It Wouldn't Take Much

[David Sklansky]

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High priests were immune to deadly diseases?


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An entire universe appeared seemingly out of nothing for no apparent reason?

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The atheists who shoo that aside are morons. Some of them talk about virtual particles and the like even though they barely understand them. It is only slightly less dumb to adamantly believe there cannot be life after death. At least not until consciouness is explained better.

Thus it is plausible that there is a designer of the universe and even a small possibility that humans have a special enough place in his heart to persuade him to let some of them live forever.

So what? None of the above means he is omnipotent (He might be a resident of a fifth dimensional universe that always existed rather than one like ours that had a big bang.) None of the above means he is benevolent. And none of the above means he has any inclination to interfere with anything except perhaps after death.

Don't get me wrong. Any entity that could create a universe and create consciousness beings when nothing else (three dimensional) can (still an open question) could be expected to have the power to interfere in our lives even if he wasn't fully omnipotent. It might even be expected that he would. But the overwhelming evidence is that he hasn't. At least to any degree that can be verified. And when claims are investigatable they are invariably debunked. More general events like tsunamis are sometimes attributable to God's wrath. But then why doesn't he spare more innocents? If he is so intent on avoiding miracles that will add credence to Biblical claims, simply to test faith, he sure as heck can't be expected to answer prayers.

Ironically, you personally don't seem to have as much problem with these contentions as others. You have often said that you are almost as sceptical as me about claims of modern day miracles. The only one you really need to be true is the resurrection and perhaps a few others. Along with the after death stuff. But that God, which even I think is just barely plausible, isn't the one organized religion sells. Rather it sells a God who will answer prayers and do a lot of stuff even now that would have a chemist or physicist scratch his head. You might settle for one who doesn't do that. But 90% of religious people wouldn't.