Falsifying God? (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Wednesday, December 31, 2014, 21:30 (3615 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Dhw: I will try to respond to the rest of your comments on the prophecies, but before I do, I'd be grateful if, in the light of the passage you have quoted from Deuteronomy, you would now accept that a failed prophecy would not falsify the concept of God, but would falsify the concept of the bible as the word of God.-TONY: If a book of the Bible failed in a prophecy, it would certainly falsify the bible as the word of god, and in fact books that had at one time been accepted, such as the apocrypha, were rejected for the simple reason that they contained errors, and for the fact that they used the same literary devices that you continue to accuse the bible authors of using, along with other criteria such as internal consistency. 
A failed prophecy, particularly one of the primary prophecies that stretch across the entire length of the bible (i.e. written multiple times in different manners by different authors with different details) then yes, it would falsify the Judeo Christian God, because that is the standard which is set to falsify him. If his word is not truth, neither is he.-That is the standard set by whom? Did God inform you that if a prophecy is proved wrong, he doesn't exist? Your first paragraph acknowledges, as does the passage from Deuteronomy, that if a prophecy failed “it would certainly falsify the bible as the word of God”. Thank you. But then you say the bible IS the word of God, and so if a prophecy fails it will falsify him! Let's look at that again: if a prophecy is wrong, the bible is not the word of God, but you say the bible IS the word of God, so if a prophecy's wrong, God doesn't exist - in which case the bible still isn't the word of God. I'm afraid this is too much for my simple brain. I'll stick to the Deuteronomy quote, blame the false prophet and the bible, and still accept the possible existence of God. -TONY: Would that falsify ALL gods? No, of course not. But each God, in turn, could be measured by the same standards of indirect observations. If their predictions fail, they are not Gods.-We do not know of any prophecies delivered directly by a god or gods. They all come through humans who tell us that the prophecies came from their god(s). And so a failed prophecy tells us only that the human being got it wrong, in this case the author of the prophecy recorded in the bible.-TONY: As I have said in the past, and I still believe today, you (DHW) would likely not believe in god unless you were able to sit down with him for tea. I have asked you before, and not received concrete response, what would it take to prove God to you?-Some clear, direct evidence of his existence. As David himself has said, there is NO proof. David's theory is built on inference and requires a massive leap of faith; I don't know what has sparked your own faith, but you might just as well ask what it would take for me to believe in a multiverse, or that 3.7 billion years ago chance engendered life, or there's an invisible teapot orbiting the sun. An ancient collection of man-made manuscripts would not convince me, even if some of them contained historical truths. However, although I regard the teapot as an irrelevance, I cannot dismiss the unproven, unprovable theories of God, other universes, chance, or panpsychist evolution since at least one theory must come close to the truth, no matter how improbable it may seem.-I'd be grateful for a response to the following exchange: -TONY: I find it ironic that you have no trouble taking the testimony of people that were drugged up or dead(or nearly so) as evidence for NDE's, but find the testimony of hundreds of first hand accounts of living people beyond credence.-Dhw: I have a great deal of trouble understanding NDE testimonies, but I don't reject them when their testimony has been verified by living, independent third parties. In relation to the ancient tales of the bible, please explain what you mean by “first hand accounts of living people”. Which living people have given us first hand accounts of the serpent speaking to Eve, or of Christ dying, coming back to life, and floating up to heaven on a cloud?-I had promised to respond to your section on prophecy, but this post is already long enough. Next time. Meanwhile, let me wish you, your family, and anyone else who happens to read this, a healthy and enjoyable New Year.