>Well, when you begin to examine the teaching about God's sovereignity you are absolutely correct. Given He made the universe I suppose He has the right to decide what to do with it and those in it. That He would choose to give us life when we fully deserve death - after totally screwing up our priviledge of choice is astounding to me. The pot has no right to argue with the potter.

Pot is not self aware. The comparison is flawed. And then, "deserve death" by whose criteria? Human or divine? OTOH, the whole idea of dying when you deserve it may be entirely wrong, if he actually doesn't care, or doesn't exactly watch everything at all times. IOW, you can't know how much of the scripture is right, and how much was added by priests in latter centuries.

>>I'd rather discuss the matters over a dark (see my taglines). Know of someone who'd pay well to an old Fox in your area?
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>Well, while I have never cultivated a taste for alcohol I am led to believe that there are some very good breweries around here. I guess that's why I'm always the designated driver.. <g>

I'm also not much of a drinker. I drink very little, but when I do, I want something really good. That's why I usually go for European brews, or a local brewery.

>>Logic is just an empiric set of rules of thinking. It gives you a way to know when you're about to come to a conclusion which can be proven wrong by other means as well.
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>Sure, but my point was that man has limited his 'scope' here..

Logic is just the way of thinking, according to formal rules discovered, more or less, by ancient Greeks, as formulated by Aristoteles. You may choose to use it or not in any given occasion.

>Dogmas do not need logic but to use these as a justification to tell people, "Just believe, do not ask questions" is IMO flawed at best.

But that's where they fail, when they "use these as a justification to tell people" - at some point, they have to skip a logical fallacy, or to demand from the audience to take something for granted. But then, the agents of spreading were always chosen among those who have a way with words.

>Well, this whole issue about a "leap of faith" is something of a false choice. I have never been asked to believe something that was irrational.

Taking a note here and leaving it for later.

>Let me give you an example. In the Old Testament there are some 300 +/- specific prophetic utterances concerning the first coming of Christ. If memory serves having only 8 of these happen as predicted was the equivilent of hollowing out the Earth's crust, filling it with silver dollars, marking a single silver dollar, blindfolding someone and having them take one pick from the entire group and getting the right coin.

You mean, the probability for each one was infinitesimal?

>Now, after looking at these several prophecies at some point it becomes absurd not to believe as the numbers are so overwhelming. That's what I was meaning; issues such as this.

All of that, of course, assuming the prophecies were unaltered, and the record of them is really older than the event they predict :)

>>OK, back to the point of logic being applied to dogma: how many people has god created?
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>I wouldn't have a clue as to how many God has created - unless you mean the issue of the GHarden of Eden. Two in that case.
I never heard of other cases being mentioned, that's why I'm asking (plus the intention to show what happens when you apply logic). Anyway, if there were only these two, how many children did they have, and how did the whole population come into being?