ARGH!!! Calvinism makes me furious!!!

Lighthouse

The Dark Knight
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Z Man said:
I didn't ask you what did David do - I know the story quite well.

Knight, what did David's firstborn son ever do to receive God's judgement?
The judgment wasn't on David's son!:doh:

It is if you use your noggin'. Ex. 4:11 says God creates the blind. So, through inductive reasoning (bare with me Knight - get a pen and paper if necessary):

A man is born blind

God creates blind people

THEREFORE

God created the blind guy in John 9
And? It still doesn't say that God made Him blind. It just says God created him, and he was blind.

Are you calling Job sick and perverted? Because last I checked, he attributed his afflictions to God:

Job 2:7-10
So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes. Then his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!" But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Didn't Job later apologize for blaming God?

:confused:

I don't think you can read English very well, or at least hold the capacity to logically connect words together to come to an implied conclusion, because no where did I ever mention anything about the tower falling on these men by chance, nor do the Scriptures. It's blatantly obvious that in this instance, you're putting in your own ideas and opinions.

Knight, how can you judge which events were from God or not? How can you say God was the cause of the worst natural disaster in the history of the planet, then turn around and denounce that God caused this tower to fall, killing a small number of people in comparison to the flood in Genesis?
The Bible says that God did not cause the tower to fall on them. This is not to say God would never do such a thing, only that, in this instance, He did not do it.:duh:
 

Nathon Detroit

LIFETIME MEMBER
LIFETIME MEMBER
Z Man said:
A man is born blind

God creates blind people

THEREFORE

God created the blind guy in John 9
Wow!!! :rotfl:

This is truly amazing!

Z Man, completely distorts the entire message of the Bible.

Z Man... it is man's sin that entered the world that brought in disease and death. God DID NOT want man to suffer and die. But it was man that brought sin into the world through his disobedience not through his obedience.
 

Z Man

New member
Lighthouse said:
The judgment wasn't on David's son!:doh:
Lighthouse... could it be... for once I think you just said something intelligent... Way to go lad! You did what Knight couldn't do, so congrats for that! ;)

You're right; the judgement wasn't on David's son. And yet, God killed him. Therefore, God does cause suffer and tragedy to those who are not in judgement.
And? It still doesn't say that God made Him blind. It just says God created him, and he was blind.
I'll post this verse for the thousand time just to show that what you just said was dumb:


Exodus 4:11
"Who makes mouths?" the LORD asked him. "Who makes people so they can speak or not speak, hear or not hear, see or not see? Is it not I, the LORD?"
Didn't Job later apologize for blaming God?
No. If he did, the Scriptures wouldn't have agreed with him.

Job 2:10
But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?"

In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

The Bible says that God did not cause the tower to fall on them.
Where? Where does it say, "And God did not cause the tower to fall on them"?
 

Z Man

New member
Knight said:
Wow!!! :rotfl:

This is truly amazing!

Z Man, completely distorts the entire message of the Bible.

Z Man... it is man's sin that entered the world that brought in disease and death. God DID NOT want man to suffer and die. But it was man that brought sin into the world through his disobedience not through his obedience.
Knight, how can you judge which events were from God or not? How can you say God was the cause of the worst natural disaster in the history of the planet, then turn around and denounce that God caused this tower to fall, killing a small number of people in comparison to the flood in Genesis, or that He caused a person to be blind?
 

godrulz

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God is OMNICOMPETENT, not OMNICAUSAL. All-controlling would negate personal responsibility and accountability. It would make God responsible for heinous evil, contrary to His revealed character.

Just because some illnesses were demonic, does not mean all were demonic. Just because God struck someone with leprosy, does not mean all leprosy is the hand of God. Just because God blinded Paul, does not mean that a knife in the eye from an assailant is the hand of God. Just because some of the future is settled, does not mean all of the future is settled. There are two motifs in Scripture for many things. Zman proof texts one motif and deductively (not inductive as he thinks) jumps to conclusions (while ignoring other texts that affirm another side of the coin).

Just because God sends plagues on a nation to judge it in one instance, does not mean that inherent weather patterns due to the type of creation He chose do not explain other things.

Just because He struck Ananias and Sapphira dead does not mean that a drunk driver killing someone is directly controlled by God.

Determinism undermines love, relationship, freedom. An omnicompetent, responsive God does not have to have exhaustive control to bring His purposes to pass. He does not have to control every moral/mundane choice in the universe nor get His way all the time.

Elevating God's will and misunderstanding it at the expense of His love and choice to make us significant others leads to a distortion of God's character and ways.

Help me here...zman....is God somehow behind the recent child pornography infant rapes or is this genuine freedom abused by evil men that will be judged? Does this grieve God and is it contrary to His will or is it somehow is ultimate will, intention, desire? If it is His will, how does He cause these things? If He simply does not intervene all of the time, but will Judge in the end, then you cannot have an omnicausality view/determinism and God's will can be thwarted, rejected, undermined due to creaturely freedom. Not all things (including all disasters, diseases, etc.) are God's will!

The warfare model evident in the Gospels through the God-Man is the biblical model of sovereignty/control. Your insistence on a blueprint model is a traditional view that is not defensible from the Word of God. The sooner you have a paradigm shift, the sooner your understanding of God and His ways (it will affect prayer, evangelism, personal living, service, etc.) will take a cosmic leap towards truth away from error and caricature.

Your reasoning is full of logical fallacies, including generalization issues, false dichotomy, begging the question, etc.
 

Nathon Detroit

LIFETIME MEMBER
LIFETIME MEMBER
Z Man said:
Knight, how can you judge which events were from God or not? How can you say God was the cause of the worst natural disaster in the history of the planet, then turn around and denounce that God caused this tower to fall, killing a small number of people in comparison to the flood in Genesis, or that He caused a person to be blind?
To defeat your bizaare line of reasoning (if God says He is responsible for one thing He must then be responsible for ALL THINGS :kookoo: ) one would only need to find ONE example of something that God said He didn't command or do.

After all... if just one thing exists in all of history that God did not command or decree it would by definition prove that God doesn't decree EVERYTHING.

All one need do is read their Bible and they will find hundreds of examples of things God credits towards man and not to Himself.

Here is one of my favorites....

And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.’ - Jeremiah 32:35

Z Man is the Bible in error when it states that God did not decree the above events?

P.S. Please stop posting in all large font. Thanks!
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
Z Man said:
It's called inductive reasoning, and it's the best we can do with what we have in the Scriptures Clete. I would believe that as Christians, it would be best to base our conclusions upon Scripture alone, correct? Otherwise, anything can be truth.

The Scriptures tell us numerous times of God causing calamity. You can't argue against that. God caused the flood in Genesis; He caused several plagues that killed several people; He caused famine; He caused death and destruction; and He caused these events in several places and upon several peoples (Sodom, Gomorrah, Egypt, Amorites, Israelites, etc). Whether these cases are God casting judgement upon the people or not, the point is Scripture declares God caused the events.

Now, through inductive reasoning, every sane and reasonable person can only conclude one thing from this:

Major catastrophes and tragedies in the Bible were caused by God

THEREFORE

God is behind ALL catastrophes and tragedies in life


It's the ONLY reasonable conclusion Clete. If a person was to research the color of crows, and after years of studying find that all observable crows were black, I'm confident their conclusion would be that all crows are black. In our case as Christians, our studies of Scripture lead to an inevitable conclusion that God is the cause of ALL catastrophes.

To say God only caused what is said in the Bible leads to the questions I have been asking you and Knight;

What other sources do you have that lead to the conclusion that God is only limited to causing the events we read about in the Bible, and not all of them?


You just stated that whether I used verses in context or not, they wouldn't prove anything. Well, again, what 'outside' source do you suggest Clete? Is there a more important book out there that the rest of us Christians don't know about? Please, enlighten us...
This post is an excellent example of the reason why I always say that theology must be BOTH Biblical AND of sound reason. If you leave either one at the table you're in real trouble. You happen to be in double trouble because you've managed to leave both at the table and gone completely off the deep end into total lunacy!

Knight has done a fine job of dealing with the Biblical problems with this argument so I will focus on the fallacious reasoning process.

Your reasoning basically goes like this...

We know that God did cause some catastrophes therefore God has caused all catastrophes.

That is known in formal logic as a "faulty (or hasty) generalization" and may also be an example of "Dicto Simpliciter", (although I haven't confirmed that latter one yet - I'm working on it).

You did get one thing right. It is a form of inductive reasoning but it is an inductive fallacy, a very well documented one at that. Here's part of what an article at Wikipedia.com says about the fallacy...

A faulty generalization, also known as an inductive fallacy, is any of several errors of inductive inference:

Hasty generalization is the fallacy of examining just one or very few examples or studying a single case, and generalizing that to be representative of the whole class of objects or phenomena.​

And the Arkansas State University website has this to say about the fallacy...

Faulty (or hasty) generalization: One engages in a faulty generalization when the scope of the evidence is too small or the quality of it is too poor to support the conclusion. In his only trip by car through St. Louis, Joe witnesses the aftermath of the worst car wreck (involving several vehicles and injuries) he's seen in his life. If, upon arriving home, Joe concludes that St. Louis is the most dangerous city in the U.S. in which to drive, he has committed a hasty generalization. In order to justify such a claim, one would probably need to consult reliable, recent data on automobile accident rates in U.S. metropolitan areas.​

And one more from the Nizkor Project website Nizkor.org...

Description of Hasty Generalization

This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not large enough. It has the following form:

  1. Sample S, which is too small, is taken from population P.
  2. Conclusion C is drawn about Population P based on S.

The person committing the fallacy is misusing the following type of reasoning, which is known variously as Inductive Generalization, Generalization, and Statistical Generalization:

  1. X% of all observed A's are B''s.
  2. Therefore X% of all A's are Bs.

The fallacy is committed when not enough A's are observed to warrant the conclusion. If enough A's are observed then the reasoning is not fallacious.

Small samples will tend to be unrepresentative. As a blatant case, asking one person what she thinks about gun control would clearly not provide an adequate sized sample for determining what Canadians in general think about the issue. The general idea is that small samples are less likely to contain numbers proportional to the whole population. For example, if a bucket contains blue, red, green and orange marbles, then a sample of three marbles cannot possible be representative of the whole population of marbles. As the sample size of marbles increases the more likely it becomes that marbles of each color will be selected in proportion to their numbers in the whole population. The same holds true for things others than marbles, such as people and their political views.

Since Hasty Generalization is committed when the sample (the observed instances) is too small, it is important to have samples that are large enough when making a generalization. The most reliable way to do this is to take as large a sample as is practical. There are no fixed numbers as to what counts as being large enough. If the population in question is not very diverse (a population of cloned mice, for example) then a very small sample would suffice. If the population is very diverse (people, for example) then a fairly large sample would be needed. The size of the sample also depends on the size of the population. Obviously, a very small population will not support a huge sample. Finally, the required size will depend on the purpose of the sample. If Bill wants to know what Joe and Jane think about gun control, then a sample consisting of Bill and Jane would (obviously) be large enough. If Bill wants to know what most Australians think about gun control, then a sample consisting of Bill and Jane would be far too small.

People often commit Hasty Generalizations because of bias or prejudice. For example, someone who is a sexist might conclude that all women are unfit to fly jet fighters because one woman crashed one. People also commonly commit Hasty Generalizations because of laziness or sloppiness. It is very easy to simply leap to a conclusion and much harder to gather an adequate sample and draw a justified conclusion. Thus, avoiding this fallacy requires minimizing the influence of bias and taking care to select a sample that is large enough.

One final point: a Hasty Generalization, like any fallacy, might have a true conclusion. However, as long as the reasoning is fallacious there is no reason to accept the conclusion based on that reasoning.


Examples of Hasty Generalization

  1. Smith, who is from England, decides to attend graduate school at Ohio State University. He has never been to the US before. The day after he arrives, he is walking back from an orientation session and sees two white (albino) squirrels chasing each other around a tree. In his next letter home, he tells his family that American squirrels are white.
  2. Sam is riding her bike in her home town in Maine, minding her own business. A station wagon comes up behind her and the driver starts beeping his horn and then tries to force her off the road. As he goes by, the driver yells "get on the sidewalk where you belong!" Sam sees that the car has Ohio plates and concludes that all Ohio drivers are jerks.
  3. Bill: "You know, those feminists all hate men."
    Joe: "Really?"
    Bill: "Yeah. I was in my philosophy class the other day and that Rachel chick gave a presentation."
    Joe: "Which Rachel?"
    Bill: "You know her. She's the one that runs that feminist group over at the Women's Center. She said that men are all sexist pigs. I asked her why she believed this and she said that her last few boyfriends were real sexist pigs. "
    Joe: "That doesn't sound like a good reason to believe that all of us are pigs."
    Bill: "That was what I said."
    Joe: "What did she say?"
    Bill: "She said that she had seen enough of men to know we are all pigs. She obviously hates all men."
    Joe: "So you think all feminists are like her?"
    Bill: "Sure. They all hate men."

The Biblical material (or lack thereof) is all irrelevant because the form of your argument is fallacious. Does that prove your conclusion wrong? No, as indicated in the above article, it doesn't. But we aren't the one's saying that God causes all cases of cancer and every hurricane and tornado that happens, you are; and based on your line of reasoning there is no reason at all to think you're even close to being right.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

godrulz

Well-known member
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A pivotal post from Clete should make Zman rethink his position. Zman's thinking at times is neither biblical nor logically defensible.
 

Z Man

New member
Knight said:
To defeat your bizaare line of reasoning (if God says He is responsible for one thing He must then be responsible for ALL THINGS :kookoo: )...
You're quoting me wrongly; I've never believed God is responsible for ALL THINGS simply because I have observed only ONE EXAMPLE where He was in control. I've observed numerous texts from the Scriptures where God was the cause.
...one would only need to find ONE example of something that God said He didn't command or do.

After all... if just one thing exists in all of history that God did not command or decree it would by definition prove that God doesn't decree EVERYTHING.

All one need do is read their Bible and they will find hundreds of examples of things God credits towards man and not to Himself.
Knight,

Our argument from the beginning of this thread hasn't been whether God commands everything or not - it has been whether God is the cause of natural disasters/disease. I've never read a text where it says, "And Jack caused the storm to destroy a city", or "And Jack struck his fellow man with a disease". Until you can find a verse that says that, you don't have an argument.
P.S. Please stop posting in all large font. Thanks!
It was only one post. You post in large font all the time to make a point stand out. Just thought I'd do the same.
 

Z Man

New member
Clete said:
Your reasoning basically goes like this...

We know that God did cause some catastrophes therefore God has caused all catastrophes.
Wrong. My reasoning is that God has caused all, not some, of the catastrophes in the Bible, therefore He must cause them all.
That is known in formal logic as a "faulty (or hasty) generalization"...

Hasty generalization is the fallacy of examining just one or very few examples or studying a single case, and generalizing that to be representative of the whole class of objects or phenomena.
I'm not guilty of this because I've posted several and numerous examples of God causing tragedy, not just one or two.
The Biblical material (or lack thereof) is all irrelevant because the form of your argument is fallacious.
You say it's fallacious because I lack Biblical material. So it is relevant. And, to disprove your disprovement of my logic, I have posted several examples, not just one or two. Thus, you can't hold me to a logical fallacy, unless you believe that the numerous Scriptural examples just aren't enough proof.
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
Z Man said:
Wrong. My reasoning is that God has caused all, not some, of the catastrophes in the Bible, therefore He must cause them all.

I'm not guilty of this because I've posted several and numerous examples of God causing tragedy, not just one or two.

You say it's fallacious because I lack Biblical material. So it is relevant. And, to disprove your disprovement of my logic, I have posted several examples, not just one or two. Thus, you can't hold me to a logical fallacy, unless you believe that the numerous Scriptural examples just aren't enough proof.
I never said you posted only one or two Z Man.

First of all you haven't established that every bad thing that happens in the Bible was caused by God - YOU HAVE NOT DONE THAT!

Secondly, every bad thing in the Bible constitutes maybe 1 millionth of a percent of all the bad things that have ever happened and so even if you did establish that every bad thing that ever happened in the Bible was caused by God (which I don’t think you even actually believe) your argument would still be that, "God definitely caused some of the bad things (catastrophes, illnesses, famine, plague etc.) in the world, therefore He causes all bad things in the world." That very simply is not a valid argument Z Man! Be a man and admit it. If you want to try to establish this idea in another way, fine! But don't make yourself look like a fool by ignoring the fact that the form of your argument has been demonstrated to be fallacious.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

Nathon Detroit

LIFETIME MEMBER
LIFETIME MEMBER
Z Man, I just gave you an example of an event that God clearly claims He is not responsible for and you ignored it.

And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.’ - Jeremiah 32:35

Please respond to it.
 

Z Man

New member
Clete said:
First of all you haven't established that every bad thing that happens in the Bible was caused by God - YOU HAVE NOT DONE THAT!
I've read enough to conclude that God causes plagues, storms, disasters, etc. If you believe that God may cause them some of the time, where do you find sources that say something or someone else was the cause of a plague, or storm, etc.? How can you judge which events are from God or not? What other sources do you have that lead to the conclusion that God is only limited to causing the events we read about in the Bible, and not all of them?
Secondly, every bad thing in the Bible constitutes maybe 1 millionth of a percent of all the bad things that have ever happened and so even if you did establish that every bad thing that ever happened in the Bible was caused by God your argument would still be that, "God definitely caused some of the bad things (catastrophes, illnesses, famine, plague etc.) in the world, therefore He causes all bad things in the world." That very simply is not a valid argument Z Man!
It is if we base our conclusions and theology ONLY on the Biblical texts. What other sources do you have that lead to the conclusion that God is only limited to causing the events we read about in the Bible, and not all of them?
Be a man and admit it. If you want to try to establish this idea in another way, fine! But don't make yourself look like a fool by ignoring the fact that the form of your argument has been demonstrated to be fallacious.
I admit, it would be fallacious if the Bible wasn't the only source of truth for Christians. Is there another source out there Clete that we as Christians need to take as seriously as the Bible?
 

Z Man

New member
Knight said:
Z Man, I just gave you an example of an event that God clearly claims He is not responsible for and you ignored it.
Because it's irrelevant to the topic. We're not discussing whether God causes people to sin or not (which I don't believe He does anyways), but rather, is God behind every catastrophic event (disasters, disease, etc.). I've never seen a verse that states someone or something other than God being the primary cause behind such events. This passage is about the Israelites sins - of course God did not cause them to sin. I've never argued such a thing.
Please respond to it.
If you want my full discourse on this passage, I've discussed my opinion on it in the "BATTLE TALK ~ BRX (rounds 1 thru 3)" forum.

Please respond to:

Knight, how can you judge which events were from God or not? How can you say God was the cause of the worst natural disaster in the history of the planet, then turn around and denounce that God caused this tower to fall, killing a small number of people in comparison to the flood in Genesis, or that He caused a person to be blind?
 

godrulz

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
Z Man said:
Wrong. My reasoning is that God has caused all, not some, of the catastrophes in the Bible, therefore He must cause them all.

I'm not guilty of this because I've posted several and numerous examples of God causing tragedy, not just one or two.

You say it's fallacious because I lack Biblical material. So it is relevant. And, to disprove your disprovement of my logic, I have posted several examples, not just one or two. Thus, you can't hold me to a logical fallacy, unless you believe that the numerous Scriptural examples just aren't enough proof.

The Bible is selective history. It does not contain every thing that Jesus or God said and did. You are taking some historical narratives and making an absolute principle out of them.

Some diseases and weather patterns are inherent to our fallen creation, the nature of the creation God chose, man's influence on the environment, etc. There is no basis to conclude omnicausality from the selective examples you quote. If man creates a disease in the lab, this is not from God. As I keep pointing out, Jesus linked disease to sin and Satan at times. Are you saying the Son of God is opposing the will of the Father? Jesus came to oppose the things contrary to God's will, not affirm everything as God's will.
 

godrulz

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
Z Man said:
...only because it doesn't fit to your 'man-centered' theology.


My theology is theocentric, but this also recognizes that there are natural factors, man, and the angelic realm in the universe. God's will is not the only factor in the universe. He created significant others with a say so in order to have reciprocal relationships. God did not chose a unilateral, all-controlling position with creation. Your view does not square with reality nor Scripture.
 

Nathon Detroit

LIFETIME MEMBER
LIFETIME MEMBER
God claimed responsibility for the flood.

It was God's judgement against mankind becoming corrupt.

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. - Genesis 6:11-13

Conversely... God DID NOT CLAIM (or even infer) responsibility for making the man blind in John 9 nor dropping the tower on the 18 and killing them.

If someone tells you that they caused a traffic accident do you assume they have caused all traffic accidents? :think:
 

Nathon Detroit

LIFETIME MEMBER
LIFETIME MEMBER
godrulz said:
My theology is theocentric, but this also recognizes that there are natural factors, man, and the angelic realm in the universe. God's will is not the only factor in the universe. He created significant others with a say so in order to have reciprocal relationships. God did not chose a unilateral, all-controlling position with creation. Your view does not square with reality nor Scripture.
Well said! :up:
 

godrulz

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
Z: Does God cause people to get drunk, drive drunk, and kill people secondary to this? Does God cause people to shoot each other? Are these things evil? Who is responsible/accountable for sinful crimes?

If I fall off a ladder and break my neck, was God involved in anyway?

If atmospheric situations line up (science would still happen even if evolution was true and there was no God!) and a tornado or hurricane happens, is it automatically by divine intention or control? Just because God can control weather and use it for judgment, does not have to mean every small dust storm is generated by the hand of God. Rain would happen on this planet even if there was no God (we know God put the planet here with natural parameters...the supernatural is not needed to explain every disaster, illness, accident, event, injury, etc.).
 
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