in any way have any bearing on if whatever your claim is, is true. It simply describes usages of words.
Clearly, The Ultimate Reality is not an invention. It exists.
Awesome! So where is it, and how is it different from regular old reality that we all share? Let me guess, it's the same as that somehow, but more majestic? It's certainly demonstrable, I mean beyond saying "OBVIOUSLY IT EXISTS OTHERWISE NOTHING WOULD BE HERE!", because that, my friend, is exactly the same as the regular reality.
You accusing me of using juvenile rhetroical tricks though is in fact a juvenile rhetorical trick.
Oh, one of my favorite arguments, the sure sign of solid reasoning: "I know you are, but what am I?"
You and PGA are basically the same argument: you presuppose the existence of something because you think it's necessary, without ever demonstrating this necessity,My argument is that you are debsting a straw man opponent because you can't accept that God is The Ultimate Reality. That is what God means.
I don't think you know what a straw man is, and based on this, I'm not entirely sure you know what an argument is. It's different than assertion. You're making an assertion. An argument has reasoning demonstrated.
You have no hope of understanding what is being said because when I say "This is a football" you say "No, it is a hand egg, and you can't prove it is a football".
Meh, not really. If you said "this is a football," I would think "Well what's my experience with footballs? Does that object appear to be a football like every other football I've ever seen? Does it behave like a football if I throw it or kick it? Maybe I'm confused. Let me ask a third party, is that a football? That might help. Maybe if I don't think it's a football, but these four people all say yeah, that's definitely a football, then maybe I'm wrong." That's not what you do. You go "ULTIMATE REALITY EXISTS" and I say "How's that different from regular reality?" and you say "IT'S MORE ULTIMATE!" or something equally vapid. It's not the same, at all. You're saying "this is the ultimate reality!" Everyone else says "That kinda just looks like regular reality." And you say "IT IS ULTIMATE" and expect everyone to go oh yeah, you know, you're right! You're skipping several steps.
It doesn't help your case that, again, PGA ostensibly believes in the same god as you, but you are on totally different pages. You point at something and say "THIS IS A NERFLBERDLER." He points at the same thing and says "THAT IS A FLINGELHOPPER." You're using the same evidence...what I'd like to see is for you to agree on one definite and final defintion of what god is, then we can discuss that one. How about that?
Well, you clearly don't understand what I believe.
Yay! We agree on something!
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I haven't seen this one here, and this place could use a couple of new topics. Unfortunately it seems like there are less theists here than atheists, so I'm not sure about the traffic this place will get. Here we go:
Let's say we take for granted that the universe is here as it is not because of any natural reaction or coincidence, but instead that it was created by a thinking agent. There is no real rational reason for granting this, at least none I've ever seen argued convincingly here or elsewhere, but let's skip that part, I'm saying, as an olive branch to the believer. It doesn't matter, then, if you subscribe to a big bang cosmology BUT it was started by a thinking agent, or if you think the world was created 10000 years ago. What I'm curious about is how does one justify going from "creator" to any god with a capital G. How, essentially, can you convince someone else that your version of the creator is correct, and by extension your religion is the right one, and theirs is INcorrect, and therefore the wrong one?
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@keithprosser
I think even this goes back to the evolutionary drive to maintain your genetic material: you want your genetic material to be able to flourish even if you can't witness it. Functionally, though, we're saying the exact same thing. I don't need to think I will be looking down or up at my offspring going forward beaming with pride at what a great place I left them in, in order for me to consider the fate of my children (genetic offspring).The obvious question is that as "I won't be around to care, I'll be dead" is true, why do we atheists care?. My guess is that you do think it matters that future generations do have some oil and African elephants and they don't nuke themselves into oblivion, even though it won't matter either way to your corpse
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@PGA2.0
So it's never right to kill? Let's play a game then. You are a man with a gun. You notice a child walking into a maternity ward. You see this child is wearing a suicide bomb, and a crucifix necklace, so he might be Christian. You can kill him and save others. Do you?I said it was never right for human beings to kill other INNOCENT human beings. You misrepresent my statement.
No, you said, quoting the commandments, "Thou shalt not kill." There are no conditions there. It's not thou shalt not kill innocent people. You're misrepresenting your book's words. I know, what it MEANS is "thou shalt not kill, unless XYZ conditions are present." But everything after the comma is what man adds to the text, not the text itself.
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@PGA2.0
[3] There is a reason for cancer, for death and decay. It is called sin, rebellion from God. It is the consequence of humans rejecting God and His guidance. It is humanity thinking they know better than God (and what a mess). And the inhumanity of human against human, how do you explain this moral evil if it is just our biological make-up working in whatever way they are programmed to work? What makes that evil or bad or wrong? Nothing. What makes the genocide of Stalin, or Mao wrong? What makes the suppression of Kim Jong-un on his people wrong? He is doing what he deems necessary for his survival and for a luxurious survival at that.What death does is it makes us think about our temporary existence and the MEANING of life. Since the Fall we have thought about this meaning. We see meaning in everything we do and all that is around us yet you refuse to acknowledge why there is this meaning that our consciousness seeks out.Ultimate, your worldview has no meaning to life. You are just a biological accident, and you just make up something because you like it, then you are gone, and no one cares (two generations down the line) about you.
[3] So when a mother is cradling the body of her dead six month old after succumbing to pediatric leukemia, your "comfort" to this person is "Too bad Adam and Eve ate that apple, that's why your baby is dead." This is not difficult: if you are violating a thinking being's free will (or illusion thereof), if you are causing bodily harm for the exercise of your own power, if you are without reason infringing on the life or wellbeing of the people around you, it's wrong. Now, there are tons and tons of conditions and issues and nuances there, but this is boiling it down to the very simple: huriting others when it's not necessary for your own survival or for the continue flourishing of our society and species is wrong, and knowing that doesn't require any thinking agent lving in another dimension to be real.
Since you have such a sure handle on it, what IS the meaning of this life? Specifically, what's the meaning of this life for a non-Christian?
You're almost right about meaning in my worldview. It's not there is NO meaning. It's there's no INHERENT, PREDETERMINED meaning. I have to make that on my own, and live with the consequences until I'm dead and eventually, yes, forgotten like the thousands of generations before me. I don't need to tell myself I'm anything more inherently special than anyone else, that something different is going to happen to me when I die than is going to happen to my friend Ibrahim or Sanjay, and unless I do something REALLY SUPER with my life, yeah, I'm just going to be forgotten. I don't know why that's so awful, I won't be around to care, I'll be dead.
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@PGA2.0
No, I have hope and I can offer it. I am being honest. What is your standard for honesty? Your worldview can't offer hope for someone dying of cancer without lying to them. You borrow from the Christian standard to comfort them. There is no compassion in an evolutionary process.You admit you cannot offer such a person hope. It just shows the grim reality of hopelessness and despair from your worldview.
How does "Got cancer? Aw, well at least you're probably going to heaven" in any way offer honest comfort? It's a pacifier for a baby. Yeah, reality can be grim. Hiding from it doesn't change it. Compassion is an necessary element in the evolution of successful pack species: the ability to consider the consequences and how they effect the other pack members. If you don't have it, you act inappropriately and eventually your genetic material is weeded out. I don't feel hopeless and I don't walk around in despair. I just had a cousin lose his dad to cancer, should I have told hmi "Well, God did that, you should feel great?" or should I say "I'm so so sorry that you lost your dad. What can I do to help you get through this difficult time?" Should I say "I have an idea, let's sit here and think about why this was really a great thing in the grand scheme of things. You know, thank Jesus that your son never got to know his grandfather"? Sorry man, but the world can be a grim place, it's our responsibility to make it better.
Also, don't you only offer hope for Christians? Like if you met a Muslim, a devout Muslim, as sure as you are about your faith, dying of cancer, would you tell him he was going to hell for not accepting Jesus? Want to guess what an atheist would tell a Muslim? It's not hard. It's the same as what I'd tell my cousin.
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@PGA2.0
Chance cannot reason yet if reason does not originate from a necessary Being it must originate through random (chance) processes. Demonstrate how.
I'm not the one making a supernatural claim. But it looks like you're a presuppositionalist, is that fair?
Also, since there is no reason for the universe (reason requires reasoning being) why do we constantly find reason in the universe, precise reasoning that we use mathematical equations to explain? If there is no sense to the universe because it was not created by an omnipotent, reasoning, and logical Being, then why do we keep finding reason in everything we analyze?
This is using the same word to mean different things. Reason FOR and reason IN are not the same. Reason FOR the first portion means something more akin to cause, but still is inexact, in that I'm not sure there needs to be a REASON for the universe. It just seems to be here, that's about all we know about it. Reason IN something. I think you're using that more like 'purpose.' There is no reason IN the universe, no purpose inherent. I mean unless you can demonstrate otherwise, right? I don't understand your assertion that we keep finding reason in everything we analyze. Let's demonstrate: what's the REASON (cause version) for the insurmountable distance between our sun and the next star? Gravitational attraction / particle mass distribution / initial dispersal of matter / couple of comet collisions, etc. Any of those is a feasible answer, because they obey the laws of nature and work with all known models. Now, what's the PURPOSE of the distance?
Truth value requires conscious, reasoning beings and yet you keep finding truths about the supposed chance universe. As many have pointed out, it is almost like we are thinking Someone else's thoughts after Him!
Truth does not require conscious, reasoning beings at all. If, for example, humanity was wiped off the face of the planet tomorrow by some horrible disease or cataclysm, that the sun would still rise in the east the next day would still be true.
But the question is how do reasoning beings come from chance happenstance?
Questions answered by evolution, and, I might point out, even if for no reason other than an abundance of magnanimity, I granted that your assertion here, the answer "Super Being" would not in any way mean it was the god described in the bible. It seems you think as humans we have the market cornered on reasoning by way of your version of god endowing us with the same. Would it be reasonable to say we understand the laws of gravity through reasoning? If so, can dogs also reason? Because they understand that gravity exists without any semblance of scientific theory.
Laws? How do we have laws if there is no lawgiver? If the universe is a chance happenstance then why should things remain constant? There is no reason they would or should, yet they do. What should that tell you? So why do you have these laws of nature without conscious agency and intent is not logical, is it? It does not compute.
The laws of nature a descriptive, not prescriptive. You know that this word, laws, also has numerous meanings and connotations. They describe and quantify what we observe. Again, you're trying to imbue purpose by calling it REASON. You're mixing the meanings. Can you demonstrate the conscious agency that said "And I'm going to make a hole in the universe so large that the people who observe it literally will not be able to accurately imagine how big it is? (Bootes void)" If not, then why appeal to it as it comes to the laws of nature?
And how do you get a "best" without an absolute, unchanging, objective standard or reference point? Why is your relative standard any better than any other relative standard?
Not this tired canard. Please. I didn't say there was a 'best,' nor did I say there needed to be. My standard is based entirely on how my actions affect the rest of my species, and my surroundings, just like yours. If my actions were repeatedly and demonstrably detrimental to society, I'd be removed from it in one way or another, and it's much, much harder to function and reproduce that way, when you're cast out. Natural selection takes over from there, and whatever it is in my genetic makeup that caused me to act that way, that is not continued into the next generation. It's really simple, it's how every successful species of pack animal develops. I am not sure there is free will, but in your scenario, there isn't free will either (unless you think god can be surprised somehow). Your 'best' standard has pronouncements in its books about stoning gay people, right? About genocides endorsed by an all powerful god who would be able to simply delete any offending individuals, right? About plundering neighboring tribes and raping women, right? Honestly though, if you're going to go with "Why should I be good if there's not Jesus? Without him, I'd be out pillaging til the cows come home," then please, by all means, continue believing whatever is keeping you from doing so.
Do you believe you'd be able to convince a Hindu that your standard is better than theirs? Have you ever? Or even closer: do you think you could convince Mopac that what he believes is wrong and he's therefore likely bound to hell, or that he could convince you of the same? Both of you think you're right, and the other one's wrong, and yet both believe in the same deity. If the answer is "It doesn't matter," then why do people choose denominations?
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You use a completely juvenile rhetorical trick to invent a god into existence: if god's reality and you live in reality, then there's a god. You've not demonstrated anything along those lines in 3K posts. Saying it doesn't make it so. You and PGA are basically the same argument: you presuppose the existence of something because you think it's necessary, without ever demonstrating this necessity, and then take it another step further, and say "And it's therefore obviously Jesus." Even if I granted you both that whatever unseen agent to create a universe is necessary and therefore real, you would not be able to make even an inch worth of advancement toward demonstrating that it's got anything to do with the bible.
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@Mopac
Again, rich. I'm the one comfortable with the answer "I don't know" to stuff like "Why's the universe here?" You're the one who says "I know for sure." I'm the one who answers the question with "Why do bad things happen?" with "I don't know, they just do." You're the one who says "Because Jesus is the ultimate reality, praise be!" as if that is even close to an answer. Get it together.
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@Mopac
If God is The Ultimate Reality, which God certainly is, you criticizing God for what God does amounts to little more than pointing at the sky and yelling "I don't like the way things are, I would rather it be this way, I replace reality with my own!"The problem of evil and all its variations fundamentally stem from a superstitious understanding of what God is.
The lack of self awareness from the religious never ceases to amaze. I don't believe in god at all. I don't shake my fist at the sky, at all. I don't thank it for things, at all. Life happens. We have to make it what we can. I don't have a problem of evil, because I believe bad people exist and they do bad things.
You're the only one who's convinced god is the ultimate reality, and have yet to sufficiently explain that definition in a way that convinces anyone.
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@Mopac
If God is The Ultimate Reality, which God certainly is, you criticizing God for what God does amounts to little more than pointing at the sky and yelling "I don't like the way things are, I would rather it be this way, I replace reality with my own!"The problem of evil and all its variations fundamentally stem from a superstitious understanding of what God is.
The lack of self awareness from the religious never ceases to amaze. I don't believe in god at all. I don't shake my fist at the sky, at all. I don't thank it for things, at all. Life happens. We have to make it what we can. I don't have a problem of evil, because I believe bad people exist and they do bad things.
You're the only one who's convinced god is the ultimate reality, and have yet to sufficiently explain that definition in a way that convinces anyone.
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@PGA2.0
od never takes an innocent human life without restoring it, or else He would not be just. And I can back up my claims with biblical text too.The difference between God and you or me is that if we take an innocent life we can't restore it. God can. All life is His to give and take. You only have a brief time span on earth.We do not have the right, under God, to take innocent life - Thou shalt not kill.How it is wicked to take a life and restore it to a better place?How do you get billions of fossils all over the earth? How does fossilization take place? If animals die on a plain do they fossilize? Usually catastrophic conditions like mudslides of animals encased in mud and pressurized produce fossils. What catastrophic conditions do you ascribe to fossilization?
There was no better place when the flood happened, right? The afterlife is a new testament concern.
So it's never right to kill? Let's play a game then. You are a man with a gun. You notice a child walking into a maternity ward. You see this child is wearing a suicide bomb, and a crucifix necklace, so he might be Christian. You can kill him and save others. Do you?
If animals are buried under volcanic ash on a plain they can fossilize. You're getting out of your depth. Are you about to question the scientific methods of dating beyond carbon dating? I'll save you the time. Where did all the water go?
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@PGA2.0
Chance is not an agent. It's math. Also this is a red herring question, no one says chance can reason nor does our ability to reason have anything to do with the truth value of a universe or existence by chance. It's not a why, either, it's a how. Chance doesn't sustain anything, but again no one says that either. The laws of nature are wholly sufficient to sustain the universe, adding something else that's not demonstrable into it demands an explanation.Morality has been answered repeatedly, it's evolutionarily hard wired into any social creature. The fact that it is so, a product of human evolution, means that it's fallible (if in fact it were authored by an infallible being, no one would ever disagree on matters of morality because it'd be codified and clearly so). It doesn't matter that I exist to anyone who isn't directly in my circle of people, and it won't matter when I'm dead to anyone outside it.Now, let's look at how reasonable us thinking Chance is why we are here. Can chance reason? Does it have intention? How does it sustain anything? Why should something happen, and continually happen, and why do we find meaning and reason for things in a chance universe? Why does every human being have some idea of morality and how do you make sense of morality from a material or secular humanist position? What does it matter that you exist and what will it matter when you are dead? What hope do you have to offer someone dying of cancer? Why should I be "good" as you define "good?" Why is your view of right and wrong actually "right" or is it? Who are you that I should believe your subjective, relative finite mindset and what you have to offer?
This is where you get really aggravating. What hope do I have to offer someone dying of cancer? None, and if you were honest, you don't have any to offer either. The problem is people like you who THINK there's some magic afterworld are the ones who say things like stem cell research is immoral, genetic therapy is an affront, etc. etc. for no other reason than it continues to shrink your god's power and cedes it to people like me. People who say "Wow, it sucks that you're dying of cancer, but I'm going to do research until I figure out a way to make it slower. Or make it better. Or eliminate it. Or research pain management drugs that will let you feel less as it ravages through you." YOU would tell these people "God gave you that cancer. You should thank him, and hope you're righteous enough that after he devastates your family, you get to go to heaven to be with the guy who gave you cancer. In fact he didn't just give it to you, you know all those kids with it? Yeah, them too. But thank him on their behalf when you get there, and tell him to forgive the parents who are mad at him for killing their baby.OH, tremendous pain you're in right? That stinks. Why take the medication? Just pray and it'll go away. And if it doesn't, t's just Jesus testing your faith, so if you waiver, get ready to burn in hell forever unless you decide right at the last second to kiss up to him again, then you're fine. Probably." That Christians think they have the market on comforting people who are in their last extremity is fucking offensive. Lying to someone about a party they're about to die and go to? Reprehensible. Also, do any Christian comfort folks ever tell the dying "You might be on your way to hell for all I know, maybe nothing you can even do about it?" Are all dying cancer patients going to heaven? Give me a break you pompous ass.
You should be good because you're a good person. Not because you think you're getting a reward. Or that you will avoid being punished. That would make you a person of integrity. And there are far more of those than there are bloodthirsty atheists waiting to take over your life, you coward.
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@PGA2.0
How is punishing the extreme wickedness described an injustice?
The story by necessity includes him drowning countless babies (I presume you're an anti-choice guy, so aren't they all innocent lives?)m and since animals can't murder (as you are fond of pointing out), then it stands to reason no single animal is wicked, yet this all powerful god, who theoretically could just have 'deleted' the bad actors, chose wanton destruction. I don't know how you see it another way. I mean provided I take your meaning correctly and you somehow believe a global flood covered the entire earth for 40 days.
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@Mopac
My religion is older than the English language.
Hmm. Cool, so does that mean it's true? Or that you can use its age to support how true it is in some way? Because where I come from, age is just a number and in no way indicative of anything's truth value. If it doesn't have any impact on evaluating if it's true or not, let's leave it out of the discussion. File this canard with "it's in the dictionary." Pointless fluff by your own admission. Maybe you mean it can't be properly understood through the English language. Maybe there's a forum that speaks whatever language can make any sense out of your claim that truth = Jesus, who'd better respond to your 'educational' attempts?
One of the things we strive for is disspassion, because passion tends to cloud judgement.
You might strive for dispassion, but what you're actually achieving and landing on is a gratingly haughty pretentiousness with a whiff of entirely unearned self satisfaction. You're nothing if not pompous.
You are very dismissive. Very quick to declare victory.
I don't like to waste readers' time, if it's easy to dismiss something, let's dismiss it. Particularly when it's this phony wisdom character you're trying to portray.
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Okay, so you are saying that definition in the dictionary is immaterial to your belief...if it makes no impact on your decision to believe, then it's easy to see why someone who doesn't believe would dismiss it, too, right? And therefore it's not a great way to support your beliefs. So let's agree to keep that out of it, since we agree, it is no reason to believe there's anything supernatural.would you believe this way if the dictionary didn't have those definitions?Absolutely, this is what the church teaches, what the monastics right, what is witnessed by scripture, and it is really obvious to me that none of it can make any sense without this understanding of God.
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I am here to educate, and I can hardly be blamed if people who don't really want to learn fail to do so.
Thanks for proving me correct so quickly!
I asked you as follows: would you believe as you do if the dictionary you quoted didn't have the definitions you're using to (inadequately) support your position?
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@Mopac
Said the guy with 3000 posts all saying the exact same thing. It's those sorts of defense mechanisms that keep you so impressively impervious to rational thought, an impenetrable fortress of obtuseness, unable to have a meaningful adult discussion.
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@Mopac
I don't have to prove that this is what God means. That is what we believe.
Okay, then none of us have any reason to take it seriously. It is a wholly unsupported assertion. Let me ask a different question: would you believe this way if the dictionary didn't have those definitions?
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@Mopac
I know you have explained the difference, just not in a way anyone can understand or make any sense of. You then use your inability to explain it as some sort of support for its veracity, it's bizarre. Please don't tell anyone else in here about arrogance, Mr. We Are The One Truest Church, We Orthodox are Best At Reading The Bible. Please. I don't need you to answer my question, because you can't answer it, or you'd have done so in any of the dozens of other posts about the same pretentious assertions you keep making. You spout this stuff and then talk down to others because of how Truthy your one True Apostolic Whatever, our books and saints are real and theirs aren't.
Let me be frank: it's garbage. All your arguments are the exact same arguments used by every other One True Churches and Best Ever Faiths. You aren't debating, you aren't even engaging in intellectual discussion, you're proselytizing and asserting and preaching, you're basically a fancier version of PolythesitWitch. Saying the same thing, over and over and over, except at least that person's thread farts are mainly three words. Your win for saying the least with the most.
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@Mopac
The problem isn't that I don't understand, it's that NO ONE you've explained it to understands what you're talking about, ever. Please point me to the post where you tried to explain this inane and pointless differentiation between reality and THE ULTIMATE REALITY wherein someone ended up saying "Oh, I get it!" Calvinist churches teach Calvinism supported biblically. Your church teaches orthodoxy supported biblically. Your church doesn't teach Calvinism, therefore you think it's wrong to teach it, correct?
And literally zero atheist arguments are contingent upon making either God or gods into something other than "The Ultimate Reality," because that's already a step too far. You have yet to demonstrate in any way that there is connection between the words you're using and the concept you're trying to convey.
I do understand that there is only one version of reality and I live in it. There is literally no reason inherent in that concept to say "Therefore, not only is Jesus really a superhero, but my specific version of that story is somehow true while the other thousands aren't." I know your answer is "Yeah, but mine actually IS, and theirs actually ISN'T." It's why you've yet to persuade anyone. That's still just assertion.
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@Mopac
And Orthodox is considered in error by the many other thousands of denominations of Christianity. How do you sort out which is correct? I mean besides your "Mine's the best Ultimate Reality, plus we have the oldest traditions," neither of which advance to ball to being right. I'm not trying to be a smart ass, but answer the question to a theoretical Calvinist: the words that support what I think are in the bible, we can do nothing, our fate is predetermined. Why, Mopac, is that incorrect and more importantly, why is your belief right?
Do not use the phrase Ultimate Reality. It has been demonstrated in here to be meaningless to anyone who isn't you, you can't advance an argument by appealing to it, so help those who don't agree with you understand using a different term or phrase if possible.
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But isn't the answer to this problem "The OT is invalidated because Jesus showed up and fulfilled the prohpecy" or through some other allegorical / metaphorical word play where word X didn't exist and meant word Y?
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