"Are atheists mentally ill?"

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Probably. I mean, who am I to say what goes on in their focked up heads.

So you think I'm f-cked up?

Again, who am I to say, but it's focking weird.

[Joe Republic]

Invisible sky wizards and the act of eating metaphorical bits of his son's flesh and blood are also pretty "focking" weird too.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Yikes.  Add religion to the list of things this forum isn't mature enough to discuss.

[MalaspinaGold]

Stupid question. Akin to asking: "Are religious people delusional/epileptic"?

[Joe Republic]

Apparently Nathan objects to the term 'invisible sky wizard'.  Generic it may be, but accurate nonetheless.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Apparently Nathan objects to the term 'invisible sky wizard'. Generic it may be, but accurate nonetheless.

Any scholar of religion with two brain cells to rub together would at the very least have concerns about using it to describe Christianity, unless Christianity is being understood solely on the level of its symbolism (without reference to what those things are supposed to be symbols of), in which case one is essentially sneering at people for having different taste in art than oneself and is as such an even more insufferably smug piece of work. I actually doubt that this is the case, however. I think that most of the people who say this sort of thing think that it is actually a fair characterization of what Christians (or Muslims, or Jews, or whoever else) believe, and that isn't really worth going to the trouble of holding in contempt.

Actually, any scholar of religion with two brain cells to rub together would object, either out of genuine sympathetic and humane feeling or simply for fear of gaining a richly earned bad name and being known as a terrible excuse for a scholar of religion ever after, to reducing people's beliefs to demeaning cliches regardless of accuracy, but why allow those kinds of considerations to interrupt our thinking when we obviously know what's best?

[afleitch]

Apparently Nathan objects to the term 'invisible sky wizard'. Generic it may be, but accurate nonetheless.

Any scholar of religion with two brain cells to rub together would at the very least have concerns about using it to describe Christianity, unless Christianity is being understood solely on the level of its symbolism (without reference to what those things are supposed to be symbols of), in which case one is essentially sneering at people for having different taste in art than oneself and is as such an even more insufferably smug piece of work. I actually doubt that this is the case, however. I think that most of the people who say this sort of thing think that it is actually a fair characterization of what Christians (or Muslims, or Jews, or whoever else) believe, and that isn't really worth going to the trouble of holding in contempt.

Actually, any scholar of religion with two brain cells to rub together would object, either out of genuine sympathetic and humane feeling or simply for fear of gaining a richly earned bad name and being known as a terrible excuse for a scholar of religion ever after, to reducing people's beliefs to demeaning cliches regardless of accuracy, but why allow those kinds of considerations to interrupt our thinking when we obviously know what's best?

Yet you seem to show little concern for the simplification, clichés and misrepresentation of what people without faith hold dear even in this very thread. I'm patient but the 'Dawkins LOL' type responses I kept getting to quite thorough and personal posts or no responses at all has pretty much made me just leave you guys to it.

[DemPGH]

I thought that piece was just tongue-in-cheek or kind of mocking until the end, and I wasn't sure. Nonetheless, those are arguments that people will make. You know, we're at the top of the food chain, so we're "hard wired" for a lot of things, including faith, but that doesn't by necessity make those things good! I could argue that religion increases anxiety and tension just as easily. And of course I am always amazed at how quickly people are willing to divorce religion from its awful, inhumane, bloody history in order to make a terrible argument that extols its virtues. I don't think we do that with literally anything else - religion gets another free pass.

But if the piece is to be taken literally (I did not research the author and am not terribly interested to do so), then it's another example of religion endowing people with a delusional sense of knowledge, certainty, moral authority, and so on. I mean, we've never seen THAT before, have we?

Oh-- given the Bible's attitude toward God, "invisible sky wizard" is substantially less reductive than "it's all an accident" or "they think we came from apes" or whatever. An immortal being supposedly snapped his fingers and there was light and physical laws and a planet here. Then he had a son who was really him who he sent on a suicide mission that wasn't really a suicide mission. What else are you going to call a being like that?

[barfbag]

It's fascinating to read atheists and critics squirm just because their line of thinking is under attack.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

And of course I am always amazed at how quickly people are willing to divorce religion from its awful, inhumane, bloody history in order to make a terrible argument that extols its virtues. I don't think we do that with literally anything else - religion gets another free pass.

Actually, we do it with many things: money, governments, sex, science, speech - the list goes on and on.  Each of these are "good" things that have been exploited in various fashions to serve the selfish interests of individuals.  That doesn't mean we simply dismiss them as inherently bad.  Doing so would be impractical.  There is value in everything, but its virtues can only be embraced if the potential for exploitation is suppressed.

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Indeed, religion does endow people with these things.  That doesn't mean religion itself needs to be changed, it means the conversation and the approach needs to be changed, and that goes for both theists and atheists/agnostics.  As long as our world is populated by people who are self-righteous, self-indulgent, or idolatrous, religion is bound to be subject to exploitation, just like everything else.

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As an evolutionist, I would argue that "we came from apes" is not an inaccurate statement of the scientific position.  Obviously, the reality is far more complex than that, but that doesn't necessarily negate the statement itself.  That isn't the point I'm trying to make, though.  To Christians (or at least, the Christians I've encountered), God does not exist as a mere wizard Who resides in the sky.  Furthermore, Jesus' mission was not a "suicide mission" in any sense of the word.  No, suicide is deeply frowned upon in the Christian religion.  Christians view Jesus' death as fulfillment of the prophesy.

[afleitch]

Christians view Jesus' death as fulfillment of the prophesy.

Christians view Jesus' death as the fulfillment of the prophecy of the god of the Jews. As I already pointed out in another thread;

Whose ‘conditions’ does he meet? Jesus is not Kalki, Li Hong, Maitreya, Saoshyant or John Frum. He meets (in part, we have to say because Jews consider he doesn’t meet the criteria) the conditions of the Jewish messiah as promised to them. He is intrinsically linked with Yahweh. Jesus may be for the ‘whole world’ and not just the saviour of the Jews, but he is tethered to his father. You can’t dissociate them. For example I couldn’t say Achilles was a demi-god and then deny the relevance or deity of his mother, the god Thetis. He can’t be considered a demi-god without his mother being considered a god. With that in mind, surely the Old Testament which reveals the conditions of the coming the messiah and which encapsulates the covenant Yahweh has with his people would if inspired by The God, be ‘better’ than it is.

Even if it was never meant to be better than the scientific and historical truth and was intended to be largely allegorical (though it’s curious as to why it should not have been telling the Jewish people about the reality of creation and their history) surely it should be a better myth than other competing myths if it’s inspired by The God? Especially given that these other competing myths, many of which are linked to the worship of other gods (because to those worshippers, those gods gave that message to them) were not inspired by The God.

Why are some of these other myths more accurate descriptions of the truth or predate the stories of the Old Testament from which the OT then borrows? It would suggest, would it not that knowledge not inspired by The God or inspired by other claimed gods, seems to be better than that which apparently was inspired by The God in the OT. Given that was the case then, and is certainly the case with scientific advancement now, then at no point in it’s existence has the Old Testament ever elucidated the best, greatest, most profound and most accurate understanding of the world even through the eyes of humanity at the time it was written. And yet we are told the OT was inspired by The God.

So if The God has inspired people to write inaccurate accounts or at the very least, the ‘lesser’ material then either The God wants people to remain ignorant or he is deliberately misleading them. If he is misleading them (which if he is The God he could easily do) then you cannot trust the messianic claims. At the very least, other deities deserve a look in if you’re searching for the truth!

So you have to believe that the god of the Jews is The God. Given that the OT is less well written and less accurate than the theological texts of some other religions (or pilfers from them) in order to be theologically honest you should say to yourself, say to others why you believe that Christianity is 'more correct' than every other interpretation of faith. And that is what frustrates people. Atheists and agnostics can understand the concept of a god. I have no beef at all with people who believe in it and good, solid, deist arguments can be made.

However let me say this. Personally, to meet someone, as reasoned a person as you are who says that out of all the infinite number of universes, the billions of galaxies, the billions of stars and billions of planets that the entire revealed word of the creator and all his rules was given to one Palestinian tribe is absolutely incredulous to me. The entire theological argument of a creator god endowed with human personality traits and directly intervening in tribal warfare for a thousand years of history as being The One True God is so egocentric, so ultimately self serving (having humans seek affirmation from an external agent for their own actions) that for me (and I say this as a former Christian) if there is a god, Christianity and most faiths are so far removed from what god is, that you're better off holding no position at all.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Christians view Jesus' death as fulfillment of the prophesy.

Christians view Jesus' death as the fulfillment of the prophecy of the god of the Jews. As I already pointed out in another thread;

Whose ‘conditions’ does he meet? Jesus is not Kalki, Li Hong, Maitreya, Saoshyant or John Frum. He meets (in part, we have to say because Jews consider he doesn’t meet the criteria) the conditions of the Jewish messiah as promised to them. He is intrinsically linked with Yahweh. Jesus may be for the ‘whole world’ and not just the saviour of the Jews, but he is tethered to his father. You can’t dissociate them. For example I couldn’t say Achilles was a demi-god and then deny the relevance or deity of his mother, the god Thetis. He can’t be considered a demi-god without his mother being considered a god. With that in mind, surely the Old Testament which reveals the conditions of the coming the messiah and which encapsulates the covenant Yahweh has with his people would if inspired by The God, be ‘better’ than it is.

Even if it was never meant to be better than the scientific and historical truth and was intended to be largely allegorical (though it’s curious as to why it should not have been telling the Jewish people about the reality of creation and their history) surely it should be a better myth than other competing myths if it’s inspired by The God? Especially given that these other competing myths, many of which are linked to the worship of other gods (because to those worshippers, those gods gave that message to them) were not inspired by The God.

Why are some of these other myths more accurate descriptions of the truth or predate the stories of the Old Testament from which the OT then borrows? It would suggest, would it not that knowledge not inspired by The God or inspired by other claimed gods, seems to be better than that which apparently was inspired by The God in the OT. Given that was the case then, and is certainly the case with scientific advancement now, then at no point in it’s existence has the Old Testament ever elucidated the best, greatest, most profound and most accurate understanding of the world even through the eyes of humanity at the time it was written. And yet we are told the OT was inspired by The God.

So if The God has inspired people to write inaccurate accounts or at the very least, the ‘lesser’ material then either The God wants people to remain ignorant or he is deliberately misleading them. If he is misleading them (which if he is The God he could easily do) then you cannot trust the messianic claims. At the very least, other deities deserve a look in if you’re searching for the truth!

So you have to believe that the god of the Jews is The God. Given that the OT is less well written and less accurate than the theological texts of some other religions (or pilfers from them) in order to be theologically honest you should say to yourself, say to others why you believe that Christianity is 'more correct' than every other interpretation of faith. And that is what frustrates people. Atheists and agnostics can understand the concept of a god. I have no beef at all with people who believe in it and good, solid, deist arguments can be made.

However let me say this. Personally, to meet someone, as reasoned a person as you are who says that out of all the infinite number of universes, the billions of galaxies, the billions of stars and billions of planets that the entire revealed word of the creator and all his rules was given to one Palestinian tribe is absolutely incredulous to me. The entire theological argument of a creator god endowed with human personality traits and directly intervening in tribal warfare for a thousand years of history as being The One True God is so egocentric, so ultimately self serving (having humans seek affirmation from an external agent for their own actions) that for me (and I say this as a former Christian) if there is a god, Christianity and most faiths are so far removed from what god is, that you're better off holding no position at all.

Afleitch, I have repeatedly tried to establish that I don't approach Christianity, let alone religion in general, the same way fundamentalists or conservatives do.  I am not a Christian because I think I am right.  My approach, arguably comparable to that of John Wesley's (not that I would ever place myself at his level intelligence wise), is a strictly orthopraxic one.  Being "right" is a very miniscule tenet of my religion, if one at all, and I do not see truth as something confined to the tangible and the irrefutable.  Did God reveal His word to one tribe of people on this planet in this universe, and to no one else?  Maybe, maybe not.  I don't lose sleep at night for having that uncertainty.  Do I have reasons for why I think God exists and why it's better for me to hold a position in the affirmative rather than have no position at all?  Yes, and I try to live up to that faith as best as I can.  But at the end of the day, I realize that I'm only human, and that there is no belief system which will guarantee me a 'happy ending' or otherwise something that makes me superior (morally or otherwise) to others.  All I'm left with is a light in the heart.

[afleitch]

Afleitch, I have repeatedly tried to establish that I don't approach Christianity, let alone religion in general, the same way fundamentalists or conservatives do.  I am not a Christian because I think I am right.  My approach, arguably comparable to that of John Wesley's (not that I would ever place myself at his level intelligence wise), is a strictly orthopraxic one.  Being "right" is a very miniscule tenet of my religion, if one at all, and I do not see truth as something confined to the tangible and the irrefutable.  Did God reveal His word to one tribe of people on this planet in this universe, and to no one else?  Maybe, maybe not.  I don't lose sleep at night for having that uncertainty.  Do I have reasons for why I think God exists and why it's better for me to hold a position in the affirmative rather than have no position at all?  Yes, and I try to live up to that faith as best as I can.  But at the end of the day, I realize that I'm only human, and that there is no belief system which will guarantee me a 'happy ending' or otherwise something that makes me superior (morally or otherwise) to others.  All I'm left with is a light in the heart.

But why are you a Christian? (and indeed, want to minister to others in that capacity) It's a serious question.  Why aren't you a Hindu, or a Muslim or a worshiper of Apollo if the truth or being right or wrong is not a tenet of your faith? Now the flippant answer, and I don't think this is entirely incorrect, is that for most people labouring over religion isn't easy, so the adoption of the local dominant or influential faith tends to be the case. So people who find religion in the US tend to become Christian or if they experience something religious attribute it to the Christian god because that god is a cultural artifact. However, given your uncertainty which is not bad thing, why minister to others who perhaps require a notion of certainty? Why seek to minister to people something that you're not particularly bothered is correct or relevant? If you want to believe in 'something' rather than nothing when it comes to god, why not investigate other faith and belief systems to seek what is more personally fulfilling?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Afleitch, I have repeatedly tried to establish that I don't approach Christianity, let alone religion in general, the same way fundamentalists or conservatives do.  I am not a Christian because I think I am right.  My approach, arguably comparable to that of John Wesley's (not that I would ever place myself at his level intelligence wise), is a strictly orthopraxic one.  Being "right" is a very miniscule tenet of my religion, if one at all, and I do not see truth as something confined to the tangible and the irrefutable.  Did God reveal His word to one tribe of people on this planet in this universe, and to no one else?  Maybe, maybe not.  I don't lose sleep at night for having that uncertainty.  Do I have reasons for why I think God exists and why it's better for me to hold a position in the affirmative rather than have no position at all?  Yes, and I try to live up to that faith as best as I can.  But at the end of the day, I realize that I'm only human, and that there is no belief system which will guarantee me a 'happy ending' or otherwise something that makes me superior (morally or otherwise) to others.  All I'm left with is a light in the heart.

But why are you a Christian? (and indeed, want to minister to others in that capacity) It's a serious question.  Why aren't you a Hindu, or a Muslim or a worshiper of Apollo if the truth or being right or wrong is not a tenet of your faith? Now the flippant answer, and I don't think this is entirely incorrect, is that for most people labouring over religion isn't easy, so the adoption of the local dominant or influential faith tends to be the case. So people who find religion in the US tend to become Christian or if they experience something religious attribute it to the Christian god because that god is a cultural artifact. However, given your uncertainty which is not bad thing, why minister to others who perhaps require a notion of certainty? Why seek to minister to people something that you're not particularly bothered is correct or relevant? If you want to believe in 'something' rather than nothing when it comes to god, why not investigate other faith and belief systems to seek what is more personally fulfilling?

"Why I'm a Christian" isn't the point.  You are emphasizing something that is not important simply because of what ninety-something percent of other Christians you've met may have told you about the faith.  I was raised Christian, I read the Bible cover to cover, I am familiar with and accepting of its teachings, and this religion speaks to me most.  The Museum of God displays many paintings; I picked the one that speaks to me best.  It didn't matter what I got because they're all painted by the same artist, Whom I engage with ritually and call Jesus.  To others, that artist is known by a different name.  No matter what we call Him, that being at the end of the tunnel is the same.  I want to counsel to others so that I may introduce an approach to the faith that is seldom taken.  Part of that approach calls for the freeing of oneself from the weight of absolute certainty in exchange for the rewards of humility.  If you require a notion of certainty, you aren't playing the game correctly.

Could I help people in the capacity of a rabbi or an imam?  Perhaps, but those religions simply don't communicate to me.  My local UCC congregation is going on a mission trip to South Dakota next year.  We aren't going to build houses for Christians, or Jews, or Muslims - we are going to build houses for people.

Of course I've investigated other faiths, and if there's one thing I've learned it's that nearly all of them are chock full of people telling me they're right and everyone else is wrong.  There are various reasons why other religions don't speak to me; many are theological, others moral, and some ceremonial.  You could just as well ask me why I opt to be a Protestant minister instead of a Catholic priest, but I think the reasons behind that choice are self-evident, given my theological views.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Apparently Nathan objects to the term 'invisible sky wizard'. Generic it may be, but accurate nonetheless.

Any scholar of religion with two brain cells to rub together would at the very least have concerns about using it to describe Christianity, unless Christianity is being understood solely on the level of its symbolism (without reference to what those things are supposed to be symbols of), in which case one is essentially sneering at people for having different taste in art than oneself and is as such an even more insufferably smug piece of work. I actually doubt that this is the case, however. I think that most of the people who say this sort of thing think that it is actually a fair characterization of what Christians (or Muslims, or Jews, or whoever else) believe, and that isn't really worth going to the trouble of holding in contempt.

Actually, any scholar of religion with two brain cells to rub together would object, either out of genuine sympathetic and humane feeling or simply for fear of gaining a richly earned bad name and being known as a terrible excuse for a scholar of religion ever after, to reducing people's beliefs to demeaning cliches regardless of accuracy, but why allow those kinds of considerations to interrupt our thinking when we obviously know what's best?

Yet you seem to show little concern for the simplification, clichés and misrepresentation of what people without faith hold dear even in this very thread. I'm patient but the 'Dawkins LOL' type responses I kept getting to quite thorough and personal posts or no responses at all has pretty much made me just leave you guys to it.

This actually is a legitimate criticism of my attitudes and behavior but, in all honesty, I tend to consider those particular misrepresentations stupid and offensive in a more self-evident way (at least, self-evident to the people who frequent this forum) than what Joe was saying. I'm also pretty sure that Cathcon, at least, was being partially facetious, although I understand why one might not think that necessarily makes it any better.

Again, though, it is a legitimate criticism. In particular I'm much quicker to defend religions that aren't my own than non-religious belief systems that aren't my own, and I recognize that that's an unfair bias and one which I have a hard time checking and uprooting for reasons of which I'm really not sure.

[Joe Republic]

You also like to make it perfectly clear that you've read a lot of Very Important Books^TM, and aren't afraid to casually namedrop religious philosophers you know virtually nobody else here will have heard of.

But hey, whatever you want to waste your life on.  Not what I'd pick, but that's just me.

Now off you go to repost this into the Deluge. 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You also like to make it perfectly clear that you've read a lot of Very Important Books^TM, and aren't afraid to casually namedrop religious philosophers you know virtually nobody else here will have heard of.

But hey, whatever you want to waste your life on.  Not what I'd pick, but that's just me.

I don't consider 'developing informed opinions about topics I wish to discuss' at all wasteful, but that's just me.

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I've already made it amply clear what I think your thoughts on these matters are worth. This doesn't add to that. I have better things to do.

[Oak Hills]

Oh the irony...

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I fail to understand how adopting a belief system that makes one happier is any way "smart". In my opinion, those who believe there is a reason for existence or "hope" are deluding themselves. I think the more intelligent position is to go with whatever all of one's experience tell one. If that leads to the conclusion that "life" is really nothing and that there is no possible hope for any being in the universe, so be it. Everything I know indicates that that's the way it is. From my perspective, it is mentally ill to think otherwise.

Second, I can't believe major media establishments pay people like this who are basically shock jocks. People like whoever it was who wrote that are part of what caused me to become a radical anticapitalist for several months in the spring.

Also, the "something from nothing" argument barfbag brought up is absolutely inane and if you sincerely believe that that is a legitimate argument for the existence of God, you are stupid, period. If there had to be a first cause, and therefore God exists, how did God come into existence? I am sure I will only get silence from barfbag, because he cannot defend his statement. The idea that complex things had to have a designer is equally inane, because if intelligence is so complex it cannot arise organically, how can God exist? Of course barfbag is a troll, and I have more or less disproved a post he made on another topic, and he did not respond, and I know he saw it, because he actually posted in that thread again without defending his statement. And he kept on repeating his ridiculous assertion in other threads. I know this is off-topic, but barfbag is clearly here to troll and I am strongly in favour of his banning. I do have him on ignore, just to be clear, and I only saw his post in this thread because someone responded to it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I fail to understand how adopting a belief system that makes one happier is any way "smart". In my opinion, those who believe there is a reason for existence or "hope" are deluding themselves. I think the more intelligent position is to go with whatever all of one's experience tell one. If that leads to the conclusion that "life" is really nothing and that there is no possible hope for any being in the universe, so be it. Everything I know indicates that that's the way it is. From my perspective, it is mentally ill to think otherwise.

Again, I really think the best way to respond to something like this is to point out that this kind of argument is profoundly nasty and uncalled-for, not to engage in it oneself. Saying that people who have a different interpretation of the facts of their experience from oneself are mentally ill is entirely inappropriate because it amounts to calling experiences of life that differ from one's own pathological.

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Your counterarguments against the aspects of the quinque viae that barfbag was invoking don't really have much to stand on, because they don't address the fact that the God for Whose existence the quinque viae are attempting to argue definitionally has properties that distinguish Him from created objects in terms of how the concepts of causality and complexity can apply (and that the quinque viae know full well that they require this definition of God in order to work--i.e. what's supposed to be established precisely is an uncaused cause, and God isn't seen as complex anyway (which makes the argument from complexity a terrible argument for other reasons, just not the one you, or Richard Dawkins who makes much the same counterargument somewhere or other, appear to be advancing).) This fact in itself makes the arguments seem suspect to a lot of people, and there's ample reason to accuse the quinque viae of not accomplishing what they set out to accomplish, sure.

(The argument from complexity isn't technically one of the quinque viae, but I'm using it as a shorthand. Sorry to any Thomists who might read this!)

ETA: What I was saying about the argument from complexity ended up a little contorted and unfair to both you and barfbag; sorry. I did another run-through of my understanding of the arguments in question and reread parts of the thread because I wanted to get this right.

The reason why the argument from complexity is a terrible argument is that it has to do one of two things. It has to either assume that God is more complex than anything in His creation, which not only flies in face of most other theology but does open itself up to your (and Richard Dawkins's) counterargument unless it's used in conjunction with the first cause or some other argument of that kind (in which case even venturing into the argument from complexity seems like a redundant and counterproductive muddying of the waters), or posit that anything no matter how complex can come from a simpler cause as long as that cause is God, which strikes one as flatly ridiculous and hence makes the entire premise fall apart. (If there's any third option here that I'm somehow missing that makes the argument from complexity less terrible, I'd love to be told about it!)

So in that respect your counterargument is more astute than I originally realized, although I still don't think it really works as an argument against the existence of God.

Rereading barfbag's initial post it says at least some good about him that he didn't actually advance the argument from complexity, although it was still more-than-characteristically stupid and tacky of him to have advanced the first cause argument in the context and manner in which he did.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I've always taken God's complexity as the central reason for why we have Jesus and the prophets.

God is very hard for a mortal to know.  He is omniscient, omnipotent, transcendant, and eternal, perceives the whole universe of time and space in one timeless instant, is infinitely wise, and therefore is inescapably complex.  God is simply too big for us mortals to wrap our heads around, so if we assume that God wants us to know Him, He needs to help us, and that help comes from the relationship formed between those of His creation and that of His human, mortal self.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

...I've...never seen a Christian theology that concedes the notion that God is complex before.

[TJ in Oregon]

...I've...never seen a Christian theology that concedes the notion that God is complex before.

What do you mean by "complex"? Having both a real and imaginary part?

Also, what difference does it make? The entire basis of biology is more complicated life arising from simpler life. Whether or not God is more complex than life or simpler is very much beside the point.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

...I've...never seen a Christian theology that concedes the notion that God is complex before.

Er, I think I may have misunderstood your post.  You posited that the argument from complexity assumes that God is more complex than anything in His creation, which flies in the face of most other theology.  However, I don't think most religions see God's creation as more complex than Himself.

[Joe Republic]

I've already made it amply clear what I think your thoughts on these matters are worth. This doesn't add to that. I have better things to do.

Similarly, I can't say I've ever completely read through any of your boring lectures, such is their value to me.

You have your hobby; I don't share it.  Normally I'd leave you to it, but of course many millions of people share the same weird hobby, which in turn affects society, which in turn affects me.  So naturally I will continue to protest it and its influence, and highlight how ridiculous it is to the outsider.

It's funny to see you get so blustery though.  You even seem to namedrop more obscure philosophers and concepts the more worked up you get.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I've already made it amply clear what I think your thoughts on these matters are worth. This doesn't add to that. I have better things to do.

Similarly, I can't say I've ever completely read through any of your boring lectures, such is their value to me.

You have your hobby; I don't share it.  Normally I'd leave you to it, but of course many millions of people share the same weird hobby, which in turn affects society, which in turn affects me.  So naturally I will continue to protest it and its influence, and highlight how ridiculous it is to the outsider.

It's funny to see you get so blustery though.  You even seem to namedrop more obscure philosophers and concepts the more worked up you get.

Wow.