Why does God have to be so mysterious? Why can’t He just come out and say “Hey! This is what I want you to know.” Seems the Dude is looking for excuses to fry people forever. Any god worthy of respect will not be so cryptic.

johnboylan - 03 January 2012 03:43 PM

Bah Humbug to these responses. 
You know, no one denies that governments encrypt messages into seemingly normal letters etc.  But to even approach the idea that a God did this so threatens peoples sense of security that they can’t take it.  I thought i was dealing with adults who would have a serious conversation on this site… guess I was wrong.
John B

John you’re asking people to accept that something with a very simple and logical explanation has instead a very unlikely and complex explanation ( Look up Occam’s razor). Most people on this site are very familiar with this concept and will immediately reject such a proposal unless you have overwhelming evidence to the contrary which you do not.

If you are asking what the odds are that I could slide the lines of text around in any random fashion i chose and come up with 5 characters that might have some meaning I’d say the odds are pretty high. I’m sure if the mood struck me and I chose to waste some time I could find such patterns in any and every book listed in the library of congress.

On the other hand you’re asking me to believe that some supposedly omnipotent being has nothing better to do with his time than to hide mundane comments ( “I was tired” ?? really?? that was the best he could do??) cryptically in a book that was written by human beings. I mean if he hid the winning lottery numbers in there and you could use them to win the lottery 5 weeks in a row I might pay attention but that’s not going to happen because there really is nothing supernatural about this at all.

Excellent point, macgyver. “I was tired” is about the most banal, silly thing an omnicompetent being could have said in that context.

johnboylan - 03 January 2012 03:43 PM

Bah Humbug to these responses. 
You know, no one denies that governments encrypt messages into seemingly normal letters etc.  But to even approach the idea that a God did this so threatens peoples sense of security that they can’t take it.  I thought i was dealing with adults who would have a serious conversation on this site… guess I was wrong.
John B

Dude, let me count the ways you are wrong. I count 73 letters in the highlighted wrong statement. 7 +3 = 10. Remarkably there are also 19 words in that false statement. 9 + 1 = 10.  Ten is combined numbers of fingers on both hands. Thus you are wrong by 2 handfulls.
The evidence is clear, even an uneducated child can count the fingers on his hands. You’re just wrong, period.

johnboylan - 03 January 2012 03:43 PM

Bah Humbug to these responses. 
You know, no one denies that governments encrypt messages into seemingly normal letters etc.  But to even approach the idea that a God did this so threatens peoples sense of security that they can’t take it.  I thought i was dealing with adults who would have a serious conversation on this site… guess I was wrong.
John B

  There is no nice way to put this, but that is an absurd response.  First, we have to establish hard evidence that “God” exists, then we have to wonder why a supernatural, mind blowing, all knowing, sentient being would send us obscure,banal messages in code - why doesn’t God just give us the message telepathically, or use some other overwhelming means of communication?  The idea that our “sense of security” is violated by your truth bringing, so we cling to our disbelief even more is childish, and has nothing to do with serious conversation.

Don’t you know, we are dealing with another “beautiful mind”.  Maybe John has discovered another Illuminati plot.
John, I’ll nominate you for a Nobel prize. Who knows…...with gods help maybe…..?