Phil: OWWW! GOD! DAMN!
Me: I perceive you to be bleeding, and you appear to be in pain. Yet I have no idea how you came to this state or even if you truly exist.
Phil: You hit me you @%#* son of a *@#%!
Me: If that is your truth, you are certainly within your rights, as a being for which all of this reality exists only for you, to return the hit upon my person, inflicting equal or greater damage as well. It depends entirely on your perception of whether or not I will be futher angered and can inflict greater pain upon your person, than you can upon mine. I certainly encourage you to make the attempt, as my perception of winning a fight is not only flawed, but I may even be non existent.
--- All of that above took place on a few occassions for real. I had friends at the U of A who thought I was a real fun guy, though not everyone there agreed. At any rate, throwing their philosophical jabber back in their face while they sat on the ground nursing a painful bloody nose must have added insult to injury.
Still, whether you choose to see it as making a point in a real or physical sense, or only see it as a sadistic prank to play on the naive, I feel it still played a vital role in the formation of response alternatives for these guys when considering future interactions.
Just a hunch on my part.
Now then, to the last and final part of Blackwell that I care to address:
>The superior being, God, determined that they would be a certain way, and that is what they are.
I would hazard a guess that Blackwell is coming from the same font of wisdom that my philosophical sparring partners drank from: Starting with a reasonable - if arguable truth - and immediately pulling a con job to trick the listener.
For example, I could just as easily say,
"Just as the earth is our home and we depend on it and out sun for out very survival, so the silent music of the clouds above must play or our hearts will stop beating."
Poetic, but it makes no sense. What do I know of the music of clouds and how does the fact that the earth feeds me and the sun sustains me have anything to do with mucial clouds?
The superior being? What did Blackwell know of the Superior being and how did he know his name was God? They never called him "God" in the original language.
And what does Blackwell know of God's determination? From what source on high does Blackwell to presume that he understands the workings of a supreme being that he can make these statements? Blackwell was waxing philosophical, knowing, no doubt, that he could speak in such a manner because he was preaching to the choir. His "truths" were agreed upon fantasies. Unlike science: which never has a consensus - it can either be proven or it cannot. Consensus is for those who have no facts or evidence to back up their claims. Anyone who lives in a land where they vote for a leader knows this. Just because the majority voted a clod for Mayor does not make the clod a superior leader or the majority correct in their agreement. Only by consensus is said clod deemed morally superior, not by fact.
God does not live within the holes of our knowledge (or if he does, then we evict him on a daily basis) and the "divine mysteries" are only plot holes and contradictions in a convoluted and often re-edited book. The writing is fitful and obviously done by committee.
You say that you would die for your belief in God. I would hope that, unlike Abraham, you would not murder your own children (or anyone elses) for God as well. I'm not being facetituous. If you truly believe in the Bible and its stories, then the God of then is the God of today, and I would presume that the deity is just as cantankerous and indifferent now as he was then.
In any case, if your belief gives you comfort, I have no problem with it. If you feel your belief gives you certain authority to behave in a hostile manner to your fellow humans who do not share your beliefs, then we both have a problem.