“Bringing the history of political thought up to date and situating it against the backdrop of contemporary events, Gillespie’s analyses provide us a way to begin to have conversations with the Islamic world about what is perhaps the central question within each of the three monotheistic religions: if God is omnipotent, then what is the place of human freedom?”—Joshua Mitchell, Georgetown University

From Amazon about this book.

What is that third window from Pierce's POV.?

you ask! — TheMadFool

You made the truth claim that God wants us to fawn over him. If you cannot say what that means then you have created a strawman. I don't care, but you may want to actually know that what you are saying is actually true.[

quote="TheMadFool;366757"]No idea but presumably parents want the best for their children and that particular detail seems to be contradicted by the facts of the world.[/quote]

You made the truth claim that

That there are so many dissatisfied souls points to the failure of god's plan doesn't it? — TheMadFool

You made the truth claim that god's plan fails from the fact that there are so many dissatisfied souls. If you do know what god's plan is, then you have created a strawman argument. I think you have better arguments in you. Would love to hear them.

Would you agree then that we humans are god's, — TheMadFool

It would depend on how you define the term. Do you think you are an example of God in the manner of how people would generally define that term?

We (have to) fawn on him — TheMadFool

How does he want you to "fawn" on him?

That there are so many dissatisfied souls points to the failure of god's plan doesn't it? — TheMadFool

What is God's plan?

No, he is politely pointing out a Strawman argument.

I choose to believe you therefore, and I accept your report as empirical evidence. — god must be atheist

You are believing testimony as empirical evidence and accept it as true.

Because the empirical evidence of god is missing, and only exists in legends, — god must be atheist

You are not believing testimony as empirical evidence and not accepting it as true.

This shows that empirical evidence and it truth claim is simply decided by your personal opinion. This is not rational.

1. This reply is not founded on empirical evidence, and no a priori knowledge exists. So it could be true or false, nobody knows. — god must be atheist

Last Thursday I saw a squirrel outside. There is no empirical evidence that there this squirrel that I saw Thursday. By your argument I cannot say that I know there was a squirrel that I saw last Thursday. That is obviously absurd.

2. Rather allegedly, God wrote the ten commandments, but at a time when writing had not been invented by humans yet. How Moses made any sense of it is beyond me. Maybe there was a sort of Rosetta stone included in the package, with Egyptian hierogliphs and Mesopotamian clay writings to explain the jist of it. — god must be atheist

It was 15 commandments until he dropped one of the tablets..-Mel Brooks

We have all kinds of writings that are said to be from God. And though you chose a "literaly" written by God example. We do not have it.

Ergo, it must be that our prayers to god will not only fall on deaf ears but may actually invite god's spite, a fact that's written all over the pages of the holy books of the world. — TheMadFool

1. God is not your bitch to be bent over to do your will.
2. I don't know of any works that God wrote.

“....I think the idea of freedom should constitute to the idea of morality....”-chromecris

Why do you think that is true?

Hmm, the idea I responded to was that "God is immoral because he has authority over me."-(my paraphrase.

This is obviously not true. A station of authority does not constitute a moral dilemma.

As to your comment. The idea that God was created by people is not the definition of God being used. That is not the definition of the term being used, so making up your own definition and then saying your invented definition is flawed is not a valid.

As far as I know, the Christian God gives you the free choice to do good or not. The "DEMANDED" part seems to be human power grabbing speaking for God.

No, you cannot leave any of them at will. That is just not realistic.

Is your boss at work immoral because he/she is your boss?

Are police immoral? The government?

It does not matter to me if you are a theist or not.

“Ya gotta serve someone....”

But the good appears to have more moral connotations.... — Andrew4Handel

It would be easy to agree with you here, but after struggling with this for awhile, I would say morals are "taught" and here, good is an expression/measure of achieving those morals in the eyes of others and/or self-like in a myth-but we have different cultures with opposing views on the expression of some morals, thus opposing expressions of what is good, yet why is good, good, in either case?

In the recent cases of people bullying someone to the point of suicide, and coloring this in your mention of "pain", I think most would tend to agree that if someone interfered with the bullying, that the person who interfered did so because the pain of not doing so is greater than pain of not doing so. But that is only one color. We can color it in the idea that the person has great empathy for what ever reason and did so strictly from that color, or we could color it in social engineering, religion, etc.... I do not understand what makes good, good.

I’m not sure that its just a matter of perception. For instance when kids bully another to the point of suicide, is that a matter of perception that the act is bad and some may perceive that as good?

Your answer is dependent on how you define the term "Superior". In some cases we are not, and in some cases we are. What do my mean by "superior"? Superior in what way specifically. We can blow up the planet, does that make us superior, or less superior?