Do you believe in a God?

[mnybxrs]

Since this is the spiritual forum, I thought I'd get the obvious out of the way. I personally do not believe in a god, because everything we know about it comes from books, written by people, who are untrustworthy. Religion can make some people very happy and content, but only when they have faith (faith means constantly optimistic to me) so I don't qualify. I guess I'm a realist.

[Serix]

I'm the same way. I can't find faith in any religion because it has all been made up by another person, by mankind, and not by some greater power that bestowed it upon us.

The day a god comes in front of me, proves it's existence, and has a conversation with me about the universe, is the day I'll find faith.

[C.R. Ripshit]

Same here. But I'm agonstic, I believe there might be a God (or gods, who knows). I need the proof however.

[DoctaD]

If you're asking if I believe in the Christian ideaology of a omnipotent messiah, then definitely not... if you're asking if I believe in the possibility of a superpower similar to that of that described as God, then I say it's not impossible... nothing's impossible.

...but I cant answer your question with a straight answer.

[OsirisGuy429]

I feel the same as DD. Do I believe in religion? no. Do I believe that there is some unknown supernatural power? I do believe that. I voted Yes on the basis of that idea.

[C.R. Ripshit]

There should've been a "maybe" option.

[kbk]

I agree, I am also agnostic. I believe in what is called a "watchmaker god" he was here, he set the watch, and left.

[mnybxrs]

wow those are interesting responses. i should probably clarify that when i posted "a god" i ment like any god, like do you believe in a one higher power that created all and is all and ...all....the rest of that :roll: (incredibly complicated, it is ).


so i think most people are spiritual deep down, and when they fall into some trouble or things look grim and they prey to god then, even though they said they never believed in a god. Since no one who has ever lived has ever produced any proof of God's existance, and it doesn't look like anyone will prove it in the future, that fact that god does or does not exist is irrelivent.

if you think about it, we are all agnostic at a point, and we are all athiest at some points, but sooner or later we all become overloaded and we look to something greater than ourselves. Even if we don't honestly believe it, we decieve ourselves to relieve ourselves of worry. It could be a defense mechanism. 8) a world wide defense mechanism, and that's why there are so many different denominations.



sorry for all that, i'm terribly toasted. :twisted:

[OsirisGuy429]

My only problem was you had it in white.

[Stone]

If God can do anything, can he make a stone so heavy he can't lift it?

[Biovore]

Sure he can, thats why god made steriods....

[blaksun]

I don't believe in God, but I'm trying. I want to be religious, I really do. Any problem you could ever have has a simple solution - pray and ask God for forgiveness, and boom, gg sin.

But yeah. I kind of find it difficult to believe in a supreme entity that created the world and let it fall into shambles.
God, being God, and having no limits whatsoever, wouldn't, shouldn't, have any trouble governing all of his creations - yet he doesn't!

v.v

[Stone]

But what if it's all a test blaksun? What if he's letting the world get into whatever of a bad state, just so he can judge the people to see who is worthy of becoming a slave of his in heaven instead of a slave of satan in hell?

[blaksun]

He is God, fyi, and God doesn't need slaves. Certainly He doesn't need to test people to see if they are worthy: if he wanted a slave, He could easily create a being lacking the whole 'will' thing.

You're thinking too small. If there is a one supreme overlord/creator, He wouldn't need slaves. He wouldn't need anything.

But then, being all-powerful could probably get boring: there's no need to seek enlightenment, since He IS enlightenment; materalism would be pretty pointless and boring.
Maybe God created mankind and gave us intelligence and free-will to watch what we'd do.
Maybe we're His toys. His entertainment.
:shifty:

v.v

[Stone]

I was joking about the whole slave thing...

[gbu-36]

I think one of my bumperstickers sums it up best for me
"Im a Militant Agnostic, I dont know and neither do you! "
=D j/k

I bounce back between the Asatru faith and just kinda poking the idea with a stick

[C.R. Ripshit]

These are pretty damn good lyrics, it's an awesome song, and I agree with them for the most part.

GERMS

"No God"

I've read every book in the bible story
And all is every brought me was
another worry
Don't want god give me a jury,
See...there's no God to make
up my mind-
No God givin' me time...

I peered in every window where
I saw a cross
But I could never see just what they saw
In that piece of plaster on the wall,
See...there's no God to fear-
No God to hear your cries...

I'd prey to anything out there
If only I was given some sign to bear
But while I wait I'm gonna live,
See...there's no God to watch over me-
No God for human beings...

When I small I obeyed
his every word
Handed down to me by some
thoughtful blur
But now I am as big as he,
See...No God bigger than I-
No God frightening me...

In my image I made he him
and I gave him life
So he burned me,
the creature has risen and I
Think you can see just what it is
that's drivin'
Me around round...

We are the church we are good
we've got your
Millions God know we should...

[mnybxrs]

But what if it's all a test blaksun? What if he's letting the world get into whatever of a bad state, just so he can judge the people to see who is worthy of becoming a slave of his in heaven instead of a slave of satan in hell?

if he is really all powerfull, why didn't he just create worthy people, or create them IN heaven, or since he knows who is worthy and who's not why doesn't he just snatch those people up? god is a myth, and if he's not, he's not worth praying to.

[duiker]

I believe that God exists and that He created us to glorify Him; to show His glory. We have stuffed it up somewhat, with our selfishness mainly, and now the world is falling apart because of the decisions we're making-
for example, we wage wars, and the inoccent are left dying. We are choking the world with pollution and changing the climate, and other countries pay the price..

I am a follower of Christ.

[THErAPIST]

I was raised in a christian family... I've strayed away though... I'm pretty agnostic now. I believe there is something somewhere thats a bit higher than myself, but that's only because i fail to believe that i'm the highest being in existance. I dunno.... it just makes sense to me that there is something better than me out there.

I don't believe in a book, mainly because things get mistranslated, drugs are always a part of religion in some way or another, things are exaggerated, and books make rules for people to follow when they don't even know who's rules they are following...

I've had people say "Well why should God let you into heaven if you don't believe in him? Church is like a relationship. why would he reward you for being unfaithful to him? It's like a girlfriend, why would she love you ane let you live with her for the rest of your life if you never even called to talk to her?"

MY response to that is "I believe that if im a good person then I'll get what I deserve. If God is GOD the he should be understanding and realize that some people can't push themselves to follow blindly something that they have no proof of. When the day comes, if it does, when I get my chance to stand infront of whoever is out there that is a higher being than me, then I will explain myself and then let said higher individual make their decision."

All of that said. I will never, NEVER, look down on anyone for being religious. I will not judge someone based on what religion they follow. I will not look at someone as "weak" if they feel that they need something to believe in. I will never tell anyone that they are stupid for believing in things that they can not prove. And I would hope that they give me the respect that I give them.

My $.02

[phoenix]

I work in a Lutheran school with a strictly Christian boss and have done so for the last 5 years. I came to the school a non-believer and I'll leave as such. I have many arguments about the existence of "God" however my main problem is, what happened to him?

It starts off with "God" speaking apparently freely with Adam and Eve, "don't eat this, don't do that" etc. Control from the start. Why/how does "Satan" then fall and corrupt "Adam/Eve"? "Angels" were apparently "God's" creation from the start, "He" is all seeing and all knowing, so surely this was all within "His" vision. Why not prevent it?

"God" continues to interfere with "His" creation. The "Great Flood" occurs as things get "worse". Now almost every living creature deserves to die. The fall of Sodom and Gomorrah. Apparently things are so bad this all loving, all forgiving "God" decides to level two cities to the ground. Talking burning bushes, visions and a heavenly sent "Son" all go on while the majority still are apparently unconvinced.

Skip to today. The horrors that have occured since then may indicate that yet another "talking to" from "God" may be necessary yet we hear nothing. Now, my boss assures me "God" is talking to me, "He's" talking to us all, yet apparently we cannot hear. Why not?

Why doesn't an Amazonian teenager suddenly start preaching the "Gospel" to his tribe if "God" is all around us and chatting away?

When I get a phone call from "God" telling me to be good then I might consider the possibility of "His" existence.

[duiker]

It does seem harsh, but when you look at it from the bigger picture: time is a creation of God, right?
He made time and the universe. From an openminded point of view, we can only understand what we do because we live in this reality called time. It has a beginning and an end.
After that, there's the spiritual realm in which time and space, I don't think are quite relevant. But then, who can fully comprehend that realm, we don't live in it yet.
Anyway, compared to all of the infinite knowledge that we don't know and could never possibly understand while here on earth, even the utmost expansion of our consciousness is nothing.

So if I could explain a concept in which time doesn't exist, -using time, it's like: . <-that dot is our lives and everything we know. The full extent of our knowledge.
This is eternity, compared to the dot.

---------------------------------------------------.----------------------------------------------------

That little dot is almost nothing compared to what's in store for us in eternity. So all the injustice here will likely have been forgotten, even if we wanted to remember it, because our understanding of it will be totally changed forever.

I might've used this example before -
Humans and ants. We obviously know a lot more than the ants do. If you picked up an ant and sat down with it, and tried to hold it's concentration long enough to explain to it how computers work, I don't think much would come of your sincere efforts.
It's the same with God and us. We don't have the physical capacity to be able to understand some things.



It's really hard, but I hope that made perfect sense to you all.

-Renee

[eOs]

I agree for the most part that God is a world-wide defense mechanism like someone else already stated.

About the slave, getting bored thing, you may also be thinking too small. If he were God, would he ever get bored?

I'd love to believe something greater created us. It's nice to think something better is coming after we pass on.

Unfortunately there's no right or wrong answer. God exists on many levels for the most part. I try to think of God not as a being, but more as a power. I think of God as the variable that makes something whole and pure.

[madscientist]

The basis of godly religion is purely irrational.

Followers of Christ are just that - followers...

[fuCKYou]

yea i would say i don't rule out the idea of there being a god but the thing that the bible protrays is 100% bullshit. i wish my mom would understand and let me believe what i want to......

[OsirisGuy429]

The Bible isn't bullshit, it's just collection of stories that may be true or may be entirely fictional. The whole purpose of the book is to give the human race a guideline on how to get along. Jesus was a real person and he may be a con artist or he may be a human God. Either way the Bible shouldn't be seen as some bullshit or read and everyword to be actual and take the whole thing hardcore, but instead to be read and get an understanding of what humanity faces and how to treat each other if we do want peace in our world.

[fuCKYou]

yea i never thought of it like that and its not really a bad way of thinking...

[duiker]

The Bible is a valuable historical resource. It's archaologically backed and an invaluable resource for historians.

How many other complete texts can you find that have survived for thousands of years?

[A*4*J]

Here's how I view trying to talk about the existence of God or not.
The fact is this I believe in the Judeo Christian God and I worship Him as according to His Word, the Bible.

The thing is this though, we can argue here on this forum for the rest of this earthly life about whether God exists, but we all have presuppositions.
Most of you here have the presupposition that the God of the Bible does not exist and so, whether I can offer evidence for that or not, you won't believe it because your presupposition that you filter things through is "God does not exist"

SO.....I ask this, what proof do you all need for the existence of God?

[phoenix]

SO.....I ask this, what proof do you all need for the existence of God?
I thought my earlier post covered this to some degree.

The day "God" lights a tree on fire in front of me that starts talking, is the day I consider believing in "Him". Until then the Bible is a primitive form of explaining natural phenomenon.

Another problem I have with "God" is the fact that Christianity is split up into several different denominations which all apparently have different views on what the Bible/God represents and/or translates to. If "God" was in fact an actual entity, speaking to everyone in the same voice, shouldn't we all have the same idea of what "He" is?

Where are the Middle Eastern priests/preachers/church?

[fuCKYou]

Yes i feel the same way, just because some one tells me that my shirt is on fire does not mean the shirt is really on fire(great example...). I also would need something phoenix was saying before i had the proof to believe in the bible god. My mom, and many others, have 'faith' and can believe in something without proof but its all a matter of your trust of past and present human beings. that is something i have a very hard time trusting. A4, if you can do that, then more power to you but i just have a hard time seeing it your way.

[OsirisGuy429]

But what many people neglect is what the whole point of faith is, and faith in anything. The whole purpose that a good religion should focus on anything that doesn't involve teaching within the religion itself is to teach its followers to have faith. Why are cults known for their crazy hardcore followers? Because those crazy hardcore followers have faith in their religion. Even if you are Agnostic, as long as you but all your faith into being Agnostic then you have faith. That's what seperates alot of people.

The idea of faith is to have little proof but trust so heartedly in something that you have enough belief and enough faith that it makes you a member of that 'religion'.

For instance, most religion teachings annoy the shit out of me because they focus on stupid pointless things and they are all cults in my eyes. Just because I don't put any faith into any of those religions doesn't mean I have faith. I still believe there is some supernatural being somewhere. Whether it's God, aliens, ghosts, or even us. I don't know which one it is, or even if it does exist but that's what faith is. Does it hurt to believe in some other wordly being? Absolutely not. Do I look to it for answers? Sometimes, yes. Do I blame it if something beyond my control happens negatively? Absolutely so.

I grew up in a dominantly Catholic household who were very religious. At least until a certain point. I seemed to have religion forced down my throat and I can not stand it anymore. Yet even after all that I do still have some faith... My own faith and that's what should matter. And because of all of that my beliefs are deeply rooted in the Catholic religion and so I do refer to my supernatural being as God. I do believe too that God plays with us and hates me with all his power. Just thought I'd throw that last sentence in their.

[duiker]

I'm sure that if God hated you or us, we would all be obliterated by now.

[OsirisGuy429]

Well I have this theory of the more godly people feel the more we fall into our own hole and destroy everything that we held so dear. God would want us to struggle and suffer (almost like the older teachings of the Catholic Church) then to allow the human race to strive, well anymore then we have. It seemed the paople killed in the name of God and prospered in Science so He abandoned his people since we did fone on our own. We built this world up without guidance or looking ay the consequences so now we have to deal with them.

It's a lil funny I say that cause I rely heavily in science too.
And not that God hates all of us, just particulary me, even though many have said that and its just an exageration. It seems though my life is slowly spinning downward until I finally crash and that's when I will be completely, involuntarily unable to control any aspect of what I could do and that's when I'll probably see what all these years really meant. We will all suffer since its the worst and best thing for us and our souls, it will define those who are worthy and those who are unworthy... And when the day God has enough and wants to redo everything we'd be oblitereated.

All in theory of course.

I feel like a fuckin' evangilist.

[fuCKYou]

I talked to my brother about this, and he brings up a very good point. He is a realist about everything but god. he has never read the bible and he doesn't go to church but he still believes in god. he told me he doesn't understand it and he could never explain it but he still believes. he thinks the bible was created for the same reason most people do, something for weak people to believe in. his one theory is that all the people who don't believe, if their right, when you die there is no prize, no special award for knowing there wasn't a god. but if your wrong, then *quote* They are all really really fucked *end quote* also i don't know the exact numbers but if you look at all the people who go to church, temple, ect i find it hard to believe that all of them may be wrong. there has to be some truth to it. let me know what you think.

[Biovore]

On the contray, only a small fraction of the world do not follow a religion at all. 12-16% at last esitmates.

1/3 of the world take the bible to be their holy book, while a futher ~22% take the koran to be theirs.

Thats over 3000 million people, or to the americans amoung us, 3 billion people. From just 2 books. People who have no religion are a rather smaller, 700-800 million people.

One must also consider, that there are quite a few newer religions in comparason to the older ones as well.

For example Wicca, which i wont really detail too much or it will turn into a rant on why i hate a certain person.

But they are a little high maybe, and belive in a godess...

Buddhism, doesnt have a god. Although 10% of the followers of buddha do idolise him as a god.

It boils down to this.

If you see 10 people, then only 1 of them will not belive in a god.

Congradulations rorta, you have fucked the statistics...

[OsirisGuy429]

fuCKYou - You're brother is what I was trying to explain before. While he doesn't associate himself with any religion or believe in any of the sorts, he still has some faith that there is a god out there. Faith and religion can be easily exchanged for one another but they are in fact two different things.

For those who don't believe and if they are right then of course what your brother said, there is no prize, no reward, no nothing, is pretty much true. Of course believing in God because you don't want to get fucked over in the afterlife isn't what faith is about. Of course I do feel almost the same way and if I was to disregard the idea I'd feel a bit hipocritical. Of course if the God we have and believe in is really merciful and understanding, couldn't we believe that as long as we led a good life even if we didn't believe in an Almighty that he'd still reward us? But which god would be the right god, since other religions might not offer the same god.

All of these people that go to church and temples and mosques, these are just gatherings of people with common beliefs. It is quite possible that all of them can be wrong, most of them are wrong, half of them are wrong, some of them are wrong and even none of them are wrong. Any truth in their belief would have to be what they know and stand for and not to question their actual faith. Remember it's easy to criticize if we do not keep an open mind on what they understand and comparing and contrasting that to the rest of the world and their religion. If we know what they stand for and what everyone else stands for we become less criticizeing of each other and we can accept what they believe, even if it's not what we believe and we may even form out own faith. This is how I understand my God to be. All these religions and here I am with my own beliefs yet I consider no other religion wrong. In fact I believe they are all right in their own way, even in the least bit. Well except for Judiasm, because they killed Jesus and refuse to believe in him (Ha ha, joke, not really). Each religion has their own god and trys to sell it to their followers in order to grow. The difference between a cult and religion is respect and number of followers.

Biovore - There isn't really much to give about you response since it's not something that's in question or the likes.

As for statistics I do not know. I do know that almost every religion has some book to follow, the Koran, the Bible, the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon, etc. As for the ones mentioned especially all have the same concept, each approached differently. For the most part each one of their god is the same god, which is definialy true for the Jews and Christians. And the Mormans is just an off shoot of Christianity. The difference is which Messiah they have. Christians have Jesus and another one coming. Jews have Moses and their true Messiah will come at the end as so do the Christians believe. Mormons believe Joseph Smith(?) was their prophet and Muslims have Muhammad.

It's hard to put a certain number on a group of people when everyone has their own idea of their God. And of course their are thousands of religions out their, old and new.

I thought for Buddhism however that their Buddah was thier God, but it was a combonation of gods all rolled into one which is why he has different representations on him. This is also a religion that relies heavily on the caste system, just to add that in.

I think the ratio of believers to non believers however isn't that since many more people believe in a god. The 1 out of 10 would be in Buddism if they only 10 percent believed Buddah was a God and they believed in no other God.

[LT3]

I believe in a god.

I believe in my own god.
A deist/pantheist god.

He's pretty cool.

[Biovore]

I see exactly were you are comming from. The comment about 1 in 10 was in relation for all people, not just buddhism...

Buddhim is more so a philosophy than a religion. It is a set of morraly correct rules to live your life by.

Such as not killing
no sexual misconduct
no stealing
no lying

But it also goes into more depth as to why you are in missery in your life. eg the 4 noble truths.

http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/index.html

You'll find their is no referance to a god.

And the other part is you can break the rules as well, it is all very interesting

[fuCKYou]

For those who don't believe and if they are right then of course what your brother said, there is no prize, no reward, no nothing, is pretty much true. Of course believing in God because you don't want to get fucked over in the afterlife isn't what faith is about.
I had thought about that. I don't want to believe in something just for that reason, it would be like not really believing in it... or thats how i feel. I know he believes for more than that reason, but he won't tell me why(gotta be something weird).

[OsirisGuy429]

Yeah I would not want to believe in God just as a safety net, so I will go to Heaven.

And the whole idea of religion originally, just as the Bible and all the other books, was a way to live life, a guideline and moraaly set rules to live life by. However religion has grown into someting more now.

[LynchSavio]

I honestly don't think there is anything more than what we have here on earth. I just think you die, and that's it, although there might be some kind of reincarnation thing, not completely sure about that though. I sure hope there's reincarnation though, cuz i've fucked up too much in this life. i need a second chance

[Jesus]

I voted no because i just don't think there's anything more to life and what we have here on earth and in space. Christianity is basically run on false hope. They don't KNOW that there's something out there, they just assume, and hope. Now look, i could be wrong, but i just don't think there's more out there.

[OsirisGuy429]

And that folks, came straight from Jesus mouth.

Anyway like I said, that is the whole point of faith. Faith is believing in something whether or not its true, but you still believe because you have faith. Faith and relligion are two different things. It's not a hard concept.

Now saying that, why do you have to point out CHRISTIANITY?
You can say the same things for the Jews, Muslims, Buddasts and in fact and person who is Catholic. In fact any person that has a belief, whether they believe in God, or don't believe in God.

Everyone runs on false hopes in your point, which is kind of true.

[duiker]

If you get into the fine details, Faith and Religion are actually total opposites. They're enemies of each other. Faith wins out.

[OsirisGuy429]

Very much my point thank you.

Religion is an exploit of faith, so faith def. wins.

[Armalite]

The basis of godly religion is purely irrational.

Followers of Christ are just that - followers...

Fuckin right, doggie. BTW, nice to see you mad.



If God can do anything, can he make a stone so heavy he can't lift it?


Good question. There are quite a few logic problems with any idea of any omnipotent, omnipresent(everywhere and eternal), and omnibenevolent(all good) being. Get stoned and think about it. Can this being kill itself? How can a being possessing the 3 "Os" allow evil to exist? Think about it logically within the context of the description before spouting some bullshit about a test or free will. This exercise can continue on for hours. Suffice it to say that such a being cannot exist.


so i think most people are spiritual deep down, and when they fall into some trouble or things look grim and they prey to god then, even though they said they never believed in a god...

if you think about it, we are all agnostic at a point, and we are all athiest at some points, but sooner or later we all become overloaded and we look to something greater than ourselves. Even if we don't honestly believe it, we decieve ourselves to relieve ourselves of worry.


Ah yes. The old "No Atheists in Foxholes" argument. How arrogantly quaint. The fact of the matter is you don't know anything about what most or even some people feel or think about religion and spirituality. Your argument is basically an open statement that anyone who claims they believe in no higher powers is simply too young or stupid to realize that they infact, DO, and WITHOUT THEIR OWN KNOWLEDGE!!! Its a blanket insult. Could you imagine being told something along the lines of "Anyone who buys a Mac or runs a non-Microsoft OS simply hasn't achieved the wisdom to know that Bill Gates knows what they need in their software and OS better than they do?" You are attacking the people who disagree with you based on broad generalizations of personality and not based on any kind of rational thought. You should also know there is an organization known specifically as the Atheists in Foxholes. (http://www.atheistfoxholes.org/)


Since no one who has ever lived has ever produced any proof of God's existance, and it doesn't look like anyone will prove it in the future, that fact that god does or does not exist is irrelivent.


Actually, quite a lot of evidence has been piled up in favor of the idea of no god(s), and a lesser amount of "evidence" has been offered in favor of the idea that higher powers exist in some form. But let's look at a little thing called Occam's Razor. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor) I'm not going to burn scarecrows here and put words into your mouth, instead I will challenge to provide evidence in favor of the "God(s)" theory, and I will slice it in half with the Razor. An example of how this works:

"God, who is uncreated, created the universe in seven days" vs. "The universe's existence is an uncaused and inevitable event"

A=God(s) B=event of creation C=universe's existence >=caused

Here is the logical chain of events for the former argument: A > B > C

Here is the logical chain of events for the latter: B > C

Of course, now we apply Occam's Razor, and ask the question: If God is uncaused, why can't the universe be uncaused? And since the idea of God creates a shitload of unnecessary assumptions to gather evidence for and prove, and the idea of an uncreated universe creates very few, good old Occam just bitch slapped the idea of Divine Creation.


The day a god comes in front of me, proves it's existence, and has a conversation with me about the universe, is the day I'll find faith.


If a god proves himself to exist, than it is impossible to have faith in him. The concept of faith is one of blind belief, often in spite of rational thought. If you hold you views based on evidence, it is called logic and rational thought. Think about when you have religious talks with poorly educated believers. All they can really offer up in defense of their feeble world-view is the assertion that "you just have to have faith." This is because they themselves have faith. In exactly the way I just defined it. It sickens me to meet such stupid people.


Even if you are Agnostic, as long as you but all your faith into being Agnostic then you have faith.

Shut the fuck up. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism)


his one theory is that all the people who don't believe, if their right, when you die there is no prize, no special award for knowing there wasn't a god. but if your wrong, then *quote* They are all really really fucked *end quote*


"If you're right, I lived a good life. But if I'm right, you're fucked." Is that what your brother said?

This argument and it's various variants are very commonly used in religious discussions as sort of a "retreat to the high ground." It's logic is extremely fallible, as I will demonstrate...some other time. I'm kinda tired and getting bored with picking apart all the stupid ideas some of you lil kiddies come up with. Suffice it to say that your argument is old, and has been anally-reamed time and time again with simple logic.




i don't know the exact numbers but if you look at all the people who go to church, temple, ect i find it hard to believe that all of them may be wrong. there has to be some truth to it. let me know what you think.


At the height of their career, the Backstreet Boys had millions and millions of devoted fans. Does this mean that their music was good?


If you get into the fine details, Faith and Religion are actually total opposites. They're enemies of each other. Faith wins out.


Actually, faith is a tool consciously used by religious leaders to swindle people. I could bring up countless examples from many faiths, but I'll just leave you with a good old stand-by. It still works quite well. The Catholic Church.

You see, faith is a mindset in which someone will reject any information that is antithetical to the idea that the believer has faith in. Even if that information is rational and well supported by evidence. UFOs, faith healing, Elvis sightings, I Ching, astrology, whatever.


Edited: Fixed URL

[Stone]

If there is a god, and he exists outside of our universe, then no matter what logic, reasoning, explainations or whatever that we come up with can apply. What we know, what we percieve, it's all from inside our universe. We cannot comprehend what exists outside our universe. Example, time is a linear dimension in our universe and we cannot comprehend life without it.

[Armalite]

Not a really strong argument there. :?


In order for a postulated idea to be discussed rationally, in a scientific manner, it must be capable of being proven true or false. If you can simply make magical statements("Bang bang! I shot you!" said the litte tyke to his playmate. "Nuh uh! I have a bullet shield!" replied his equally childish friend. "But I have magic bullet shield piercing bullets!" "Well, my shield works against those kind too!") like that and shatter the logic used to examine it, it becomes irrational and cannot be discussed in that context. As rational beings, we must assume for the sake of practical discussion that the measurable and perceivable universe is all there is. Within certain limits of course. Perhaps in the future new instrumentation will be created to measure phenomena in alternate realities. Until then, what you see is what you get. It is beyond the saving grasp of rationality to try to use wild unprovable postulations to defend a rationaly discussed idea.

[OsirisGuy429]

Even if you are Agnostic, as long as you but all your faith into being Agnostic then you have faith.

Shut the fuck up. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism)

May I point out THIS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism).

Agnosticism is the philosophical view that the truth values of certain claims, particularly theological claims regarding the existence of God, gods or deities, are either unknown or inherently unknowable...
It may not be a religion but it's still a philosophical belief, or view. This view is still what they know, think, view, and ultimately believe. Faith dosn't always have to refer to there being a God. Since that is said, Agnostics still have faith that there is the possibility of there being no God.

Agnostics may claim that it is not possible to have absolute or certain spiritual knowledge; alternately they may claim that while certainty may be possible, they personally have no such knowledge. Agnosticism in both cases involves scepticism toward religious statements.
Here we find that Agnosticism doesn't necessarily put down religion, but is skeptical of it. Only the person does not believe in the fact or has no knowledge of spirtual knowledge.

You might actually want to read that and notice a few keywords that actually makes you look like an idiot.

[Armalite]

Agnostics still have faith that there is the possibility of there being no God.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Here we find that Agnosticism doesn't necessarily put down religion, but is skeptical of it.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Faith (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=faith) conflicts with Agnosticism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism) on a very core level. Reread the wiki article. YOU are the one not understanding. Agnosticism is about rational thinking on spiritual topics. Faith is, by definition, blind belief.

[Mr. Pink]

I don't like enforced religion. I hate those guys who set up tables in administrations, then hand out free bibles. If you want me to follow what you follow, make me WANT to. PERSUADE me.
The Bible is not a book of crap, by any means. The Bible is a book of exaggeration, firstly, and--more importantly--metaphor.
In the Beginning...Adam & Eve: Though God told them not to eat from the tree of knowledge, Eve was convinced (by serpant...by Satan...by whomever; it doesn't matter) into eating the fruit. What did the first two humans on Earth have that we still have in today's society? They were curious and had to suffer the consequences.
God is extremely significant in our society and always has been. The fact that after thousands of years worth of human existance, much of the world has always felt a (spiritual/mental/etc.) connection to [a] supernatural being(s). It's great that so many people can feel that kind of connection, which is part of the reason religion makes a good bond for humans, amongst each other; but the opposite view can be seen when there is more than one religious view thrown into the picture.

i don't know the exact numbers but if you look at all the people who go to church, temple, ect i find it hard to believe that all of them may be wrong. there has to be some truth to it. let me know what you think.
At the height of their career, the Backstreet Boys had millions and millions of devoted fans. Does this mean that their music was good?

I'm not saying religion is bad, but Armalite was dead-on with this description.

About "Good vs. Evil" and the "Adam & Eve Mania": God isn't going to stop poverty, rape, murder, explosions, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, blizzards because they're terrible occurrences that we have to live with. God has all of these bad things happen to us so that we can know what the horror of life looks like, so that when we're happy we'll know what it's like to have something to compare. That also goes emotion, psychology, and the brain.
If somebody hits you hard, the common mental reaction is to get angry and want to hit back. God can't stop the violence.

And what's more, living life always worrying about what God would think of our every action is no way to live. You can't base your whole life and values on a book. Like I said before, the Bible is a book of metaphor; it tells exaggerated stories that may or may not be true but still hold a moral value. MORAL. The citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah had to die because they would never learn how to be decent people, which is why many of the Bible's protagonists go through hell and despair in order to live life: these are the people who gain important lessons out of life.

Don't make decisions in life if you think you're doing it for God so you can get into heaven. Make choices and decisions because you know that you can always learn from your actions--both good and bad.


And I'm an Atheist

[duiker]

Not a really strong argument there. :?


In order for a postulated idea to be discussed rationally, in a scientific manner, it must be capable of being proven true or false. If you can simply make magical statements("Bang bang! I shot you!" said the litte tyke to his playmate. "Nuh uh! I have a bullet shield!" replied his equally childish friend. "But I have magic bullet shield piercing bullets!" "Well, my shield works against those kind too!") like that and shatter the logic used to examine it, it becomes irrational and cannot be discussed in that context. As rational beings, we must assume for the sake of practical discussion that the measurable and perceivable universe is all there is. Within certain limits of course. Perhaps in the future new instrumentation will be created to measure phenomena in alternate realities. Until then, what you see is what you get. It is beyond the saving grasp of rationality to try to use wild unprovable postulations to defend a rationaly discussed idea.

Science and rationality claim to be able to stomp God into the realms of non-existance, but science and rationality support the existence of a God. To see this rationality, you've got to take a step back out of everything that you've learned about evolution, about social problems, about everything, really, and look at only the finite things that we know to be true. (Mind you, there's a lot of evidence contradicting evolution and refuting theories that are evolutionary in nature that is NOT taught in schools, or in science, or anywhere for that matter). There's not much there, yeah. More, I believe to support the historical timeline of the Bible, creation, and the more I study into the Word, the more I find that smooths out a lot of questions in the minds of people today.

I also find that I could talk all day, present all the research in the world, prove my point validly a hundred times over, but no one will be convinced of anything that I say unless they find out for themselves. It's like a principle. You can't convince anyone of anything. It's wholly up to them.

[Armalite]

Then by all means do so. And try to narrow it down a little bit. Evolution, abiogenesis, big bang theories, all of those are entirely different topics. BTW, nothing in any of those theories contradicts the notion of a deity existing. They just contradict most religious theories which answer the same questions with religious nonsense. As a rational person, I pride myself on my ability to change viewpoints based on evidence. I am imperfect, and pride may cause me to do so reluctantly. Or even to deny when I have lost the argument, but it doesn't matter. Because you won't provide any convincing arguments. Because you have no evidence. Or a solid understanding of the problem to begin with.

[DoctaD]

wb...

[Mr. Pink]

The concept of God(s) is both magic and mystery:

5-6000 years ago, evolution finally turned neanderthals and homo-erectus into man. The difference between man and and any other already existant species on earth is in man's brain: we are able to interpret, articulate and communicate logical and rational thought. But with this new discovery of presence, there was also the realization of vulnerability: we realize that we are mortal and will ultimately die. What happens next is unknown.

But since there was no science or research to speak of 5000 years ago, it's obvious that some things would be a shock; things as common as rain or the sun setting.
'Why does water fall from the sky? Why is it dark now? How long will this happen? Has it already happened before...?'
The first answer should be "I don't know." But since the unknown is so frustrating and no human could do it, the setting of the sun has to be magic. Something better than a human (because humans were better than animals) has to be the cause for why the earth is hot then mild, snowy and then mild again. Enter God.

'But why should God supply us with earth's resources? What should we do to compensate him; for if we do not please God, surely he will smite us all and take from us our land.'
Today we know that precipitation makes the rain fall, and we need water to live. We know that our home rotates in 24 hours, and goes through four cycles in 365 days as it revolves around the sun (not the other way around). We know more now than we ever have before, but we fear change. Why change the system if the system works? Why change because somebody wants to challenge the system? And you speak of the impossible, but time and again impossible has been proven practical:

"Colombus, you'll fall off the world if you sail to the west."
"Galileo, what the fuck are you talking about, 'the earth revolves around the sun--which, by the way, is not the center of the universe'?"
"Only birds are meant for the skies."
"I don't see how computers can be of any use to the consumer"

But because God is such a global ideal, many people would be lost if they didn't believe. People devote (parts of) their lives to belief in a God and if you take it away, they might kill themselves. (I hope the fundamentalists are the first to go.)

[Armalite]

Thanks Docta. Boot Camp was fun.

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

Hello Rorta. Hello God. Embrace the former and fuck the latter.:madfawk:
I myself am an atheist.

I agree with Mr. Pink's viewpoint that God is just a concept created by people due to their insecurity.
He's just a total oversimplification of the whole universe.
----"There must be a God because the universe exists..we must worship Him"----
1.So that's saying that EVERYTHING has a creator..
2Ai.So thats saying that even God himself has a creator....(is this not rational??)
2Aii.SO WHY NOT WORSHIP THE CREATOR OF YOUR GOD THAT CREATED YOUR GOD THAT---->....(neverending cycle)
2Aiii.This is incomprehensible.Why worship the "creator of all things" if this creator has another creator??===>It's just bull to answer a question that these losers can never answer.They never LOGICALLY get away with it. And how can you try to prove something in the first place if it isn't logical???The logic in this is clearly self-defeating.

I wouldnt try and assume things.
Don't put animals on trial.-(Pigs are not intelligent as we are..duh)
Galileo was right.(He's wrong! The Church, under GOD claims the EARTH is the center of the universe..)
Columbus proved you wrong.(You'll fall of the edges of the earth...)

Sheesh.Things aren't true just because people assume it to be so.So much for faith.
Skepticism and Open-Mindedness might get us further. :smashfrea

[duiker]

Science and logic will never develop enough to be able to study God. So from your way of thinking, there
is

no

answer.

[duiker]

Really, I just wanted to double post anyway.

[Scamula]

I really don't know whether there is one or not. I am starting to think that there is. I was invited by a relative to a church and people were shaking and speaking and tongues and talking about their experiences with God...how God caused the gunman not to shoot or how God stopped her husband from hitting her and knocked him to the floor. I think that there is something out there...but I have no idea beyond that. I am searching though...constantly searching for the truth.

[ComfortablyNumb]

I really don't know whether there is one or not. I am starting to think that there is. I was invited by a relative to a church and people were shaking and speaking and tongues and talking about their experiences with God...how God caused the gunman not to shoot or how God stopped her husband from hitting her and knocked him to the floor. I think that there is something out there...but I have no idea beyond that. I am searching though...constantly searching for the truth.


Dude, none of that crap is caused by God or by anything particularly remarkable. The people at church speaking in tongues and shaking and carrying on all crazy-like are just overwhelmed by the group mentality and the power of their own beliefs ( even deaths can be attributed to these overpowering beliefs). As for God causing a gunman not to shoot or God stopping some broad from getting beat, these things are merely ways for people to get rid of any personal responsibilty for their actions, not divine intervention.

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

Science and logic will never develop enough to be able to study God. So from your way of thinking, there
is

no

answer.

(Sorry dudes, haven't been back in awhile...)

AS FOR THE STATEMENT

Well, the thing is, you can't prove anything without logic. And of course all these statements must be subjected to analysis. If a specific thing with specific conditions is true, then it holds true withstanding all questions. We can't directly say "there is no GOD", however, we nihilists/atheists/agnostics/whatever we call ourselves are NOT ASSUMING that there is a God. We are not people claiming wild or impossible things. People who believe in GOD and desire to spread their own concept of their GOD must first convince people that their GOD is real. But convincing an proving are two different things. Many people do not hear/read/see things on the lines on logic. There is no point in saying something if the person saying it can't give support to his/her statement. If you can't prove GOD then why bother saying he/she/it is there? This is like saying there is a bright red gremlin that lives in the sky and will grant you salvation if you worship him. YES, we cannot prove that MR. GREMLIN is real but NO, why should we believe that without proof? :doh:

God is subjective. I can create my own damn GOD :scool: anyway I want. People can make their own religion for all I care. Talking about God in general is vague, and you need to talk about a specific GOD with specific traits in order to get down to study. DEFINE what GOD we are talkin' bout, and then we can get into business.

Hope it didn't sound like jibberish. :sleepy:

[Nox (ADVANCED)]

Maybe god is a child an we are here to learn things in our life to educate "god". than we go back throught the cycle but as a differnt animal/organism. our lifetime to "god" is proberly like the blink of a eye. because everyone has differnt life experinces they learn differnt things to pass on to "god". Maybe even "god" dosnt even know the meaning of life that why he "made" us so we can experince, report to him what we learnt than an go back to do something else. thats proberly why there is poverty these are new starters in this world but when they finnish that life they comback as smater more richer people and exceed in life till u get the real rich people than we start as animals prehaps. thats why there is allways gonna be poverty prehaps.

sorry my thoughts are all over the place but i hope you can gleam some sence out of this jumble.

[INCH06]

In present times someone who claims to kill for the reason that Christ or God demanded them too is recognized as being psychologically in poor health, schizophrenic or experiencing a psychotic episode. Now if we look back through time to the days of the bible creation when they didn?t have all this mental health babble then perhaps these schizophrenic?s were not as ?far gone? in mental condition as today?s sufferers because of the more simple way of existence, diet & other such factors leading to mental illness & therefore experiencing less mental erosion thus leading them to fit in more & therefore people would follow there beliefs?

Yeah, Moses was a skitzo. :wiggle:

& so,

If heaven were genuine, would it not be chock-a-block by now? Would dinosaurs & every deceased creature from the beginning to present be up there? If heaven was in reality ahead of space, would God really let humans get so near by giving us the intelligence to travel through out space & maybe beyond?

The human imagination is just to enormous for me to believe in such writings as the bible, to me it would be like believing the contents of say a Lord of the Rings novel, look at Buffy the vampire slayer series for fuck sake, I mean if the world one day came to an end for a billion years & some other shape of intelligent life was born & one day some teenager digging in the back yard unearths a Buffy VHS collection & a VHS player? See where I?m headed with this?

Pretty farfetched idea I agree but you get what I mean?

To me, most people just believe in heaven or God when they?re about to be shot point blank or when a family member dies? It?s just a convenient super being comfort?

:notworthy

[Armalite]

thats proberly why there is poverty these are new starters in this world but when they finnish that life they comback as smater more richer people and exceed in life till u get the real rich people than we start as animals prehaps. thats why there is allways gonna be poverty prehaps.





That is a horrible concept. Haven't you ever read "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck? In the first few chapters it mentions the priest and his yearly sermon epressing a very fucking simialr view. This is also a classic tool used in many cultures to oppress people and make them complacent about unjust social hierarchies.

[Scamula]

This is also a classic tool used in many cultures to oppress people and make them complacent about unjust social hierarchies.

I see your point, but If they're stupid enough to believe it, then I have no sympathies.

[Nox (ADVANCED)]

it was just a random thought that i had while writing it at the time and i havent read the pearl. just a stray thought

[DarkT]

Believe? Aaaaa-helll no!

I KNOW :).

The only thing I don't know is if he's one and only, if he's omni-potent, and if he's omni-present.

I'd argue against all of those :), but who knows? I've been wrong in the past(once or twice), so...

[Armalite]

I see your point, but If they're stupid enough to believe it, then I have no sympathies.


It is very difficult to separate yourself from ideas and world views that drummed into head from a very young age. Take the North American avoidance of sex in open culture for example, a legacy of Puritanical origins. Even though I can't name a single living Puritan, and doubt if any of my ancestors were Puritans, still find myself pissing at least one empty urinal away from the next guy. I don't want to be close to another man when his dick is out, and sure as hell don't want to make eye contact. There is no logical reason for it. It's just a behaviour drummed into me by unspoken social values that saturate everything I was exposed to until well after the basis of my world view was created. Think about it.



edit follows



Quote:
Originally Posted by Nox (ADVANCED)
thats proberly why there is poverty these are new starters in this world but when they finnish that life they comback as smater more richer people and exceed in life till u get the real rich people than we start as animals prehaps. thats why there is allways gonna be poverty prehaps.







That is a horrible concept. Haven't you ever read "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck? In the first few chapters it mentions the priest and his yearly sermon epressing a very fucking simialr view. This is also a classic tool used in many cultures to oppress people and make them complacent about unjust social hierarchies.



I just realized I derailed the topic here. I suggest a split before it gets too off topic.

[Scamula]

It is very difficult to separate yourself from ideas and world views that drummed into head from a very young age. Take the North American avoidance of sex in open culture for example, a legacy of Puritanical origins. Even though I can't name a single living Puritan, and doubt if any of my ancestors were Puritans, still find myself pissing at least one empty urinal away from the next guy. I don't want to be close to another man when his dick is out, and sure as hell don't want to make eye contact. There is no logical reason for it. It's just a behaviour drummed into me by unspoken social values that saturate everything I was exposed to until well after the basis of my world view was created. Think about it..

You do have a point, but I personally have separated myself from certain ideas and societal beliefs and mores that have been drummed into my head since I was a wee one. I thought for myself and I realized that there really was no logical basis for it---and/or I didn't think it was right. I understand that it is not necessarily an easy thing to do and that everyone is not like me. But there comes a time when you have to grow up and learn to think for yourself. The urinal thing that you do is harmless, but if you were raping women because some far off society says that they owe you sex whenever wherever, then that is a bit more serious. So are these people's futures and they should not just blindly bow down to whatever it is that there are fed since they are the ones who have to suffer the consequences and live that life. It is hard I know...some societies don't have as much freedom as we do so I'll try to be lenient.

[Armalite]

So are these people's futures and they should not just blindly bow down to whatever it is that there are fed since they are the ones who have to suffer the consequences and live that life.


But that curious spirit is exactly what is discouraged by the value implicit in Nox's statement. If the idea that such things can be challenged and people can make up their owns minds is itself never allowed to develop in a person's behaviour, he is never going to question anything else that is fed to him.

[Scamula]

But that curious spirit is exactly what is discouraged by the value implicit in Nox's statement. If the idea that such things can be challenged and people can make up their owns minds is itself never allowed to develop in a person's behaviour, he is never going to question anything else that is fed to him.

I see what you're saying. Up until the time I was 16 years old, I never questioned the validity of Christianity or the Bible. I really was led to believe it was the only way and if I even questioned it, I was going to fry for all eternity.

Then I read it. And I began thinking and researching and using the Internet and putting two and two together when I realized that I'd been fed bullshit. There have been zillions of religions since the dawn of man and their inherants all think that it is "the one true path my child!" Everyone can't be right.

Now, I am agnostic and I believe that religion is basically a tool used to control people and something people use to bullshit themselves about death. I am not saying that there are no true religions...maybe there is but how are we to know which one? I am not saying that God or a godlike being does not exist, but if he/she/it does, then why doesn't it just make itself clear? If itdoesn't think it's "truth" is important enough to be communicated to mankind without error and clearly, then why should I care about it?

I understand what you are saying, especially for people in "those" countries. But there is no excuse for someone like me who is educated, well read, lives in a country that allows freedom of the mind and access to information etc. to blindly believe anything at least on something important. Who cares about the urinal thing :) I think you're right about what you're saying about the third world people who've been brainwashed to believe this and that and have no access to any other information or points of view etc.

[CUZNCON]

I don't have a problem with God, it's His people I can't stand.

[Armalite]

I'm not really talking about 3rd worlders, even in countries like the US or in European countries where people have the time and means to ponder such questions, the power of conditioning is still just as strong. Most people dont even realize that they have been conditioned. How can you overcome a mental stumbling block if you never see it, or realize that your sudden face plant was caused by it?

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

I agree. And I don't ever think that this mental conditioning will ever be gone unless mankind can overcome its insecurity over the unknown. Just because mankind doesn't know shit 'bout the universe doesn't mean that it should go and make bullshit stories about what supposedly happened. Whats worse is that such nonsense becomes society's accepted norm.

[CUZNCON]

Anyone read Chariots of the Gods by Eric Von Daniken? Apparently God is an alien. :sgrin:

[SilentOctober]

well shit... First of all, no, I don't believe in GOD THE ALMIGHTY FATHER, CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH...In fact, I think its complete bullshit. I do believe, however, in elevaOne way or another, ted consciousness. I do not think the human conciousness is the top of the ladder. I mean, we see conciousness climb all the way up to where humans have taken the earth as theirs, but the ants have no concept of this, are not able to have a concept of this, I see no reason why the evolution of conciousness (if i write that word again I may kill myself) would just suddenly stop with us. I don't pray to these beings or whatever. I don't think they are the top either. I don't even necessarily think that they if they exist would have a whole lot of fucking interest in us anymore than our interest with insects. The only thing that promotes my belief of this is logic. It just doesn't seem logical for it to stop with us like many believe it does. I'm a firm believer in cause and effect, gravity, and death. These are pretty much the only things that have really proven themselves to me, are pretty much all that could prove themselves to me, and are all concepts that "feel" no need to be proven...but these are cosmic forces, things that are everywhere. God is a very far stretch...i mean, how many simple contradictions have been pointed out in this one forum alone, and this is a debate thats been going on how long throughout the entire world? IF god is real, and he isn't, he created the human brain to analyze, so how upset could he possibly fucking get over the peoples disbelief when he can't even bother to show up and make the argument himself, especially when his followers are so terribly bad at it?
Personaly, I think that god is irrelevant one way or another, completely unecessary. What is necessary is religion. As far back as we discover its always been around, and its always been to cover human curiosity and the things he can't explain. for the first time in earth's history, one of its inhabitants can ask "where id this come from? why am I here?" however, there is nothing to give him any kind of answer, so he starts creating them himself. religion started out as worshipping nature gods because natures what gave humans life. they worshipped fire because fire kept them warm and cooked their food. they worshipped goddesses because following simple logic, life was born out of the female womb, things like this as was necessary, and then it adapted to cover emotions because poetry and drama were evolving yes? now there are gods of love, gods of war as territory and nationalism and resource were becoming concerns of organized people...blah blah blah, and on down the line. it was just necessary because people couldn't understand and they needed to believe there was a reason. monotheism in turn was necessary because the slaves needed to believe that there was something better for them, and that there was a reason that they were placed in the world at the station they were. Mush l;ike the pharoes had their reason to believe that they were mighty or whatever. The slaves needed the religion, not to explain the forces around them, because what fuck do you give about any of the natural forces around you when you have a whip to your back? The whip is the instrument of the only force you know which is the one holding it. Their necessity to deal with life was the promise of soemthing better which is exectly what was offered them. Jesus told the world that the meek would inherit the earth, and who did he mostly preach this to? the meek. whatever, i'm lte to class, I am just saying that my view is that religion is only here not because of its truth, but because of its necessity. necessity at least can be proven where the truth cannot. cause and effect.shit, i really am late.

[Armalite]

Religion is not necessary, in fact it is necessary to abolish it in order to progress. And this ladder of conciousness you allude to is bullshit. It doesn't work that way. You speak of logic all the while drawing conclusions from nothing. You should be accepting things that can be supported with observable evidence. That would be infinately more logical. Why does there have to be a higher power? You have no reason to believe that. And therefore it would be irrational to.

[odin_dax]

Religion and spirituality are two different concepts. Religion is man-made. Wisdom is universal. The Christian Bible is a book of wisdom and history. I'm not going to get into any details or examples because this isn't that kind of debate or thread.

When you ask if there's a God, either answer you receive is an answer based on faith. There's no way of knowing for sure, until you die or unless God comes down to speak to you.

Actually, it takes more faith to believe in the theory of evolution given the mathematical improbability and gaps in the fossil records. Survival of the Fittest can account for microevolution very easily, though.

As for the "aliens created us" believers, you're just stupid. This isn't Star Trek.

Yes, I believe in God, but I don't believe EVERYTHING the New Testament says, for the main reason of the Holy Roman Empire's influence and subjectivity of councils before it.

However, seeing as how a lot of you don't believe in God, it's no wonder you're all a bunch of misfits.

[odin_dax]

Religion is not necessary, in fact it is necessary to abolish it in order to progress. And this ladder of conciousness you allude to is bullshit. It doesn't work that way. You speak of logic all the while drawing conclusions from nothing. You should be accepting things that can be supported with observable evidence. That would be infinately more logical. Why does there have to be a higher power? You have no reason to believe that. And therefore it would be irrational to.

Just like standardized testing and SATs in America measure only one kind of intelligence and results determined by how others score, so is the scientific method only one method we humans limit ourselves to so often. There's always more room for different thought, Armalite. If God came down, talked to you, and left, how would you be able to prove it? I love my family, how can I actually PROVE it?

When you ask, why does there have to be a higher power, I can easily retort with why does there not have to be a higher power? There is no reason to believe otherwise, either. In fact, the theory of evolution doesn't explain nearly anything, not even a beginning; and, let's not forget all the gaps in fossil records. Even if the fossil records showed everything step by step, regardless of the mathematical improbability of becoming homosapiens in the first place, how do we know, especially since the theory of evolution doesn't explain macroevolution or a beginning, that God doesn't use evolution? Where is the conflict? What is time to us and time to God?

Also, if God just plopped us down, then we would know He existed, so no faith would be required. Isn't the whole point of freewill to choose to love God? Isn't that why we exist in God's eyes? To love Him without being forced?

Sorry, Armalite, my debate skills at work.

[odin_dax]

Anyone read Chariots of the Gods by Eric Von Daniken? Apparently God is an alien. :sgrin:

In the strictest sense, God is an alien.

[SilentOctober]

Armalite, quit being so fucking condescending, I said nothing to attack you, go smoke a cigerette or jack off or something. i don't know why the fuck you feel you need to be so fucking abrasive, but its completely unecessary.
I'm not talking in absolutes, i'm talking abotu observations and how i've applied them to existance as far as the ethereal is concerned.
logic is comming to conclusions based on the evidence I have observed, and seeing consciousness grow smaller and smaller and then watching it grow larger and larger, I don't understand why it would all of a sudden just stop. And then seeing all of the conciousness in the world that can't even percieve other levels of conciousness, what reason do I have to believe that there wouldn't be conciousnesses that we ourselves could not percieve, when I see that particular pattern repeat itself again and again?

And I do not believe that religion is necessary in a sense where we need to have it around, and I tink letting any religion have any power at all is a mistake. i'm saying that I think the reason that its stayed, evolved, and spread so widely is because people have felt the NEED to believe in something better, and the NEED to feel they know the answers, or that at least something out there that they can directly relate to, does. i hope ya know what I mean, but right now i have a 1 pound steak that only cost me 2 bucks, and I'm hungry.



And seriously, I on't care if anyone hates what I have to say, in fact, i'm at a VERY curious stage in my life so I'm hoping no one completely agrees, because I am very sincere in wanting to know differently. I want my thoughts refuted because I believe contradiction is necessary to growth. Shit...but if you want to refute my thoughts just do it, there's no need whatsoever to get all condescending and abrasive to do it...that is unless youre a pretentious piece of shit that wants to use your knowledge to make other people look stupid instead of trying to promote learning....god damn...duecshedness.
(1 pound steak for two buclks, woohoo!)

[Armalite]

Religion and spirituality are two different concepts. Religion is man-made. Wisdom is universal. The Christian Bible is a book of wisdom and history. I'm not going to get into any details or examples because this isn't that kind of debate or thread.

Oh but it is that kind of debate. And what you're doing here is definately something that might get points taken in a debate. You are trying to force me into accepting that the Bible is full of wisdom and historicity without supporting that idea. Whether or not the Bible is as thus described is essential to your argument, since made it part of your point here.

Actually, it takes more faith to believe in the theory of evolution given the mathematical improbability and gaps in the fossil records. Survival of the Fittest can account for microevolution very easily, though.

It takes no faith at all to believe the theory of evolution, as it is based upon observable evidence that has been independantly verified numerous times. Gaps in the record do nothing to discredit evolutionary biology, as it is damn near miraculous that any fossil record exists at all. The conditions for fossil formation are pretty rare, and for something to die in just the right time and place to fossilize is quite the odd occurance. Even without a detailed, complete step by step record of every organism that ever lived, evolutionary theories are still not debunked. We don't need such a record. We only need enough of one to demonstrate the predicted result of evolutionary changes in a species, or even across species. We don't need to see every planet in a distant solar system to know they are there; we need only observe the effects of their gravitational pull on the behaviour of the star or other visible body in that system.

However, seeing as how a lot of you don't believe in God, it's no wonder you're all a bunch of misfits.

Well that's lovely.

Just like standardized testing and SATs in America measure only one kind of intelligence and results determined by how others score, so is the scientific method only one method we humans limit ourselves to so often. There's always more room for different thought, Armalite. If God came down, talked to you, and left, how would you be able to prove it? I love my family, how can I actually PROVE it?

I don't see how the scientific method limits us. This seems like raw anti-intellectualism. Research that word before you say anything, I'll be able to tell if you don't. The bolded sentences are perplexing, in that they make no sense? How would I prove what? That I had actually spoken to God? Prove it to whom? A third party? I certainly could prove it if I had sufficient evidence. What are you getting at? And the prove love bit, irrelevent. Define love with quantifiable characteristics and then determine if your emotion for your family meets those characterisitics in a quantifiable way. I suppose that would be a start, but you can't do that. Love is not a logical concept. It can't be defined very well and certainly not quantified. I don't know how this idea parrallels the the idea of God, because if God existed -- the Christian God, at any rate -- he would certainly have quatifiable characteristics, and the effects of his actions would be measurable as well.

When you ask, why does there have to be a higher power, I can easily retort with why does there not have to be a higher power? There is no reason to believe otherwise, either.

I propose that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. You have no evidence that he does NOT exist. Therefore you should belive that he exists. Reductio ad absurdum.

In fact, the theory of evolution doesn't explain nearly anything, not even a beginning; and, let's not forget all the gaps in fossil records. Even if the fossil records showed everything step by step, regardless of the mathematical improbability of becoming homosapiens in the first place, how do we know, especially since the theory of evolution doesn't explain macroevolution or a beginning, that God doesn't use evolution? Where is the conflict? What is time to us and time to God?

Well, evolution does not attempt to explain the beginning of anything. Evolution is a prevailing theory in biology, and deals with the mechanisms by which organisms change over time to eventually become new organisms, better suited to their current environment. The beginings of life would fall under other areas of biology. The beginings of the universe, the Earth, the solar system, etc. all fall under their own scientific disciplines. Nolo contendere on the improbability argument. It is certainly not that improbable, but it would take a lot of work to gather the evidence needed to support a rebuttal to that claim. So you can have that one, because I'm lazy. And finally, your last point: Evolution does not conflict with the idea of a deity's existance. Of course it doesn't. You are absolutely correct.

Also, if God just plopped us down, then we would know He existed, so no faith would be required. Isn't the whole point of freewill to choose to love God? Isn't that why we exist in God's eyes? To love Him without being forced?

So you you point to a self-reaffirming idea to support the concept of God? lol

Sorry, Armalite, my debate skills at work.

They need some work.


And as for you, SilentOctober, if your so damn curious and eager to have your views rebutted in intellectual discussion, stop complaining so loudly when it is done. I said nothing to indicate an attack on your person. Only your ideas. Stop being such a baby.

[Stone]

As for the "aliens created us" believers, you're just stupid. This isn't Star Trek.

I find the idea of an intelligent race from somewhere else in our Universe creating us rather more plausable than an infinitely powerful being who is everywhere at once (yet we never see or bump into him) and exists out of time.

The idea of a God is stupid. And it doesn't take faith to believe in science. Belief in science is based on logic. Belief in Creationism is based on faith. Anybody who says otherwise is wrong, plain and simple.

[odin_dax]

I find the idea of an intelligent race from somewhere else in our Universe creating us rather more plausable than an infinitely powerful being who is everywhere at once (yet we never see or bump into him) and exists out of time.

The idea of a God is stupid. And it doesn't take faith to believe in science. Belief in science is based on logic. Belief in Creationism is based on faith. Anybody who says otherwise is wrong, plain and simple.

The idea of a god is more stupid than aliens, why?

And you're wrong, the belief in science is logic and faith. When you say science is based on logic, I assume you mean the hindsight of discovery, and following documentation. In the strictest sense, you are right.

Then again, what is gravity?

[odin_dax]

Oh but it is that kind of debate. And what you're doing here is definately something that might get points taken in a debate. You are trying to force me into accepting that the Bible is full of wisdom and historicity without supporting that idea. Whether or not the Bible is as thus described is essential to your argument, since made it part of your point here.

The Bible, for example, gives us dietary guidelines regarding meat and fish and tells us to wash our hands. Following the dietary guidelines leads to better health; killing an animal a certain way and avoiding bad foods. Washing of the hands before germs were discovered helped lower contagious diseases.

It takes no faith at all to believe the theory of evolution, as it is based upon observable evidence that has been independantly verified numerous times. Gaps in the record do nothing to discredit evolutionary biology, as it is damn near miraculous that any fossil record exists at all. The conditions for fossil formation are pretty rare, and for something to die in just the right time and place to fossilize is quite the odd occurance. Even without a detailed, complete step by step record of every organism that ever lived, evolutionary theories are still not debunked. We don't need such a record. We only need enough of one to demonstrate the predicted result of evolutionary changes in a species, or even across species. We don't need to see every planet in a distant solar system to know they are there; we need only observe the effects of their gravitational pull on the behaviour of the star or other visible body in that system.

That was a pretty lame attempt... First of all, the effects of planets are a way of seeing them, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for error. One such "planet" found by this method was another star. Hell, even in our own solar system we are still discovering moon's and planetoids beyond Pluto.
Secondly, the theory of evolution doesn't discredit creationism, except the strict interpretation of, for example, an English bible. To say that you don't need all the evidence is absolutely ridiculous; hence, why evolution is still a theory. So much for the scientific method, huh? Yes, evolution is observable, and I'm not trying to discredit evolution, or advocate creationism, only that the theory of evolution hasn't explained macroevolution. When I say there are gaps, I mean there are jumps in the process of evolution in a relatively short time without explanation. Even Darwin didn't fully discredit the idea of a god (though not the God of the Bible). The theory of macroevolution hasn't been debunked because it simply doesn't exist.

Well that's lovely.

Well, that was a lovely joke.



I don't see how the scientific method limits us. This seems like raw anti-intellectualism. Research that word before you say anything, I'll be able to tell if you don't.

You misunderstand. I'm not saying the scientific method itself is limiting, but only using that one method is. There are others ways of thinking, and there will be other methods discovered and accepted long after we're dead.
To use tests in schools that only measure a percentage of overall intelligence, how can anybody come to a conclusion that a kid who does poorly is stupid , and a kid who does well is smart? It's not representative of the whole, neither is the scientific method representative of the whole.

The bolded sentences are perplexing, in that they make no sense? How would I prove what? That I had actually spoken to God? Prove it to whom? A third party? I certainly could prove it if I had sufficient evidence. What are you getting at? And the prove love bit, irrelevent. Define love with quantifiable characteristics and then determine if your emotion for your family meets those characterisitics in a quantifiable way. I suppose that would be a start, but you can't do that. Love is not a logical concept. It can't be defined very well and certainly not quantified. I don't know how this idea parrallels the the idea of God, because if God existed -- the Christian God, at any rate -- he would certainly have quatifiable characteristics, and the effects of his actions would be measurable as well.

You answered your own question without knowing it.


I propose that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. You have no evidence that he does NOT exist. Therefore you should belive that he exists. Reductio ad absurdum.[QUOTE]

No, you're right, a flying spaghetti monster could have created the universe, and it's true I have no evidence he doesn't exist, but when it comes to the legitimate question "Does God exist?" you have no evidence he does NOT exist. Of course, you said "propose" so you must have some reason to support that belief.


[QUOTE=Armalite]So you you point to a self-reaffirming idea to support the concept of God? lol

Not at all.

They need some work.

As do yours.

[Armalite]

The Bible, for example, gives us dietary guidelines regarding meat and fish and tells us to wash our hands. Following the dietary guidelines leads to better health; killing an animal a certain way and avoiding bad foods. Washing of the hands before germs were discovered helped lower contagious diseases.

So such knowledge had to be divine revelation? Couldn't it have come from practical experience?


That was a pretty lame attempt... First of all, the effects of planets are a way of seeing them, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for error. One such "planet" found by this method was another star. Hell, even in our own solar system we are still discovering moon's and planetoids beyond Pluto.
Secondly, the theory of evolution doesn't discredit creationism, except the strict interpretation of, for example, an English bible. To say that you don't need all the evidence is absolutely ridiculous; hence, why evolution is still a theory. So much for the scientific method, huh? Yes, evolution is observable, and I'm not trying to discredit evolution, or advocate creationism, only that the theory of evolution hasn't explained macroevolution. When I say there are gaps, I mean there are jumps in the process of evolution in a relatively short time without explanation. Even Darwin didn't fully discredit the idea of a god (though not the God of the Bible). The theory of macroevolution hasn't been debunked because it simply doesn't exist.

Your first couple of sentences seem to support my ideas.

And as for you attacks on the theory of evolution, you simply seem to be uneducated on the matter. A scientific theory is, quite different from the colloquial mening you use here, a rigorously tested and independently verified hypothesis that is widely accepted as the best solution to a given question. This is a common misconception. Words can be tricky. Context is a killer. And your babblings about macroevolution are simply gibberish. Do you even know what you are talking about? Speciation, which i assume is what you mean, is a simple process to explain. Basically, there is no "species" outside arbitrarily defined human concepts. An organism is just an organism. When you reduce the evolutionary process to its basic elements, that of the changes that occur between one closely related organism and another organism, you find that such changes are occurring everyday all around you. The difference between a strain of influenza and a new virus entirely are purely decided by arbitrarily defined criteria for taxonomy.


Well, that was a lovely joke.

Quite. Well, lets just exchange arrongant phrases for awhile.


You misunderstand. I'm not saying the scientific method itself is limiting, but only using that one method is. There are others ways of thinking, and there will be other methods discovered and accepted long after we're dead.
To use tests in schools that only measure a percentage of overall intelligence, how can anybody come to a conclusion that a kid who does poorly is stupid , and a kid who does well is smart? It's not representative of the whole, neither is the scientific method representative of the whole.

Perhaps this is true, when talking about claims about physical reality you must speak in terms that are verifiable and testable. To make wild claims about things that cannot be measured is pure folly. It is outside the realm of logical thought to speculate on things from which no valid conclusions can be drawn. Fo the sake of rational discourse, logic and science are the only means of evaluating the reality that are worth the time spent on them.


You answered your own question without knowing it.

I merely supported the point made above without spelling it out.


No, you're right, a flying spaghetti monster could have created the universe, and it's true I have no evidence he doesn't exist, but when it comes to the legitimate question "Does God exist?" you have no evidence he does NOT exist. Of course, you said "propose" so you must have some reason to support that belief.

You have missed the point in a comical fashion. I must say lol.


As do yours.

You think you have something, but you are merely rehashing apologetics that have been debunked time and again. There are even names for the arguments you propose. They are that common.

[odin_dax]

I don't come here to debate religion, so let me concede, because I know this exchange can go on and on, and I don't want to waste anymore energy.

[Armalite]

If you don't want to discuss religion, don't post in a thread entitled "Do you believe in God?".

[odin_dax]

If you don't want to discuss religion, don't post in a thread entitled "Do you believe in God?".

Well, I easily fell into that trap, I'll admit it. When I joined the thread, I was just arguing for the sake of arguing. I wasn't taking any position.

[Armalite]

It is impossible to argue without first taking a position. You are merely in retreat and damage control mode right now because I eviscerated your ideas.

[odin_dax]

It is impossible to argue without first taking a position. You are merely in retreat and damage control mode right now because I eviscerated your ideas.

Oh, please. If that's the way you remember things, I suggest seeing a therapist. To argue either side without believing in that position is the cornerstone of rhetoric.

I think you just like to argue and have the last word. Grow up.

[Armalite]

There is no subjectivity in how we remember our posts here, since anyone can read them. Irregardless of whether you actually believe in a position, you must take one in order to make an argument. And I really don't care if you genuinely hold your ideas to be true, they are still fair game.

[headcase]

I don't think "Do You Believe in God" to be a yes or no question. There are so many variables and complications which that question doesn't tkae into account. You have to look at the different natures of "God" in which people believe. One definition is an "intelligent being which created the universe". Given the depth of science and understanding we are yet without, a clear definition of "intelligence" is impossible. We are trapped within out 4 dimensions, while some physicists believe in up to 12. What would a 12th dimension intelligent being be? Incomprehensible. Could he have created the universe? Maybe, if he existed outside it. Given the short reach of our science, such a being does not have to be supernatural. Perhaps there is an intelligent being, watching over us (I'm not big into the theist, mind-read, sin punishing guy) from outside our reality, and perhaps, given a few more millenia of evolution or even sufficient information now, we could fit him into our scientific understanding of that world.

The term "God", is so broad that a yes or no answer is impossible.

What Richard Dawkins (sorry to bring him up again) describes as "god" though, is " a bring worthy of worship". That specifies things, but only if you know what is and what isn't worthy of worship. Some might describe pantheistic phenomena worthy of worship. What about the infinite complexities of the universe? Certainly worthy if worship, but again in a panthiestic.

So I think the question should be less based on your belief in god, but what nature of god wer believe in, if any.

[Armalite]

How can there be more than 4 dimensions? The first 3 being being Cartesian coordinates and time being the fourth. "Dimension" is interchangeable with "frame of reference". It's not like you Stargate into another"dimension". People don't seem to realize that.


As for the God thing, in order for us to discuss God we need to come up with a set of attributes which define it satisfactorily that we may agree that our use of the term is synonomous with each other's. According to theological noncognitivism, God is immpossible to discuss as a rational idea because it cannot be defined except with nonsense reasoning. Basically, the idea is gibberish. This is for several reasons, one of which you touched upon. You mentioned a (non-super)natural God who yet existed outside of the universe to avoid the nasty logic pitfalls of creating himself. In doing so you outlined a being whose very attributes negate each other. Being outside of the universe, yet existing, he renders both the terms universe and existence meaningless, as nothing can exist outside the universe. The universe being a term that describes everything in existence. Thus being well outside of the realm of what we would consider natural, he again defies his own definition by being a non-supernatural entity. Pure gibberish.

When we speak of a term being to broad for a pointed discussion, we remove that term's meaning in a very nihilistic fashion. If we removed all the attributes of "God" in such a way that it becomes broad enough to encompass things like "nature" or the "universe" or other "pantheistic" characterizations, we have in a sense made it impossible to discuss. We can now insert things that would not normal be considered "God" into that concept in order to cherry pick things that may work to make the original idea seem more rational. I believe Dawkins addresses this redefinition of "God" himself in fact.

[headcase]

Because the human mind can only comprehend the four dimensions (with the arguable inclusion of time), doesn't mean only four exist. In fact, some scientists believe up to eleven (http://www.astronomycafe.net/anthol/dimens.html) dimensions exist. You're limiting the universe to the realms of human understanding. It's much more complex then that.

Staying with the idea of complexity beyond human understanding, here's a post I made in another forum.
But I was thinking last night, about nature and super-nature. God is inherently super-natural, by most religious definitions. But this seems like half an answer. Who created us? - God. Who created him? - He's supernatural (or something along those lines). What's supernatural? Beyond explination/comprehension..... but so is infinity but we can have a good go at it.

Like the idea that we could all be an artificially intelligent computer game in a higher "reality". That reality would be supernatural, wouldn't it? Does that make us any less real? We still exist, right? If everything is just a form of energy then it doesn't matter which plane of reality we inhabit. We are still sentient.
But, why should there only be two plane's? What if we created an artificially intelligent computer simulated reality? That would mean they are as real as ourselves. But what if they could evolve, to the extent that they could create artificial intelligence?
It works in the other direction too. If we are the simulation of a higher race/reality, what's to say they aren't a highly evolved simulation from an even higher reality?

But if we create a "lower" reality, by supernatural definitions, doesn't that make us gods? Let there be [light] and all that jazz. Every reality could be the gods of another one.

That's not incompatable with religion either. If I created so complex a programme I'd expect a little recognition from it. It's inhabitants are sentient, they should appreciate that. Maybe if they annoyed me, I could cut and paste their "souls" to the "hell" file (hell file - hell fire. I think I'm on to something). If we're a computer game then we would have immortal souls too, just save our conciousness (right-click, Save As).

Maybe God is they guy at the top end of the line. The guy who set the progress in motion. Maybe there is no end of the line. Maybe we are the top of the line, and some time in the future we'll develop this programme. Voila, we'll be gods. Or at least, the Bill Gates of the future will be a god.


Dawkins did also address the redefinition of God but, as was the case with a lot of that book, he missed the point. Or rather, he dismissed rather then debunked. "The God Delusion" deals mainly with a super-natural god. Despite his original statement, it was the "man in the sky" he was arguing against, which I have no problem with. What I'm saying is that to dismiss the possibility of (natural) complexity beyond our understanding, complexity that may fall under the rather broad definition of "God", is naive. Look at yourself. Only in your last ost did you laugh off as silly the notion that there exists a dimension beyond our comprehensible four. Just because you can't comprehend it, doesn't mean it can't exist.

[Armalite]

But it doesn't mean that I cannot discuss it in a rational setting, nor do I have to. Anything outside of human understanding is also outside the realm of rational thought. Many things may exist in the univewrse beyond our knowledge, but to believe any of them do without a good reason(thus bringing some aspect of them into understanding) is folly.

By the way, supernatural is a meaningless oxymoron. Nothing can exist outside nature.

[headcase]

Given we're discussing the existance (or non-existance) of God, that's a pretty aimless statement. And I don't see what point you're trying to make in the first bit of your post.

[Armalite]

The point, and aim, is that discussion of something inherently irrational is pointless and aimless. To try to discuss something indefinite or whose characteristics render it logically impossible is an excersize in futility. A discussion of God(s) and the existance thereof is no exception. Nearly every possible formulation of what God can be defined as is logically unsound and extremely irrational, making the discourse itself irrational and not worth our time. We can postulate all we want about the existence of a big teapot in the sky, but without any reason to believe it exists we are fools to do so. There are an infinite number of things that may exist, and without soe evidence that one of these things exists beforehand, it is ridiculous to even try to think about it.

[headcase]

An arguement demanding the existance or non-existance of God (probably with no further explaination) would be irrational. One based solely on possibilities isn't. Like the idea of the computer simulation. There is no way to prove it, and it's pretty far fetched, but it is none the less a possibility. Something to consider, a "consciousness-raiser", to refer again to that book. Indeed, it could be considered a rational example of the oxymoronic "supernatural".

[Armalite]

Ugh...

No...

What I said before is still the reply to your new idea. Which is the same as the last just broken down to the core idea I was attacking to begin with.

Computer simulations? What are you talking about? Computer simulations commonly used by scientists to do things like help analyse meteorological data all take data collected by observation and check it against known patterns. Not much supernatural there, huh?

[headcase]

Ugh is right.

Read up on the simulation idea.

How does what you said have anything to do with anything? We can't prove whether we're in a simluation or not, so let's not discuss it? In that case, what I said before still applies. I'm not trying to prove we live in a simulation, or convince anyone of it. I'm putting it forward as a possible, logical solution to the question of Gods existance. If such a programme existed, its creator would, by definition, be the God of it. Whether or not this is the truth is irrelevant.

[Armalite]

You did not eleborate on what the "computer simulation idea" was. What you are referring to is known as solipsism. Basically the idea that humans, confined to the world as percieved by our own senses, cannot be sure that reality is real. This could just be the dream of a space butterfly somewhere. While it is certainly possible, the logical problem here is that we are in fact quite confined to what we can perceive via our senses and what we can logically prove through observations derived thereof. To wildly postulate about things that may exist is pointless. You can only base a hypothesis on some previously observed fact. You can't build a syllogism without a set of axioms. And you can only assume that what we perceive is real. Seems like you need to read up on some of this stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

[headcase]

Wow, thanks for explaining the topic I introduced you to back to me. I'd go on, but I'd just be rehashing my last two posts.

[Esophagus]

I don't believe there is a god. But I've always felt that if there was the universe would be nothing more than a dream of his, as opposed to a creation.

[Armalite]

The first part of the post names your vaguely described idea. You have in no means introduced me to the idea of solipsism, unless you mean by introduced that you are the one bringing it into the discussion at hand.

The second part of the post explains a serious problem with solipsism that you have chosen not to rebut.

BTW, solipism is also a mental disease.

[behindthemask]

I only read half this thread since I have to do my homework so excuse me if I repeat anything. I am an agnostic because I'm not sure if god is real or not. I agree with headcase that there are so many variables it's hard to come up with an opinion. There probably is a god up there but he might not be christian. He might have just abandoned us as soon as he created the first molecule and let the universe sort itself out.

[Esophagus]

Hmm. Ive thought up a million scenarios, but never that one, strangely enough. Interesting to think about us inching through life, everyone praying to false gods, and the one true one doesn't know we exist.

Anyone ever read any Neil Gaiman? I love the theory he uses in his book. Everything anyone believes in exists, so long as they continue to believe. ANd they all live among us. I may have talked about this a page or so back.

[headcase]

The second part of the post explains a serious problem with solipsism that you have chosen not to rebut.

Alright, then forget the idea that there is a "higher reality". What if sometime in the future we create such a programme. A Darwinia kind of thing. Personally, I believe we will see it to some extent in our lifetimes. Therefore, we will be gods. There you go, proof of at least the possibility of a god in our own reality, according to all our own laws.

Which, in my mind, allows for the very real possibility of the process being reversible. While the "space butterfly" idea is no more refutable, it relies on concepts beyond our own understanding of the universe(the existance of space-butterflies, and the ability to form sentient life in their mind), mine does not, or at least does so to a lesser extent.

[odin_dax]

As I said before, burden of proof is on the supposition of the conjecture. Not the dismissal of. Religious people say shit like you because they want to make others seem just as blind as they are. You know there are no gods. It is all faith.


For your info, I'm not very religious. Is anyone with a religious view ignorant to you? Maybe most religious people can't formulate a logical argument, but it's because they have their faith, and that's all that need. If you have it, you'd understand. Faith isn't very logical or scientific, it's a personal journey. Besides all that, you can't prove a negative. You can't prove God doesn't exist.


"Evolution" life forms changing into seemingly more complex forms of life is a fact.

I agree.


I can't decide if you're more ignorant or arrogant. Maybe just stupid! :kidding:

Pick one, you can be the other two. :kidding:


LOL, what is gravity? A force of nature, to be blunt. Google it, I'm sure a physicist can better explain than I.

The question was posed, because you can't see, hear or hold gravity, but it exists. If the world stopped spinning, no more gravity, so what is it exactly?

"The Bible, for example, gives us dietary guidelines regarding meat and fish and tells us to wash our hands. Following the dietary guidelines leads to better health; killing an animal a certain way and avoiding bad foods. Washing of the hands before germs were discovered helped lower contagious diseases."

The Bible says not to eat meat except in times of famine, or winter, or drought. All things easily solved by today's modernization. Sparingly, you might say? Keep reading.

And it wouldn't be wrong. Sound advice, don't you think? (Not that I listen to it)

Yes, I bet you believe we all can from Adam and Eve, and we're all grossly inbred, might be an explanation you want to define yourself as a product of... but not me!

Don't make assumptions. I don't believe in Adam and Eve, I believe in adam, the ancient Hebrew word meaning "man"

[odin_dax]

Do I need to drop something on your head???

World stopped spinning? Our sun will super nova and consume our planet before that happens.

The moon is also distancing itself from Earth. If this continues, our orbit and planetary rotation would get so messed up... and erractic that it'd make it nearly impossible for any life to continue living. One day it could be arctic conditions in Mexico, and the next 140 degrees F. Day and night would also become erratic. All plant life would die. Us soon after.

You're too literal.

[odin_dax]

How does God grant man free will, when he does not grant man free will from other man?
For instance how does a baby have free will? humans develop over quite a long period... meaning man himself is the source of his strength, the source of his development, the rising action, and even possibly a climax making it all worth while. A god may or may not have created us. It would of been so long ago now that it's simply irrelevant. He no longer plays a role in this universe, if He even ever did.

(Since you're using second person, I assume this is directed at me.)
That's a linear point of view. If God does exist, I doubt He'd have the same perspective. In fact, since, according the Bible, we've existed once before in the first earth age, our freewill already exists.
Besides, how can you prove God doesn't play any kind of role in the universe?

Now then, the Bible is an old book. I'm sure you've played the rumor game, or heard of it, but it goes like this: a group of people whisper a message along to one another, one-by-one, the resulting 'rumor' is at best a funny twist on words, to completely meaningless compared to the original message, and it's context. I would have to say the Bible as you know it has been subject to this. How many translations are there? How many wrong translations are there? I would bet the numbers are similar.

Again, no one can say for certain. I know a lot in the Bible happened, but was it because of God, I don't know, I wasn't there. There has been evidence that has supported claims in the Bible millenia after they were written, so that must account for something. The New Testament isn't very corrupted at all, since early editions from ancient Christian sects match the canonical Catholic Bible almost word for word (when translated). The problem with the New Testament, and the Bible in general, is interpretation.

If you wish the love of a god to spread, then you must spread it, but with no attachment. No conditions assigned. Condemn not, after all. Expose evil for what it is. Do not resist evil, explain evil, so it can be understood as inferior, and that is by empirical explanation, logical actions, and hurting not. Resistance is power, and power is energy. It is flame for the fire, so to speak. Eye for an eye is akin to stupidity for stupidity. That is you do not brutally murder a brutal murderer, he wins then. You establish that brutality is acceptable, but why? Circular reasoning is the answer. A wrong justifies a wrong -wrong. When really you only double the wrong. Just as corrupt Laws can multiply the wrong.

I think it's funny you keep using the word "evil" since it's the opposite of "holy" - both religious terms. The only condition assigned to God is to love Him, so I don't see your point in the first few lines of this paragraph. If you somebody chooses to follow God and love Him, it's part of His duty out of respect and love to spread the gifts God has given him.

"An eye for an eye" has to be the most misused and misinterpreted statement in the whole Bible. For starters, read the whole verse. I recommend the whole chapter to get the context. Again, another problem I have with Christians is taking out convenient quotes and using them for their own purposes.

Biblically, there's a difference between murder and killing. Nowhere in the Bible does it say we can't defend ourselves. Murder is an act of aggression. The Bible uses killing as society putting a murderer to death, self-defense and happenstance. Is it brutal to kill a murderer? I think not. It wouldn't make sense for society to allow someone like that to drain resources for an entire lifetime, especially back then.

[kspn]

I believe science explains the creation of the universe and all but I'm a reform jew who does believe in G-D and I even try to do the Shma everday. It just seems to me that there must be a reason beyond probability and scientific means for everything that has happened on this earth.

[odin_dax]

I believe science explains the creation of the universe and all but I'm a reform jew who does believe in G-D and I even try to do the Shma everday. It just seems to me that there must be a reason beyond probability and scientific means for everything that has happened on this earth.

You might be interested in doing a search on "probabilities and evolution"

[odin_dax]

How does your god grant mentally handicap freewill? The government sure thinks they shouldn't be able to make their own choices. What about human mutations?? If God is perfect then why isn't his creation? Like begets like. A perfect 'thing' would be incapable of flaw, or even granting it.

And mentioning Satan. Why did God have an angel that was evil? Shouldn't he of been perfect just as God? Isn't Satan powerless compared to God? Why does God allow Satan to exist or influence people? Would you want your son or daugther to be eternally tortured? Why would God want his children to be eternally tortured? The Bible has not always existed. If you extend the premise of it backwards there's a lot of people burning in hell simply because they didn't know any better.

Does any of that make sense or seem fair or just? Not really -no.

Does a god exist? No.

Face reality.

As far as I know, those who never heard the Word aren't punished for that (ie your example of people who lived before the Bible was written).

I don't claim to know all the answers, and what would make you think I know what God is thinking? I can't explain mentally handicapped people from a Biblical perspective. I do know that some defects and mutations can be used for the positive. Ever see Rain Man? ;-) Simple genetic mutations come as gifts to be used as immunity against diseases/viruses.

Why would God grant humans freewill and not angels? Satan was an angel. He used his freewill for power. Why does Satan influence? Well, since we all have freewill, we all decided whether or not to listen to him. Doesn't that make sense? Satan doesn't make anybody do anything. Individuals make the choice, not Satan. Directly speaking, blaming Satan for everything is no more a cop out that thanking God for everything. If you had a kid that chose a path in life against your wishes, what would you do? What if he brings drugs into the house? Criminals? Makes it unsafe for your other kids? Would you not kick him out of the house?

Does it make sense? Not always, but do we always know the answers? No.

"Does God exist? No. Face reality." I think you should go back to your previous post in thread so you can be reminded to look up "burden of proof."

[odin_dax]

K, lazy ass, I'll do it for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof

Or google the term god.

Probability of all the web pages being right about a god: zero
Probability of all those web pages being wrong about god: one

There is not burden of proof on me to prove that your god doesn't exist. Because it fails the first test, that being common sense.

Well, considering there are numerous testimonies, facts that have been backed up, a surviving a record of a people who survived several wars and occupations, the burden of proof is on you. First of all, the burden of proof in science is just that, science. When has science and God ever become incompatible? When has science ever attempted to prove God doesn't exist, or why do you think science ever can? God of the Bible, or any God, would obviously live outside this universe, right? Or any supreme being that exists beyond the third dimension would be next to impossible to study under scientific conditions, right?


The universe has always and will always exist, agreed?

No.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_mass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy

So a god didn't create the universe. If you want to call something a god, it'd be the universe itself.
The universe existed before the notion of a god existed. Seen the movie 300? Man claimed to be a god. Heard of ancient egypt? Again, men claiming to be gods.

One outdated theory, but both rely on CLOSED systems. Scientists claim there are multiple universes. If God exists, the system isn't closed. Your premise is narrow.

As for other civilizations claiming to be gods, I must ask, why not? If we are children of god(s), then aren't we god? We are separate than animals in many intellectual respects, so does that make us gods? Even though the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, they still believed in supreme beings. How many ancient civilizations have we poorly translated? How many words can't be directly translated. Your point has no merit.

The idea was nothing new when they wrote the Bible. It was really just "plaigarised" from holy books before it.

Well, the Holy Bible took a long time after Christ to be canonized, but many texts and stories were passed down throughout the centuries, and they're all pretty close, meaning the same source. Again, this proves nothing.


I like this search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=biblical+contradictions
Over 2 million pages!!!


"Bible truth" yields over 7 million
"Bible fact" yields over 13 million


That's an awful lot for a book supposedly coming from divine and perfect inspiration.

Maybe. Like the results from some of mine, there may be repeats, there may be misleading titles. There are a lot of supposed contradictions in the Bible that, if not all, a lot can be explained by study of translations. Like I've stated earlier, adam means man, meaning all man, humans. It's not supposed to be "Adam."


Consider this:

We are more genetically similar to chimpanzees than chimps are to gorillas.

I don't believe in the notion of evolution (things get better)... or survival of the fittest (smart/strong/positive traits are only continued).... I believe how viruses act is best to describe life and evolution. Viruses are the perfect evolutionary form of life. Their sole purpose is to consume and replicate, and they do this extremely well. That's all evolution has been. Survival of the species which best procreates while being resistant to diseases. Maximizing life-span, or maximizing rapid reproduction. The species that does this the best dominates. So far we humans have dominated. What do we do with it though? We as a people destroy the environment, kill each other needlessly is the name of gods that don't exist, rape and sodomize eachother, torture eachother, lie, cheat, and steal. Has any religion put a stop to any of this? No. They promote it. Read the Bible, it'll give you all kinds of good ideas.

I could argue this point, but then I realized it has nothing to do with whether or not God exists. I will say, there are bad actions in this world, but the minority doesn't represent the whole.


You are not innocent. No one is innocent.

If you're going to formulate an argument, stop using second person. It's a bad habit you've been using over and over again, and sometimes it's ambiguous.

You'll see things get much worse very rapidly -in your lifetime. Growth rate: ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Population_curve.svg ). Over 6.6 billion people and growing daily....

Growth per decade:
1900 to 1910 - 100 mil
10 to 20 - 110 mil
20 to 30 - 210 mil
30 t0 40 - 230 mil
40 to 50 - 100 mil

50 to 60 - 620 mil *
60 to 70 - 680 mil
70 to 80 - 730 mil
80 to 90 - 830 mil
90 to 2k - 810 mil
2k to 2010? Probably another 800 mil, atleast. 2010-2020 maybe a billion! So by 2020 nearly 8 billion people will be here (seen projections that place the 8 bil mark around 2028, but we don't call eachother fuckers for nothing).

Point?

Plus you got to figure all the shit people consume today. People are getting unhealthy at a scary rate. It's an epidemic. We, ourselves, will be the cause of our own decimation, perhaps even extinction. Don't worry though, humans will be sure to take as many other livings things out with them as humanly possible!

Relevance to discussion?

Cuz we don't need no science! Oh, lordy, no! We got Jesus! He'll save us! :bs2:

Sure, we need science. If people follow the teachings of Jesus, is that bad? If people choose to believe in God, is that wrong? I enjoy this discussion, but I don't necessarily believe everything 100%, but I can say religion has helped a lot of people, I do believe in a higher power of some kind, and Jesus was a great teacher. I can say those things with certainty.

I can also engage in discussions like these because people like you make a lot of statements as fact that aren't, use a lot of conjecture. I am merely addressing these issues, not taking a stance per se, and since I can easily dismiss a lot of your arguments, it's not a stance I would put my footing on.

If you want to continue, please.

[odin_dax]

Science and a god aren't compatible. Because science is the pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge is power. Belief is uhm... well... dangerous, as it's founded on gross ignorance. It's when you take a largely ficticious (or, in Hollywood context, "Based on a True Story") book, like the Bible, way too literal that you get very serious problems.

Your belief that the Bible is largely fiction is only your opinion. That part of the debate ends, because it's obvious you can't be convinced otherwise, even if I did provide supporting evidence for some it's validity (ie what science and archeology has proven to be true). The Bible taken way too literal, I would agree, would produce serious problems, for various reasons.


Conservation of matter and energy are laws, not theory. Break one, please.

If I burn you then weigh your ashes they will not weigh the same as your body did before I burned you (yes, literally), but in a closed system, say a sealed box. The heat energy released byt the flame, vapors and smoke, and your ashes would be equal in terms of matter AND energy as you were originally. This is fact. Not that I or anybody else could turn the smoke, flame, and ash back into a living you. But the point is these are laws. They are unbreakable.

Mind boggling... you can't even understand basic physical law. Are you a complete imbecile?

I understand it fine. Obviously, you don't understand logic. I said, IF God exists, it's not a closed system. Your premise is the universe is a closed system, yet there's NO proof either way.

We're getting to the point of insults, I see. Disappointing...


I know there to be three physical dimensions. Time is a constant, not transversable. You can not go back in time. Time has no meaning (except what's given to it by man). Time is just a notion we created. It is a measure based solely on 3D space. Base on Earth's rotation and orbit, as I hope you know. Sure, it's useful to reference time when dealing with the three dimensions that surely exist. But that's all we're sure about. Other realities... existance outside of these three dimensions? Pure conjecture based on fallacious reasoning.

Funny how you accuse me of the same I just accused you of...

The burden of proof is on the conjecture. Not lack of. There was existance before any notion of any god. Then the notion came along. The burden is not on the pre-existing facts ("God is responsible for this day!", says a Christian. "God who?", says a normal man. "Allah!", says the Islamic man. "NO! IT'S GOD!", says the Christian, and the man walks away thinking they're both fucking crazy while the Christian and Islamic man kill eachother over stupid, and meaningless shit).

You don't understand religion very well.

Hinduism is older than Christianity, but first burden of proof is to the 'non-believer'. Your second would be to Hindus. Judaism also pre-dates Christianity, burden of proof to them? Buddhism pre-dates Christianity aswell, etc....

Islam and Chrisitianity are actually relative newcomers. They presented no new ideas. Just rehashed the old ones. Though they dominate, as far as religion goes. I'm sure you know why. Unlike some other religions... Islams and Christians were willing to kill their brothers. Yes, oh your god, genocide and murder is the holiest answer (full of holes).

For whom someone has a passionate hate for the idea of a god, I'm sure you feel justified in calling the god of the Bible a genocidal murderer, but that would be equal to the "ignorance" label you'd bestow upon me.

Population point... didn't think it had to be made considering if you stayed up any current events it's obvious that out continued growth rate is not sustainable.

More belittling words... Quite pathetic. To begin with, overpopulation and resources isn't new. Secondly, that has NOTHING to do with whether or not God exists.

People don't read or understand the Bible is my fucking point about health and 'Believers'. The Bible states CLEARLY not to eat meat. Thou shalt not kill, is a fine example.

Again, nothing to do with whether God exists or not. The topic and the subject of people following God's laws are two separate issues, Scarecrow.

<pointless text snipped>

Religions have helped a lot of people? How many have died in the name of religion, either fighting for it, or defending it... or just not believing in it? How is someone being killed for their beliefs, or lack of them, right?

Lots of people died in the name of religion. How many have died in the name of non-religion? How many have died for hate? Money? Power? You're only looking at the negative, and even that was a poor attempt to distract from the point.

Conjecture? From me? Funny! :argue:

Not really funny... You thinking you're free from it in your posts is.

Ok, Mr. Jesus is This Great Teacher, what have you done to emulate Jesus today? Probably nothing, am I right?

Showed more patience than you :smileysex:

And finally,

Oh, so your diatribe does have an end?

It's on the supposition of any claim and assumption that it is right, where the burden of proof lies. About a god, or anything else. This is not just science, this is called reality. Read Armalite's posts, he tells a good story to demonstrate this about children and their magic bullets and magic shields, and magic-shield-piercing-magic-bullets. And so forth. This is called circular reasoning. It gets us no where.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
This goes for every religion with a deity. "God is because God is" is what all believers are saying and thinking, which makes them complete imbeciles.

Thanks for the bold, but I can see just fine.

Saying religious followers are imbeciles for thinking and saying "God is because God is" is imbecilic. If you can't handle a difference of opinion, that's fine, but if you want to engage in a discussion, don't go around calling all religious people idiots, or belittle those who respond. The simple fact appears to be you don't want to engage in a discussion, you want to be right. Despite your immaturity, lack of respect and inflated ego on the matter, I would hope you can walk away from this discussion with the realization that you're not always right just because you say you are.

A final reiteration: There are no gods, and I have nothing more to say on this topic.

The first dimension doesn't exist. I have nothing more to say on that topic.

[odin_dax]

[Doubling error]

[odin_dax]

I have facts to back up my points.

And I've addressed those "facts."

All you have is faith, and illogic.

Come now.

It's not my problem that you fail to understand logic, reason, or religion -fact.

Ditto.

Oh, and I have no problem insulting those who're deserving.

Well, I do.

The point you failed to grasp, is that believers are full of shit.

I got that's what you were trying to say, but that doesn't prove if God exists or not.

They don't practice what they preach.

Is anyone perfect?

It's not that I have a hatred for false gods, but those who say believe in them, but they don't even know what the fuck they're talking about. You're a fine example.

Talk about ignoring statements...

When you're arguing with a fool, make sure he isn't doing the same thing.

If I'm the fool, then you've failed.

I was a fool for trying to discuss this with you.

Now it was a discussion?

Not that I'm wrong,

You're not necessarily right either.

just that you are an idiot.

Because I don't agree with you, I'm an idiot. Is that your "logic" for every argument?

I might aswell be arguing with a mentally retarded person.

You gotta convince someone, I suppose. (Though I doubt you'll have much success.)

You can't read for comprehension -fact.

Ditto. Many times have I addressed your points without a stance. In fact, the only time I've made my opinion known in this discussion was two posts ago when I said I thought Jesus was a good teacher, etc.

You selectively ignore facts -fact.

I can say the same about you. In fact, all one has to do is look back a few posts and see, I've addressed your points more directly than you have mine (minus your insults, of course).

You do not understand logic -fact.

It's obvious you understand far less on the subject than I.

People often accuse others of what they themselves do, like your fallacious reasoning -fact.

So you're accusing me of accusing you of fallacious reasoning because people accuse other of what they themselves do, so isn't it LOGICAL to assume that I accuse you of accusing me of fallacious reasoning because that's what people accuse other they themselves do?

You are not worth my further time -fact.

Well, this post says otherwise, and so will your response.

[Armalite]

While it's nice to seen someone who enjoys the posts I have made, and seems to have understood them, I must caution Fire to refrain from counterproductive flaming. Convincing anyone stuck in the faith bubble to break out of it is very difficult, if not impossible to begin with. If you sully your arguments with insults and nonsense you make it more than impossible.

[odin_dax]

I didn't read much of the bullshit you replied with.

All I have to say is I'm better than you. :vote4me:

You're shit on my shoe, so to speak.

When you have something meaningful to say, talk to me, I'd love to hear it.

Well, you've certainly proved my points, especially the last one that you do care.

[odin_dax]

While it's nice to seen someone who enjoys the posts I have made, and seems to have understood them, I must caution Fire to refrain from counterproductive flaming. Convincing anyone stuck in the faith bubble to break out of it is very difficult, if not impossible to begin with. If you sully your arguments with insults and nonsense you make it more than impossible.

I enjoy your posts, Armalite. (I wish you'd post more, to be honest.) Thank you for your response in this thread. Let me also say that I'm not in the faith bubble. :thinkerg: I deal with issues and spirituality my own way. I don't know if you'd agree with me that Jesus was a great teacher, and that religion has helped people, individually at the very least, but I know we disagree with whether or not there is a god, or gods. To be honest, I don't know if there is a God of the Bible, but I do believe there is a watchmaker of some kind.

[odin_dax]

Here is a file I thought Fire and others on the board would enjoy.

"The 10 Myths -- and Truths -- About Atheism"

I don't accept all the arguments, since some of them are too narrow, IMHO, but it's a fun read. http://www.wikiupload.com/download_page.php?id=204106

[odin_dax]

I only flame flamers. :wiggle:

I don't care to convince odin of anything -he's clearly agnostic (what I define as not choosing, or lacking the ability to: think, decide, or come to a conclusion).

You can't win an argument with an agnostic, because they only argue for the sake of arguement. They don't want a conclusion, they just don't want to know (or they're incapable). Odin is a perfect example of this.

Agnostics scare me. They lack mores. And you'll find that you can usually talk a believer into admitting the possibility of there not being a god... so really they're just agnostic.

It's not that hard to convince animal lovers of a more secular view. Just let them think about how no animals gather around for church, worship, pray, or any other bullshit. And how we really aren't much different from animals. I love my dogs, and they love me, I can see it in their faces and their tails wagging whenever they see me. They get freightened and cower when they're afraid. They have complex emotions, just like we do. To think that most religions consider animals spirit-less and stupid creatures... that and here for nothing more than food? Disgusting. I hate animal abusers with a passion.

That's why I love being Buddhist. It teaches that all life has value, intrinsically, and all life has spiritual meaning. And that taking life needlessly, for any reason, is wrong. Or like Native Americans have done. They give thanks for the animal's sacrifice, and waste no part of it. I have more honor and respect for animals than I do for most people.

You just don't quit, do you? Think you're fooling anyone? It's obvious you're a hypocrite (see "Psychics" thread). It's obvious that once you can't argue any further, you use insults. You're always whining that you can't convince me, and screaming that you're superior, but the simple truth is you're neither, convincing or superior. Knock off the holier-than-thou shit, back up claims on auras, and if you're going to say you don't care and that's all you're going to say on the subject, either follow what you've said and shut the fuck up or speak to me directly, like a mature adult. It's time you grew up, because all these potshots just make you look ten times worse than all you've been accusing me of.

[Armalite]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic

Please be more careful what you post Fire, you are starting to sound ignorant. I consider myself both an atheist and an agnostic. You have to be an agnostic to be a reasonable weak atheist. Try doing some reading on the topic. An agnostic is not an apathetic person lacking morals or wherewithal, an agnostic is one who declines to jump to conclusions on issues where there is no grounds for any statement of supposed fact.

Myself, I am an agnostic/atheist/theological noncognitivist/ignostic/etc etc. Most of the nontheist positions one may claim to hold are either synonomous or mutually dependant on each other. Only theist positions seem to be characterized by mutual exclusivity.

BTW dax, which of the arguments do you dispute?

[odin_dax]

BTW dax, which of the arguments do you dispute?

From the 10 Myths & Truths about Atheism?

[Armalite]

Yeah

[Armalite]

Comparing a dictionary to an enclyclopedia in terms of depth of information, tricky.

Did you even read the article? What of the outside references?

And do you wish to say something about the validity of facts on wikipedia? Do you want independently referenced support for my position on atheism? Perhaps I should explain point by point what atheism and agnosticism both are. Ever read any Bertrand Russell? Daniel Dennet? Ever read anything besides dictionary.com?

Atheism is the negative form of theism. Nothing more. Anyone who does not positively assert the existance of one or more gods is quite clearly an atheist, that is to say he is not a theist. Now this does not necessarily imply that the atheist positively asserts the NONexistance of any god or gods, that would be an additional characteristic. Many atheists do seem to positively assert that no gods exist(see how that makes no grammatical sense?), but these are commonly called positive/strong atheists.
Now atheism also breaks into another , more common I should add, school of thought where no positive assertion is made about divine beings. Commonly referred to as negative/weak atheism, this category pretty much includes all nontheist positions that do not fall under the heading of positive atheism. That would include agnosticism.
An agnostic, of course, is another broad category itself encompassing such positions as theological noncognitivism, ignosticism and others. An agnostic, is in other terms, a skeptic, someone who refuses to make a determination, citing lack of information. The position can be further categorized according to what the cause of the insufficient information is. For example, the theological noncognitivist deigns the concept of deity to be incoherent, and therefore untestable, unfalsifiable, and generally indescribable in meaningful terms. All of which are necessary to make judgements on the validity of claims regarding said deity(s).
Most people who are in fact agnostics will refer to themselves as atheists. I am included in this. In turn many who refer to themselves as agnostics are either apathetic atheists, another position based on complete lack of interest, or are simply ignorant as to the history and usage of the term outside anecdotal information from friends and other encounters.

[odin_dax]

Sure odin, take what I say, reduce it to a cereal box slogan, then call your own twist of my words wrong and hypocritical. Grats?

They are. It's clear by your own statements. Don't get upset at me.

I stated clearly, and plainly why I can't convince you of anything.

Ah, the statement that I can't comprehend. What did you mean by that? If you can't convince somebody, don't attack them personally. One of the biggest fallacies...

I'm not whining.
I'm stating the facts.

What you say isn't fact, that's what YOU don't comprehend.

You know, those things you ignore every chance you get.

I haven't seen any, so I don't know how you can infer that.

Uhm... as for auras.
I linked to a website. Auras are measureable, quantifiable, and even able to be visualized.
What more do you need for proof? I've had pictures of my aura taken, and it is generally blue-green, with hints of yellow, just as my old G/F told me. Being angry will change the color of your aura. Being happy will. Auras are very dynamic. My mother has a video device that shows crude auras.

"Debunkers of paranormal activity deny claims of the existence of auras. James Randi, for example, has for many years offered one million US dollars to any person capable of repeatedly detecting auras; no one has yet succeeded, although at least one person has tried and failed (see The $1 million challenge). One such test, which was televised, involved one aura reader standing on one side of a room with an opaque partition separating her from a number of slots which may contain either actual people or mannequins. The aura reader failed to identify which partitions had which behind them, by claiming that all were concealing people."

"Many mystics have claimed that images of the human aura have been captured by way of Kirlian photography (named after the Soviet scientist who invented the process, Semyon Kirlian), although the results of empirical studies of the Kirlian photo process seem to suggest that rather than revealing the human aura, many Kirlian photos may instead be capturing snapshots of a ordinary physical process. Dr. Thelma Moss (1974, Ch. 2), formerly of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, was one psychologist actively pursuing studies of Kirlian photography, obtaining many nice-looking photos in the process, and although she was indecisive about what was involved, she seemed to suspect some kind of unknown radiation. Physicist William Tiller (1974; Boyers & Tiller, 1973), then at Stanford University, proposed that Kirlian photos may be exhibiting an electrical phenomenon known as corona discharge, which often seen during thunderstorms and is the proposed process behind the phenomenon of “St. Elmo’s Fire.” When a Kirlian photo is taken, the object which we want to see the supposed aura of (e.g., a person’s finger) is placed either on a metal electrode or between two parallel metal plate capacitors that are separated by a small distance from a photographic film plate. An electrical current passed through the electrode or the capacitors produces a separation of charge, freeing valence electrons from the object and creating a small electric field that ionizes the molecules in the air around the object. Once this electric field is large enough, electrical breakdown of the air occurs and conducting paths in the visible light range can appear as the electrons recombine with the ionized molecules, emitting photons in the process (a lightning bolt is an example of electrical breakdown on a massive scale). Multiple conducting paths can have a kind of glowing, colorful display, and this is corona discharge. I myself have witnessed it in physics lab demonstrations on electricity and magnetism, and, if one ever got close enough, it could be witnessed on the tips and along the edges of metal weather vanes and lightning rods on the tops of tall buildings during a thunderstorm (one reason that they are there is to reduce the collection of charge by releasing electrons collected by the building back into the air, and thus helping to reduce the likelihood of massive breakdown, i.e., a lightning strike, on the building). Very faint and brief displays can also occur on conductive objects (such as our skin) if the conditions were right (in Kirlian set-ups, those conditions, which are not likely to occur naturally, are artificially induced). It is possible that different colors may be generated based on the elemental composition of the object (each element in the periodic table gives off it own unique color spectra) and, as Pehek, Kyler, and Faust (1976) argue, the amount of moisture present on the object. In the case of human skin, this is likely to come from perspiration along the surface of our hands, as Montandon (1977) argues. The images of the supposed aura in Kirlian photographs I’ve looked at appear very similar to corona discharge, and given the methods by which they were produced, I’m more inclined to agree that we are seeing this rather than the emanations of the supposed human aura."

With all that said.... You really are a fucking idiot! Not an insult as much as it is blatantly obvious! Unless you're just blind, can't read any of this and are just replying randomly... which I could believe.

Ha, ha. Hey, kettle, you're black!

I might aswell hold a piece of paper in front of you, and say, "Odin, this is a piece of paper". To which you'd retort, "Hypocrite! That's a product of wood pulp flattened into a sheet and bleached." Or some bullshit like that. And I'd say, "Dumbass, that's what paper is!"

Worst analogy ever. Your aim would have been a lot better without the word "hypocrite" to ruin it for you.

As for the psychic thread: Faith and feelings are not the same thing.

Right, feeling is based on less than faith. Good one, fire.

I'm standing on the ground of you being unable to understand me, and you're doing an excellent job of being a nonsensical-asshole. And that I don't want to take the time to explain myself to someone who doesn't seem to "get it" -at all. This ongoing argument seems more about semantics and your ignorance than it is about content.

Well, people seem to be agreeing with me on your clarity and support, so... Besides, isn't semantics relevant?

Just because you fail to understand me, does not make me wrong, ignorant, or anything else. You can only judge through your own eyes.

You're right... You're wrong, ignorant and anything else whether or not I fail to understand you. :bukkake:

I'm arrogant, full of myself, cocky, heck, even an asshole at times. I have no issues with admitting any of that. And sure, the burden of proof is on me if I want you to believe in what I say. But it doesn't make a bit of difference what you believe. You have no meaning in my reality.

I won't edit this out for my convenience because I can actually comprehend and agree with this statement.... hahaha!

You are not worth my further time -fact.

This is obviously a false statement.

[odin_dax]

Exactly my point. Thanks for agreeing with me -finally. You said something meaningful -finally. "Out of sight, out of mind." Your ignorance speaks volumes... unfortunately that's literal.

Thanks for the twist.


You don't want to understand me. I'd bet money you're one of those people... if I was trying to explain myself, in person, you'd butt in every chance you got. You wouldn't allow me to finish. You wouldn't hear me out. You wouldn't think about everything. Like I stated previously in my post. Like you continue to do!

You have every chance to type without interruption, dude. If it's your goal to avoid the issue, that's fine. I've addressed your points. You continue to avoid mine. I haven't seen any direct responses to my points, and I'm still waiting for a response om auras. I just gave you two paragraph quotes. It's must be convenient for you to snip 80% of my quotes in the last post. Keep caring.


This is rude, and it gets you nowhere. What? You lack the capacity to absorb the information that's presented to you in whole... that's what you just affirmed.

How dense are you? I've read your argument as whole, but it consists of parts, different points, and I've addressed them fully. You come back with I can't comprehend, that I'm an idiot and such when you know you just can't handle a difference of opinion. Sorry if you can't handle not convincing somebody of your superiority, but get used to it.

It's obvious this is circular now. I've stated numerous counterpoints that you have yet to address. Your argument on God is weak. Your argument on auras is even weaker. Have you addressed my points on auras? No. Have you admitted or countered that if God exists, the universe is not a closed system? How many times did you veer off topic and bring up irrelevant information? Population for example. You keep accusing me of being ignorant, yet you simply don't see that your resolve makes you ignorant to other views. You can't see beyond yours. You call religious people idiots, people that disagree with you a whole host of insults.

Well, since I've stated clearly my points, and the only response is that they're wrong because I don't understand what you're trying to say, this discussion is over. I'm sure you'll respond with some bullshit. You can have the last word, because I know my position speaks for itself. People can read and see.

Maybe you can stop the hostilities and participate on this board with some maturity in the future.

[odin_dax]

Yeah

1. On the contrary, religious people often worry that life is meaningless and imagine that it can only be
redeemed by the promise of eternal happiness beyond the grave.

I'd disagree with that. Not all religions believe in an afterlife, a heaven, and every Christian I know focuses on trying to live the life, not doing works in exchange for benefits.

2. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship

I'd disagree with making that comparison to say that religion is responsible for the greatest crimes in humanity just the same as atheism is/was.

3. The whole of point three. The quote isn't directly relevant to the point (though I enjoy reading it), and the conclusion is bridged without any specifics. I would like to see how that conclusion was reached.

5. Atheism has no connection to science.

The example of using 93% of members of the Academy don't believe in a god is only one example. This point would be strengthened by other organizations. And what if there are other scientifically based organizations that have a majority of members believing in a god? That last point isn't up to the writer, though.

9. Atheists ignore the fact that religion is extremely beneficial to society.

He talks about delusion and disputing the benefits of religion without ever talking about any good or bad. He makes a broad claim without any examples either way.

***
That's all. The rest is up for debate, if anyone wants to take up that challenge. I don't.

[headcase]

Unless someone can back up their opinion with a valid arguement, their vote is meaningless. One in 5 people who took that test believe the US carried out the September 11 attacks.

[odin_dax]

Unless someone can back up their opinion with a valid arguement, their vote is meaningless. One in 5 people who took that test believe the US carried out the September 11 attacks.

lol, Good point. If you add up all the people that believe in a supreme being, the result would be a lot different. That's statistics for ya.

[headcase]

http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/Post911/dubious_claims/010911-N-6157F-001.jpg

What do you want? A 747 with a dented fender sittin outside the Pentagon?

But this is about God. Start another topic if you want to reply.

[Esophagus]

Okay.... So I am coming into this with a couple of months off under my belt. And for starters, I have one thing to say. Fire, you are a douchebag. Lame antics aren't going to help you win anyone over, or help you in a discussion. Your argument makes no damn sense. Agnostics aren't the stupid ones. Do you think anyones ever called the Swiss the "stupid" side in WWII? No. They didn't take sides so they wouldn't end up screwed over in the end. God is not "infinity". In fact, the concept of infinity has nothing to do with god, and even infinity is not impossible. God is the concept of anything bigger than yourself, any sort of meaning or purpose to this. There doesn't have to be a "being" there for our lines to have already been predetermined, or for "coincidence" to be anything but. But can you prove that our lives are driven by fate? No. But can you prove that they aren't? No. So I'm pretty sure an agnostic is just a person who understands this, and kind of wants to figure that out on their own terms. Also, the fact you believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories, lowers my opinion of you even more, but as Headcase says, take that to another thread.

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

odin, since every LOGICAL argument in the world won't persuade you to think differently...

Go suck some christian cock. If God loved Jesus, then got him skullfucked on a cross, how much more YOU?
Yep.
That's right, odin....
YOUR GOD HATES US ALL

...

Fire, stop massaging Armalite's ego...
He'd probably like it more if you sucked his cock you wh0re.:tongue1:

...

Fuck "God". People do all kinds of shit, justifying it in the name of some fucking god they've never even met or talked to. People live their lives in complete ignorance, thinking that "God" will help them. In fact, some people will attribute whatever happens to "God" when the real factor is the HUMAN factor.

The concept of "God" is the perfect scapegoat. Not only is "God" created out of circular reasoning ("God exists because he is God"), the illogical belief in said god is also socially acceptable.

Take "God" and such rubbish away from people... and for once let Science and Logic reign supreme.. What happens?
People will begin to accept their ignorance in this world.. and will learn to be content with it rather than false knowledge....

And then we can all assfuck creationists and scientologists with JOYOUS ABANDON.
YAY!


...Now WHO wouldn't want that?:vote4me:

[odin_dax]

odin, since every LOGICAL argument in the world won't persuade you to think differently...

Go suck some christian cock. If God loved Jesus, then got him skullfucked on a cross, how much more YOU?
Yep.
That's right, odin....
YOUR GOD HATES US ALL

...

Fire, stop massaging Armalite's ego...
He'd probably like it more if you sucked his cock you wh0re.:tongue1:

...

Fuck "God". People do all kinds of shit, justifying it in the name of some fucking god they've never even met or talked to. People live their lives in complete ignorance, thinking that "God" will help them. In fact, some people will attribute whatever happens to "God" when the real factor is the HUMAN factor.

The concept of "God" is the perfect scapegoat. Not only is "God" created out of circular reasoning ("God exists because he is God"), the illogical belief in said god is also socially acceptable.

Take "God" and such rubbish away from people... and for once let Science and Logic reign supreme.. What happens?
People will begin to accept their ignorance in this world.. and will learn to be content with it rather than false knowledge....

And then we can all assfuck creationists and scientologists with JOYOUS ABANDON.
YAY!


...Now WHO wouldn't want that?:vote4me:

Unexpected...

Let me put it this way, if "every logical argument in the world" aligns only with your personal belief god doesn't exist, then you're right, nothing will convince me. Just as equally, you can't fully convince me god does exist! We take information, interpret it, and draw a conclusion. The question of whether or not god exists isn't a logical one, since it can logically be argued either way. The fact that you agree with Fire, doesn't mean I can't be convinced, or that I'm ignorant, as my responses show, his position isn't convincing, and I think a lot of people would agree with me. As I've also pointed out, and people have claimed as well, how can you PROVE something doesn't exist? How can you prove a negative? Science can't even begin to explain the origins of the universe (if there is one). The only theory that has attempted to explain the origins of the universe, that I know of, is the Big Bang (I don't know about the other theories Armalite was referring to), but the Big Bang doesn't explain what caused the BB, where the universe is located, what energy/mass existed before the BB, and why the BB happened. I'm sure there are other origin questions. Since that is logic I've mainly been stating (excluding the BB points), I find it funny that people call me illogical when they have absolutely no idea what logic means, apparently. You have your beliefs based on information and experience, as does everybody else here. They tell us different things, and we base our lives on them. Faith, spirituality, religion, all are no different. I would never tell you that I'm right, or that you're wrong, and I never have to anybody in my life. Whatever you believe is fine, just don't be another anti-god person that carries the banner of intolerance and disrespect.
As for the rest, I mostly agree actually. People do a lot of fucked up shit in the name of God, but that doesn't mean God would agree with them. The human factor is freewill, I agree. I can't imagine a world where so much bad happens, and that being because it's God's will. I think saying everything is because of God or Satan is using a scapegoat. And a lot of people do live in ignorance because of their beliefs, thinking everything will be taken care of, and not just Christians, whereas science and logic would enrich human lives. The Bible teaches us to learn, to not life live in ignorance. If there's a cure for cancer, we are taught take it, but there are some religions that believe God will heal. That's just stupid.
Of course, I would argue exceptions to the general. What is to say God doesn't make a direct difference in some peoples' lives? There are a lot of stories that can't easily be swept away under the "circumstance" rug.

I hope that clears up the matter a little more.

[Armalite]

Unexpected...

The question of whether or not god exists isn't a logical one, since it can logically be argued either way.

Actually, it's illogical because deity is a gibberish incoherent concept that is completely unfalsifiable.


As I've also pointed out, and people have claimed as well, how can you PROVE something doesn't exist? How can you prove a negative?

And as it has been pointed out, you don't have to prove a negative, you simply need a lack of proof of the positive. Burden of proof. Naw.


Science can't even begin to explain the origins of the universe (if there is one). The only theory that has attempted to explain the origins of the universe, that I know of, is the Big Bang (I don't know about the other theories Armalite was referring to), but the Big Bang doesn't explain what caused the BB, where the universe is located, what energy/mass existed before the BB, and why the BB happened.

So you readily admit that the above statement is complete and utter bullshit, and that we should disregard it due to your laziness and unwillingness to abandon a view of science that is horrendously outdated?


I'm sure there are other origin questions. Since that is logic I've mainly been stating (excluding the BB points), I find it funny that people call me illogical when they have absolutely no idea what logic means, apparently. You have your beliefs based on information and experience, as does everybody else here. They tell us different things, and we base our lives on them. Faith, spirituality, religion, all are no different. I would never tell you that I'm right, or that you're wrong, and I never have to anybody in my life. Whatever you believe is fine, just don't be another anti-god person that carries the banner of intolerance and disrespect.

Logic has nothing to do with faith, experience or any other anecdotal crap. And I have yet to see you use a logical argument.

[Th0r]

Unless someone can back up their opinion with a valid arguement, their vote is meaningless. One in 5 people who took that test believe the US carried out the September 11 attacks.

I heard it was 1 in 4

[odin_dax]

Actually, it's illogical because deity is a gibberish incoherent concept that is completely unfalsifiable.

You say potato...

And as it has been pointed out, you don't have to prove a negative, you simply need a lack of proof of the positive. Burden of proof. Naw.

So you readily admit that the above statement is complete and utter bullshit, and that we should disregard it due to your laziness and unwillingness to abandon a view of science that is horrendously outdated?

I readily admit there are questions left unanswered when using the Big Bang theory, that I haven't seen any evidence that it's an outdated theory, and the other origin theories you allude to. I've looked and could not find. Perhaps, instead of accusing me of being lazy, you can provide us readers with some links.

Logic has nothing to do with faith, experience or any other anecdotal crap. And I have yet to see you use a logical argument.

Well, this is an opinion thread, and that I've been mainly replying to, opinion. I have yet to see much logic at all. Of course, I have made logical points. If you're looking for a formulated logical argument from me explaining why I believe in God, you won't. The time it would take to write one would be very long, especially right now for me, and this thread is winding down. Call me illogical, but I don't want my faith examined. It's my spiritual journey, so the opinions of other, religious or not, will not be sought. I hope you can understand that.
I can leave you with this, and this is one of my "issues" with religion, that most of the Bible doesn't matter, in regards to evidence of any kind or logic, if the origin stories, the beginning of the Bible, doesn't "hold any water." That isn't to say I believe one way or the other the origin stories, only that I have doubts.

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

Well, this is an opinion thread, and that I've been mainly replying to, opinion. I have yet to see much logic at all. Of course, I have made logical points. If you're looking for a formulated logical argument from me explaining why I believe in God, you won't. The time it would take to write one would be very long, especially right now for me, and this thread is winding down. Call me illogical, but I don't want my faith examined. It's my spiritual journey, so the opinions of other, religious or not, will not be sought. I hope you can understand that.
I can leave you with this, and this is one of my "issues" with religion, that most of the Bible doesn't matter, in regards to evidence of any kind or logic, if the origin stories, the beginning of the Bible, doesn't "hold any water." That isn't to say I believe one way or the other the origin stories, only that I have doubts.

...

So basically you're admitting how gay you are.

The problem with people who are trapped in their faith is that despite claiming to be "logical", they refuse to even examine the validity of their own faith they value so much. They refuse to examine the values they so desperately cling to. Even if they question it, they refuse to see what cold, hard logic shows. Which is why godlovers such as yourself can never see the light.


Faith an emotional thing... It is irrational.

I feel sorry for godlovers such as yourself. Go die. Save ourselves from your presence.

[odin_dax]

...

So basically you're admitting how gay you are.

The problem with people who are trapped in their faith is that despite claiming to be "logical", they refuse to even examine the validity of their own faith they value so much. They refuse to examine the values they so desperately cling to. Even if they question it, they refuse to see what cold, hard logic shows. Which is why godlovers such as yourself can never see the light.


Faith an emotional thing... It is irrational.

I feel sorry for godlovers such as yourself. Go die. Save ourselves from your presence.

Waving that banner again...

It's quite alright for you to express your bigotry, Tal, but don't assume for a moment you know what my values are, or that I've never examined my faith. You say people are trapped in faith? I put forth that people choose to live in faith. How is it wrong to follow any faith or any god that lays down a set of moral laws, trying to become a better person? People like you give real definition to the term "turn the other cheek" because it's close-minded people like you that constantly insult and harass "us." To think you're not trapped in your own reality would be self-denial on your part. You claim logic, but when has logic ever given validity to your claims? It's true science has made great attempts to explain our existence, but each theory only describes a process, not a beginning. Does that prove a god? No, but that doesn't prove there isn't a god. Eventually, whether you care to admit it or not, you're eventually going to have to make a leap of faith. You leapt for no god, that's fine. Enjoy your faith, but keep the Vulcan lines locked up.
One more matter, if you define superior intelligence and logic by your own set of beliefs, Tal, why do you wish death on somebody for believing in something different? Are you that much of an extremist? To me, if I were in your position, I would have thought learning to be the main goal in life. It's a contradictory way of thought.

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

How is it wrong to follow any faith or any god that lays down a set of moral laws, trying to become a better person?
One does not need to have faith in any deity to subscribe to a set of moral values. Look at the bible. There are many accounts of cruelty and immorality. Yet why is religion always touted as being THE MORALITY? Because of faith, which is baseless and pointless.

People like you give real definition to the term "turn the other cheek" because it's close-minded people like you that constantly insult and harass "us."
Are you that much of an extremist?

LOL. I'm merely making game of you because Armalite totally kicked your ass and you still argue with NO BASIS for logical argument to prove your side.

Don't go into a forum if you can't argue your position.


Eventually, whether you care to admit it or not, you're eventually going to have to make a leap of faith. You leapt for no god, that's fine. Enjoy your faith, but keep the Vulcan lines locked up.

You make me laugh.. I am open to the possibility (nomatter how absurd) but assert the negative for lack of proof. If "god" existed and was logically proven (which is impossible) then I'd hate the bastard with all that's left in me.:firedevil


The only reason I need to give why god doesn't exist is that "god" is NOT PROVEN.
God can never be proven because it is an inherently illogical concept.

(A point given, time and time again, which you intentionally overlook because of your faith)

Odin:But god isn't proven!?!
therefore...
HE EXISTS!!!!
:crazy:


You call that "learning"? ....ha.
You're pulling shit out of your ass.. Then eating it.:bigeyes:



Call me a bigot.. But you're being the idiot.

[odin_dax]

One does not need to have faith in any deity to subscribe to a set of moral values. Look at the bible. There are many accounts of cruelty and immorality. Yet why is religion always touted as being THE MORALITY? Because of faith, which is baseless and pointless.



LOL. I'm merely making game of you because Armalite totally kicked your ass and you still argue with NO BASIS for logical argument to prove your side.

Don't go into a forum if you can't argue your position.

You make me laugh.. I am open to the possibility (nomatter how absurd) but assert the negative for lack of proof. If "god" existed and was logically proven (which is impossible) then I'd hate the bastard with all that's left in me.:firedevil


The only reason I need to give why god doesn't exist is that "god" is NOT PROVEN.
God can never be proven because it is an inherently illogical concept.

(A point given, time and time again, which you intentionally overlook because of your faith)

Odin:But god isn't proven!?!
therefore...
HE EXISTS!!!!
:crazy:


You call that "learning"? ....ha.
You're pulling shit out of your ass.. Then eating it.:bigeyes:



Call me a bigot.. But you're being the idiot.

To Bigot
From Idiot

Well, like I said, logic isn't based on the agreement or disagreement of opinion, and I've also addressed the issue you're referring to with Armalite. I didn't make any claims, only responded to Fire's, and I did use logic, so it's hard to say my ass was kicked when I was merely participating in discussion. I read a few claims that I don't use logic, but I haven't seen any examples. Armalite hasn't given what I've asked, and you haven't given any. I guess it's easier to distract or try to negate an argument with ready-made lines, then move on like it was a game of capture the flag.
You'd be better off to summarize me by saying, "But God hasn't been disproven?!? Therefore... It's okay to believe in a deity." Which essentially states that I'm ignorant of God's existence, and I can't make an affirmative decision either way (there's reason for you). A point the anti-religious people have failed to grasp.
The rest has been addressed before, except for one remaining point. It keeps being said that believing in God is illogical, because the concept is illogical.
Well, let me say this... The Bible tells an account of history, that more or less aligns with historical records outside the Bible. The Dead Sea scrolls have a very close accuracy with the current Bible. Jesus only existed for 33 years, but His effects were far-reaching for His day. The Jews escaped Egypt, formed an empire, it was taken over by Babylon, then reclaimed. So what does the Bible say beyond history? Well, the creation story, similar to the Gilgamesh story, but also similar to ancient accounts worldwide of a flood. The dietary guidelines that nutritionists are beginning to agree with. The washing of the hands before microscopic organisms that caused contagious disease were discovered. References to the "behemoth," proving a spanning history of man's time (never supporting the 5,000 years guess). So, there are examples that have proven to be true, which supports the validity of the Bible as a whole. Are there examples of contradictory? Possibly, but a lot of the Bible had been misinterpreted to support the beliefs of the church during the Holy Roman Empire, and we're only now in the last 100 years examining a lot of claims in the Bible.
Back to the issue, God is illogical. In a world where everything has to proven scientifically, yes, God can't be proven. God can't be explained logically or reasonably, okay. I never disagreed with you, because God is an example of syllogism. God can't be tested scientifically, so your "logical" points are INVALID. The concept of a god will never bring happiness, make someone sad, or make somebody a martyr. Concepts can be molded and changed, but God is not a concept. To people that believe in Him, they [should] see Him as a person, someone to form a relationship with, a father figure or a friend. All this talk about God existing really comes down to personal choice. There's enough "evidence" that supports the Bible and enough to support the opposite, but there are also apparent gaps in both supporting arguments to doubt the claims, so the question is really circular, and the only way to come to a conclusion, as I've said, is to take a leap of faith. The only question remains, God as a person, do you want a relationship with Him? Each person's relationship is independent, not representative of the whole, and not necessarily Biblical (or by any other religion's laws). Why is wrong to believe in God then? I never could understand the logic behind "it's wrong" [to form a relationship with Him] because people are forming relationships all the time with consumer products, the latest trends, smoking, sex, gambling, TV, booze, parapsychology...

Now, if you don't see the logic and reasoning in that post, you only prove you don't understand either.

P.S. Nietzsche isn't always right. The goal of logic isn't to prove an argument, but claim a reasonable position. Make sense? If I could argue fire is cold, would I still be correct even though it's widely accepted otherwise? There answer is yes. BTW, fire can be argued to be cold.

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

Well, let me say this... The Bible tells an account of history, that more or less aligns with historical records outside the Bible. The Dead Sea scrolls have a very close accuracy with the current Bible. Jesus only existed for 33 years, but His effects were far-reaching for His day. The Jews escaped Egypt, formed an empire, it was taken over by Babylon, then reclaimed. So what does the Bible say beyond history? Well, the creation story, similar to the Gilgamesh story, but also similar to ancient accounts worldwide of a flood. The dietary guidelines that nutritionists are beginning to agree with. The washing of the hands before microscopic organisms that caused contagious disease were discovered. References to the "behemoth," proving a spanning history of man's time (never supporting the 5,000 years guess). So, there are examples that have proven to be true, which supports the validity of the Bible as a whole. Are there examples of contradictory? Possibly, but a lot of the Bible had been misinterpreted to support the beliefs of the church during the Holy Roman Empire, and we're only now in the last 100 years examining a lot of claims in the Bible.

Look, odin. Cut the babble. You tread on very uneven ground to be calling upon the bible for historical evidence when the bible itself is FULL of contradictions. Any prophesy, or any thing that is supposedly true that coincides with current observation is not proof of anything. If I say it'll rain tomorrow, and it does, does that make me an all-seeing prophet? And supposedly that these things you say ARE true, how does your bible explain for all the abominations -seraphim, nephilim, leviathans etc., "miracles" -raising of the dead, splitting of waters, curing the blind- HOW MANY THINGS LIKE THIS ARE ACTUALLY REALITY? None, because they simply don't exist.

Back to the issue, God is illogical. In a world where everything has to proven scientifically, yes, God can't be proven. God can't be explained logically or reasonably, okay. I never disagreed with you, because God is an example of syllogism. God can't be tested scientifically, so your "logical" points are INVALID.

God is illogical. Period. Why? Because the very concept of god is made to be unproveable. And then you tell me that my claims are invalid because of that very reason. Heck, I say the same thing to you but the difference is my claim is more reasonable for the sole reason that THERE IS NO PROOF.

Let me give an example.

God is the grown-up version of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. Yes, you heard me right. What would you think if i told you there was an invisible pink unicorn sitting in your living room? Don't give me any bullshit. We both know that that in itself is an absurd thing to propose, let alone believe. ...People who believe in god make their belief based on an unfounded claim, based on an archaic document full of contradictions, promising a heaven that never comes... They don't differ much from little children who believe everything they're told.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE TOOTH FAIRY DOESN'T EXIST?!?"
lol.

Not only that, but by the very definition we give "god" is contradictory. We call god good, the bible claims that god protects the innocent and righteous, but why do children die everyday? Why should God send people to Hell for making sins when in fact he made them capable of sin? The old testament says something along the lines of "if you insult your parents you should get your hand chopped off". Such a "god", even if existent, is undoubtedly very cruel. To believe such rubbish? Tsktsktsk....

The concept of a god will never bring happiness, make someone sad, or make somebody a martyr.

Faith is what blinds you to say something like that. I would have thought you knew better. You know what's so bad about religion? By claiming there?s an afterlife, men throughout history have gone into wars believing that they will be saved when they die, when in reality they simply cease to exist just like every other organism on this planet. A VERY convenient lie if you're a world leader. And the faithful such as yourself just don't know any better, so don't call these people "stupid". Hey, it's possible, you say. It's your own reasoning I use this time.

Don't go bullshitting me on the "existence of another life" because it is NOT proven.... How many times have you been to Heaven? Exactly. There is no basis for such a thing, thus we discard it. Burden of proof gets them bible bitches every time...

The only question remains, God as a person, do you want a relationship with Him? Each person's relationship is independent, not representative of the whole, and not necessarily Biblical (or by any other religion's laws). Why is wrong to believe in God then? I never could understand the logic behind "it's wrong" [to form a relationship with Him] because people are forming relationships all the time with consumer products, the latest trends, smoking, sex, gambling, TV, booze, parapsychology...

God is NOT a person, dumbass. God is a concept. An illogical concept. A concept, which poor, deluded people accept as reality for the mere absurdity that is existance. We'll never know if there IS a god... But if there is he's likely to be some great, flying, spaghetti creature, touching us all with his Noodly Appendage... LOL.

[odin_dax]

Stuff...

Well, I'm not going to argue over semantics and interpretation. I'm afraid we reached the point of "Let's agree to disagree."

[odin_dax]

God is NOT a person, dumbass. God is a concept. An illogical concept. A concept, which poor, deluded people accept as reality for the mere absurdity that is existance. We'll never know if there IS a god... But if there is he's likely to be some great, flying, spaghetti creature, touching us all with his Noodly Appendage... LOL.

I felt I needed to reply to this part.

God, if He exists, I'm sure you meant to say, isn't a person in the strictest sense of the word. The Bible teaches us that we are like God in many ways, made in His image. The Bible shows many examples of God's emotions and wants, many of which humans share. From a philosophical point of view, God is a person, but not a human.

And I'm not poor.

Oh, and the God of Judaism/Christianity/Islam isn't a spaghetti monster.

[Armalite]

Odin. You make no sense when you post. Your sentences are choppy and hard to understand. You misuse words regularly, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the concepts they represent. And you demonstrate that you know very litle of what is actually contained in the Bible and how it relates to contemporary writings and history. All very bad.


Now you mentioned something about how I didn't give you what you asked for....


What did you ask for? And how did I fail to deliver?

[odin_dax]

Odin. You make no sense when you post. Your sentences are choppy and hard to understand. You misuse words regularly, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the concepts they represent. And you demonstrate that you know very litle of what is actually contained in the Bible and how it relates to contemporary writings and history. All very bad.


Now you mentioned something about how I didn't give you what you asked for....


What did you ask for? And how did I fail to deliver?

You're entitled to your opinion. I'm certainly not going to argue over what you think I know.

In regards to my writing, I should take the time to edit my posts, but I just don't care, it's a bulletin board, not a classroom, and I don't believe they're at all hard to understand or choppy as you say. Yes, some sentences are complex, but not incorrect. As for words, I have no idea which ones you're referring to. Semantics? Syllogism?

The other thing, forget it. I don't have the want or need to continue that to which you ask. Oh, and watch your punctuation.

[Mr.V]

I think believing in yourself is enough. :)

[Nemesix]

well, of course everyone will have to decide this for themself, because there is no real evidence of the exhistance of a god, unless you believe as miracles or other miraculous things as part of god's work. But as to the question, i think that you have to look towards the things that seem to point to the exhistance of god such as the bible in order to tell for yourself. Do not listen to what others say. If parts of the bible are true, then isnt most of it true? There was a show on the story of noah for example.... there is evidence to suggest that many years ago there really was a flood on the global scale. But.. noah himself was most likely a merchant who traveled up and down the river. This would mean that he would be carrying exotic animals and food as well as wine. The more he could carry, the more profit he would make, so he would want to build a boat as large as possible, ie an arc. (i can go on and on with more about this, look up the tv show for yourself tho) This entire story seems to be pointing towards a non-literal interpretation of the bible, which almost deny's the exhistance of a god imo. Then again, it could be non-literal yet there can easily still be a god and it is just easier this way for us to gain morals and learn what the "right" way to live is. Something you may find interesting though is that there is also a global flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh which was made before the bible and has accounts of a global flood in it.... hmmmm bible getting all of its info from myths passed on from generation to generation?
Every culture has its own religion, so maby it is our fear of death and the beyond that drives us into believing in a god and some sort of happy afterlife. Maby there really is a god and this is all a test for us, who knows :P In my own personal beliefs tho, the universe must have been made some how, even if you believe in the "big bang" theory, then what created the big bang? so, i believe there is a god out there

hopefully you'll read this and not be completely confused, ty's make me happy (if this helped in any way) cause im new to this forum :)

[Armalite]

I'm not nitpicking at grammar and spelling, I'm pointing out a more profound lack of understanding of the meaning of words and the concepts they represent.

Also the fact that you don't seem to know what is actually contained in the Bible and how it relates to the real world. You go on about global floods and the history of the Jews and etc etc, but what you fail t realize is that large portions of that stuff is either blatantly false or flawed. The global flood for example. Absolutely no geological evidence. Period. An event of that scale would have caused enourmous effects on the earth, raning from the way the water cycle worked, the weather, geology, a profound change in the animals lived, plant life etc etc. So far no evidence for a flood has appeared in the study of any of these fields.

[odin_dax]

...

[odin_dax]

I'm not nitpicking at grammar and spelling, I'm pointing out a more profound lack of understanding of the meaning of words and the concepts they represent.

I understand that, but this is just another vague response, and not the only one from you on this thread, after being asked for specifics. Learning is a goal. If you'd like to help, I'll listen, but I can't learn if you don't tell me.

Also the fact that you don't seem to know what is actually contained in the Bible and how it relates to the real world. You go on about global floods and the history of the Jews and etc etc, but what you fail t realize is that large portions of that stuff is either blatantly false or flawed. The global flood for example. Absolutely no geological evidence. Period. An event of that scale would have caused enourmous effects on the earth, raning from the way the water cycle worked, the weather, geology, a profound change in the animals lived, plant life etc etc. So far no evidence for a flood has appeared in the study of any of these fields.

Wrong. Absolutely wrong, Armalite. There are over 80,000 references in 72 languages of a flood. Furthermore, nearly all native tribes around the world have some account of a flood. Archaeologists in Iraq have discovered a massive sediment layer, dated at a few thousand years. There's more circumstantial evidence, such as fossils at the bottom of lake beds, computer models, and genealogical evidence. I admit circumstantial, but the first two points are more than enough. You might like this link: "http://unmaskingevolution.com/18-flood.htm". Maybe the flood wasn't as drastic as history records or the Bible says, but it did occur. All I know is I wasn't alive when it did. but dinosaur bones were buried for millions of years before they were discovered, so I'll take my chances that the flood did happen.

For somebody who claims that another doesn't know much about the Bible, yet goes around saying most of it is false or flawed, loses most credibility on the subject. The Bible, as history, is very accurate. The Bible, as discussed in this thread, is becoming increasingly more supported by science. I don't need to go through it again, especially since you didn't address the points last time. Yes, I can go back and point things out in the Bible too, but those points are not representative of the whole. Though, I could do the same with the history of science up 'til a second ago.
I don't mind the difference in opinion, but please don't claim or allude to know more than you really do, especially when most, if not all, your responses on this subject are generally vague. I don't mean to be rude or brash, I like you, but I have to call you out on it here.

[Armalite]

Wrong. Absolutely wrong, Armalite. There are over 80,000 references in 72 languages of a flood. Furthermore, nearly all native tribes around the world have some account of a flood.

So what, nearly all cultures have sun myths and vampire legends. All this proves(if true) is that flood myths are yet another example of the many cultural phenomena that humans seem to have generated in response to their common conditions, emotions, etc.



Archaeologists in Iraq have discovered a massive sediment layer, dated at a few thousand years. There's more circumstantial evidence, such as fossils at the bottom of lake beds, computer models, and genealogical evidence. I admit circumstantial, but the first two points are more than enough. You might like this link: "http://unmaskingevolution.com/18-flood.htm". Maybe the flood wasn't as drastic as history records or the Bible says, but it did occur. All I know is I wasn't alive when it did. but dinosaur bones were buried for millions of years before they were discovered, so I'll take my chances that the flood did happen.

I'll take a look, but don't hold your breath. As I have said before, I really enjoying debating this stuff with apologists, and have gotten the point that I can spot the formulaic arguments before they begin. I have seen craploads of "scientific" evidence compiled by scholars that invariably turn out to either have no relevent credentials or phony ones.

For somebody who claims that another doesn't know much about the Bible, yet goes around saying most of it is false or flawed, loses most credibility on the subject. The Bible, as history, is very accurate. The Bible, as discussed in this thread, is becoming increasingly more supported by science. I don't need to go through it again, especially since you didn't address the points last time. Yes, I can go back and point things out in the Bible too, but those points are not representative of the whole. Though, I could do the same with the history of science up 'til a second ago.
I don't mind the difference in opinion, but please don't claim or allude to know more than you really do, especially when most, if not all, your responses on this subject are generally vague. I don't mean to be rude or brash, I like you, but I have to call you out on it here.

And here is some of the common arguments, blah blah, science supports the bible, blah blah. No it doesn't. And notice how the italicized portion also completely invalidates your argument about the general historicity of the Bible being a basis for credibility.


Edit:

Checked your site out. Hhahahahah. The guy quotes Morris, a known apologist/creationist qwuack with no credibility, or leaves his facts uncited altogether, most of the arguments are textbook circular reasoning, and plus, it's obviously taken from a pamphlet intended for propaganda purposes. Try harder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_M._Morris

[odin_dax]

So what, nearly all cultures have sun myths and vampire legends. All this proves(if true) is that flood myths are yet another example of the many cultural phenomena that humans seem to have generated in response to their common conditions, emotions, etc.

Fair enough statement. I can't debate it, but it doesn't prove or disprove the Biblical flood. Personally, I think the flood was localized. I remember watching a PBS special about scientists trying to explain the flood, if it happened. One interesting suggestion, the Black Sea used to be dry, and during the melting of the ice age, a blockage suddenly gave way and flooded the basin. That's all I remember about it.


I'll take a look, but don't hold your breath. As I have said before, I really enjoying debating this stuff with apologists, and have gotten the point that I can spot the formulaic arguments before they begin. I have seen craploads of "scientific" evidence compiled by scholars that invariably turn out to either have no relevent credentials or phony ones.


[QUOTE=Armalite;12402]
And here is some of the common arguments, blah blah, science supports the bible, blah blah. No it doesn't. And notice how the italicized portion also completely invalidates your argument about the general historicity of the Bible being a basis for credibility.

I guess you're arguing that science has proven certain facts and the Bible, upon reflection, can be adapted to say, "God told us before science" after the fact.


Edit:

Checked your site out. Hhahahahah. The guy quotes Morris, a known apologist/creationist qwuack with no credibility, or leaves his facts uncited altogether, most of the arguments are textbook circular reasoning, and plus, it's obviously taken from a pamphlet intended for propaganda purposes. Try harder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_M._Morris

Maybe I'll just try. Ha! Damn, I just dropped my broccoli.

[icharianchem]

hows about this

the cloud cover the earth now has + polar ice caps = accout of excess water displaced by flooding


previously those two did not exist
global food? possible

also while i understand your veiwpoint A i do not think you are being very objective

try to eliminate the word blah blah blah from your arguements and youll be more credible

[Armalite]

When did the Earth not have a water cycle? The plants would have all died! Rain would have been impossible prior to that.

When did Earth not have polar ice caps? Certainly before humans ever arose. By far.

Try to eliminate the word "youll" and insert punctuation and you'll have more credibility.

[icharianchem]

water from the ground is an impossible idea?
as in maybe the water rose from the ground spring style.

and the ice caps were a hypothetical. there is really no way to date ice

[icharianchem]

this i s perfect example of what im saying
you take the scientific approach simply because you dont want to have to deal with the raminfications of God or a"god" ect.

my propasiton was and is perfectly plausible
in you're myopic strangle hold on science you refused to think about it in any depth

:hitwithro

[Armalite]

So my viewpoint that creationist attempts to prove the validity of the bible lack scientific merit is solely based on my deep seated need to avoid thinking about god? That is the most condescending crap I have ever heard. Sad thing is you YEC types say it all the time. I think maybe it's the other way around, but with a twist. You take the faith based approach because you don't like to think about the ramifications of why you can't understand simple scientific concepts, like ice core dating methods.

Btw, ground water is still part of the water cycle. So where did the water come from? And where did it go?

[icharianchem]

well thats the nice thing about being at least vaugely spiritual
if im wrong and you are right i go to a hole in the ground where as if it happens the other way around.....


and you are kinda of negligent i answered where the water went
ice caps/cloud canopy

as for where it came from (if you had done the slightest bit of research) the common consensu (in ledgend) is it came from the "rifts torn in the ocean unleashing new springs"

oh and i am far from the standard Christian type

Christian spiritualist at best

[headcase]

Well then Pascal's Wager (which is a circular arguement anyway) doesn't work for you either, does it?

[Armalite]

Props to head for pointing out the throbbing huge Pascal's wager.

and you are kinda of negligent i answered where the water went
ice caps/cloud canopy

Do you realize the volume of water it would take to cover the entire Earth? And having no ice caps would only be possible with elevated temperatures, which would also leave traceable evidence. And to top it off the lack of cloud cover would mean no weather...no water cycle...no life as we know it. Definitely something that would leave a noticeable effect.


as for where it came from (if you had done the slightest bit of research) the common consensu (in ledgend) is it came from the "rifts torn in the ocean unleashing new springs"

You deride me for failing to research the common consensu (in ledgend)? Do you not see how this is ridiculous?

As for the idea, again, such an event is not quite inline with what we know of the Earth's history. Or even what we know about it's present.

oh and i am far from the standard Christian type

Christian spiritualist at best

You all say this. Of course to you it seems that you break from the unfashionable norm in Christianity, but to the non-religious, you all look the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVuw1wEuaAQ&mode=related&search=

[icharianchem]

so far you havreve countered (with varying degrees of success) all of my arguements but you fail to provide any sort of believable reason why say.... there are over 37000 accounts of a flood in so many differnet cultures ect.

[headcase]

I don't deny the existence of floods...


Flood (http://www.nidm.net/images/flood6.jpg); therefore God exists? No.

[odin_dax]

I don't deny the existence of floods...


Flood (http://www.nidm.net/images/flood6.jpg); therefore God exists? No.

Exactly. Did the flood of the Bible happen though? Is it a record of history? What was the exact magnitude? Did "world" mean the writer's society? Should it read, (paraphrase) "It rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and the waters covered all of Mesopotamia"? etc. etc. etc.

The discussion here seems to be that the flood of the Bible either happened or did not, but you're right in saying, clearly, whether or not that flood did happen, it doesn't prove (or disprove) God exists. I do believe somebody else mentioned that. Good call, headcase.

[icharianchem]

yeah sorry for the abiguity there
kinda mixing and matching aguements arent i?
thanx odin dax

[Armalite]

so far you havreve countered (with varying degrees of success) all of my arguements but you fail to provide any sort of believable reason why say.... there are over 37000 accounts of a flood in so many differnet cultures ect.

I have indeed proposed a solution that is much superior, according to Occam's Razor.

People have stories about many things, from vampires to talking animals to unicorns. Many cultures arrive at similar mythologies and folktales completely independent of each other. People often create such stories to explain or express some part of the human condition or nature. Maybe the flood is symbolic. This is an infinitely simpler and more plausible explanation.

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

Exactly. Did the flood of the Bible happen though? Is it a record of history? What was the exact magnitude? Did "world" mean the writer's society? Should it read, (paraphrase) "It rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and the waters covered all of Mesopotamia"? etc. etc. etc.

The discussion here seems to be that the flood of the Bible either happened or did not, but you're right in saying, clearly, whether or not that flood did happen, it doesn't prove (or disprove) God exists. I do believe somebody else mentioned that. Good call, headcase.

Indeed.
Floods or no floods..

We're going off topic.

...Any other argument for the existence of god?
I'm sure Armalite, myself, or any other person would be happy to eviscerate your arguments...:tongue1:






---
p.s. icharianchem...
you suck. reading your posts makes me want to puke.....
learn to use grammar and punctuation in your posts.
RORTA would appreciate it.

[icharianchem]

I have indeed proposed a solution that is much superior, according to Occam's Razor.

People have stories about many things, from vampires to talking animals to unicorns. Many cultures arrive at similar mythologies and folktales completely independent of each other. People often create such stories to explain or express some part of the human condition or nature. Maybe the flood is symbolic. This is an infinitely simpler and more plausible explanation.

for every complex and difficult question there is and answer that is lucid simple...and wrong.


it would have to be quite a story for all these people to have it.
Stories of vapirism sprung from of documented events or the areas madman and spread,talking animals are oft symbolic and (I sincely doubt) rarely taken to be serious.

This is very vague and not very satisfying.
try again

[headcase]

Your putting the burden of proof (on an as yet unspecified arguement?) on the wrong person there, ich. Right now you're saying that because there are a number of documented floods, God exists, and the burden of proof is on Armalite or Heavy. As an unbias intermediary I can say that the reverse is true. As I stated, no one is argueing the existence of floods. We're arguing the factual nature of the Bible and the resulting existence of God. It's reference to floods is no more decisive than it's reference to wind or the sky. In fact, "very vague and not very satisfying - try again" was unfortunate choice of words, given the position of your arguement. "The post calling the (clean) kettle black", springs to mind.

[icharianchem]

simplified:
the odds are incredible for such avariety of people all over the world to have virtually the same story without the root cause having been the same are fantastic to the point of being ludicrous, therefore some sort of global flooding must have occured at some stage to an incredible large portion of civilization.


im not argueing the existance of God or a god. that would be silly. I cant prove that anymore than anyone can prove the big bang(which violates soo many laws of physics btw[creation ex nihlio??]). there is a matter of faith involved and i can understand and respect other peoples veiws on that

[headcase]

It does have the same root; that of there being a flood. Floods happen every year all over the world. Hence, you should expect a lot of isolated cultures to have a story of it. To jump to the conclusion that there must therefore have been a global flood is poor logic.

[icharianchem]

but stories of a global flood?

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

but stories of a global flood?

What global flood? What evidence do you have at the moment that these stories are actually true stories of a global flood, rather than rather geocentric cultural myths created in reference to a "great flood", which happened each culture's specific location?


Think about it.


It is a common thing for cultures to assert in their stories and myths that the "world" mostly comprises of a specific region.. Their locality.

You cannot make a valid inference stating that because of multiple "flood" stories, that there actually was a global flood. That is poor logic.

You tread on very weak ground with little to no evidence.

[odin_dax]

What global flood? What evidence do you have at the moment that these stories are actually true stories of a global flood, rather than rather geocentric cultural myths created in reference to a "great flood", which happened each culture's specific location?


Think about it.


It is a common thing for cultures to assert in their stories and myths that the "world" mostly comprises of a specific region.. Their locality.

You cannot make a valid inference stating that because of multiple "flood" stories, that there actually was a global flood. That is poor logic.

You tread on very weak ground with little to no evidence.

What if all the local floods took place at the same time? :wiggle:

Edit: I found this site: http://www.noahs-ark-flood.com/faq.htm It looks very interesting. It confirms the "no global flood" bias, and raises some other questions. Some of it I've never heard before, so I'd have to confirm it in research (but I hope everybody does that with anything). At least I have Noah's real age!

[Armalite]

If they all happened at once, you have the same water problem.

Checked the site. Sounds plausible. I have heard quite a bit about how the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Noah story are similar. Penn and Teller agree too.

But that doesn't give the bible any strength.

[Monoxide Child]

no i dont.

i worship Mother Earth

[odin_dax]

If they all happened at once, you have the same water problem.

Checked the site. Sounds plausible. I have heard quite a bit about how the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Noah story are similar. Penn and Teller agree too.

But that doesn't give the bible any strength.

No, the Bible doesn't stand on the flood account. To me, the beginning of Genesis doesn't mean a hill of beans. Sure, it's an account (often poorly translated; thus, changing meaning), but I take the Bible as a teacher of wisdom in everyday life .

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

No, the Bible doesn't stand on the flood account. To me, the beginning of Genesis doesn't mean a hill of beans. Sure, it's an account (often poorly translated; thus, changing meaning), but I take the Bible as a teacher of wisdom in everyday life .

I remember in theology class (the study of christian dogma is necessary in my university..) how the "church" says that the bible is "the work of god in the work of men" and how it is supposedly "guided by the spirit"...

But I agree with Armalite. The Bible is crap.

If it was the "work of god", then why is it full of contradictions, cruelties and contextual inconsistencies? The human factor? Surely "god" would want to keep his "work" undefiled for future generations?

What is the reason behind this? Those that are rational admit they don't know. To them it makes no sense..

But the teacher comes up with an ambiguous answer like "god works in mysterious ways..."

Completely missing the point.

If you ask me, it's all just "too fishy" to swallow.


-----
Teacher of wisdom? How so?
<sarcasm>
Ahhh... Yes... If a "great flood" comes along and envelops the earth, you know to build a boat.

I am moved by that wisdom.. </sarcasm>

[Armalite]

The bible derives no strength from the mention of a historical flood. Even if it were an accurate account, of which there is no way to tell as it differs greatly on many points from other accounts of the same event, it would still gain no credibility.

And neither does any of this prove the concept of god false.

[odin_dax]

I remember in theology class (the study of christian dogma is necessary in my university..) how the "church" says that the bible is "the work of god in the work of men" and how it is supposedly "guided by the spirit"...

But I agree with Armalite. The Bible is crap.

If it was the "work of god", then why is it full of contradictions, cruelties and contextual inconsistencies? The human factor? Surely "god" would want to keep his "work" undefiled for future generations?

What is the reason behind this? Those that are rational admit they don't know. To them it makes no sense..

But the teacher comes up with an ambiguous answer like "god works in mysterious ways..."

Completely missing the point.

If you ask me, it's all just "too fishy" to swallow.


-----
Teacher of wisdom? How so?

Ahhh... Yes... If a "great flood" comes along and envelops the earth, you know to build a boat.

I am moved by that wisdom.

Well, some of these points we've briefly touched on already, but I agree with you about the ambiguity. I don't think "It's God's will" or "He works in mysterious ways" is an answer for anything. It's a total bullshit cop-out.
Surprisingly, I found I'm liberal when it comes to the Bible and its interpretations. One of my friends is very conservative religiously. See, he interprets things differently and thinks he's right all the time. Even when I have a good argument, he might concede at that time, then goes back to his original position later. He tries to reconcile other "teachers" with what he was originally taught. That original teaching is bedrock to him. I can't discuss anything with him on the subject. I have an easier time talking with you and Armalite (and that's a compliment).
Anyway, he tries to talk about freewill being an illusion. "If God knows everything is going to happen since the beginning of time, is it still free will?" His answer is "no." I disagree of course. Even if God knows everything before time, He still makes the choice to act or not act. If He doesn't act, then we act according to our environment, personality, etc. I agree with Darwin when he wrote after his daughter's death that he couldn't reconcile that event with any all-loving god.
I guess I'm preaching to the choir...

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

Anyway, he tries to talk about freewill being an illusion. "If God knows everything is going to happen since the beginning of time, is it still free will?" His answer is "no." I disagree of course. Even if God knows everything before time, He still makes the choice to act or not act. If He doesn't act, then we act according to our environment, personality, etc. I agree with Darwin when he wrote after his daughter's death that he couldn't reconcile that event with any all-loving god.
I guess I'm preaching to the choir...

It can't be freewill. If "god" already knows everything to the end of time, that means everything has already been predetermined. How can god know the future if he doesn't know the sequence that leads to such a future? Surely a god who "knows everything" would know himself enough to know what choices he will make? And the people's choices?

And if you say that god doesn't know what "choices" people will make, but merely waits for the events to unfold, that proves he doesn't know everything, thus contradicting the concept of god being "all knowing".

The concept of god is self-contradicting and illogical. I don't mean to be offensive.

Sorry odin, but your choir is full of atheists.

[odin_dax]

It can't be freewill. If "god" already knows everything to the end of time, that means everything has already been predetermined. How can god know the future if he doesn't know the sequence that leads to such a future? Surely a god who "knows everything" would know himself enough to know what choices he will make? And the people's choices?

And if you say that god doesn't know what "choices" people will make, but merely waits for the events to unfold, that proves he doesn't know everything, thus contradicting the concept of god being "all knowing".

The concept of god is self-contradicting and illogical. I don't mean to be offensive.

Sorry odin, but your choir is full of atheists.

Well, he would agree with you. He knows everything, so all is not freewill. I take it differently, and I don't see a contradiction....

Say God exists. God knows everything. From His perspective, everything is predetermined. He knows that life on earth is "but a mist of time." Whether somebody suffers or lives painlessly, all move on to an afterlife void of physical pain. Sure, I get that.
I believe in freewill. I can't see any god allowing for some of the evils that happen to other. It's freewill from our perspective. Why is not freewill for us to make choices even though God knows what's going to happen? How is that a contradiction? I don't see it. Like playing poker, the order of the cards is set, but we still choose to "hit" or "stand." If God chooses not to act, that is freewill. I can watch an ant farm, know what will eventually happen, but the ants still work anyway. Why?
Again, freewill is action and choice. Somebody else knowing, God knowing, without interference or "hints" is freewill without contradiction. That's the way I see things.

[headcase]

On the issue of free-will, I don't find it to be in conflict with determinism. It's still your choice and you can choose which ever way you like, but your still going to do whatever your going to do.

That might have some relation to my theory that time is cyclical (which I posted here somewhere) and we're replaying the same reality over and over agbain (but always for the first time too). Even though we've al been here before and already made all our decisions, it's still the first time we've done it (because at the universal singularity time doesn't exist and hence never has).

[odin_dax]

On the issue of free-will, I don't find it to be in conflict with determinism. It's still your choice and you can choose which ever way you like, but your still going to do whatever your going to do.

That might have some relation to my theory that time is cyclical (which I posted here somewhere) and we're replaying the same reality over and over agbain (but always for the first time too). Even though we've al been here before and already made all our decisions, it's still the first time we've done it (because at the universal singularity time doesn't exist and hence never has).

Totally agree.

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

FREEWILL?

If God is omniscient, and being our "creator", that means that indeed, everything we do is part of god's "plan". God is "perfect", thus his "plans" can't mess up. We are MADE to do whatever we are going to do. What if we change our minds on what we do? Does this mean we catch god off guard?

If so, then he is not omniscient. If not, this proves that we indeed cannot contradict god's plan. Can that truly be free will? If invariably, you will do what you will do?

That idea of free will is no different from the free will of a stringed puppet.

I had no idea stringed puppets had freewill.

PRAYER IS POINTLESS- EVEN FOR CHRISTIANS

If god is omniscient, then all of our actions are set in stone. Any change in plan would be a crack in god's plan. Any requests made to such god would depend if it were already aligned said god's plan or not. In fact, you can never make a request that god has not anticipated from the beginning of time, with an already pre-determined outcome.
(It's beginning to sound grim, eh?)
The very action of you praying was never your choice from the beginning, since it was planned by him.

In such a view of reality, why bother? You will if he wants you to, if you don?t it was his will.

Prayer is pointless.

GOD, PLEASE SAVE ME

Extrapolated your final destiny, the salvation of your very soul is predetermined.
You have a reserved seat in either heaven or hell, and logically nothing can be done to change that.
Your salvation or punishment has been known and predetermined from the start. How could it be otherwise?
If you can change your final destination, then God cannot possibly be omniscient!

...Pretty depressing, huh?:sad2:

[headcase]

That doesn't make any sense. Even less sense than my post (which, even upon confusing myself, I still believe not to ba a paradox).

Supposing for a second that there is a god (you should try to argue from the other side every now and again - it's a great exercise. Plus, you're very close-minded); does his knowledge affect your decisions? Save the obvious (and unfortunate) exceptions of doing things for religious reasons. Look at it from an athiest's point of view in a scenario where there is a god. Every decision is your own. Whether or not God was previously aware of it is irrelevant. The "lack of free will" suggests that it was not your decision to make. Just because people have divided the arguement into two camps doesn't man you have to choose one or the other.

[Armalite]

The actual question here that all of our arguments hinge upon is whether cause invariably leads to effect. If under one set of rules(a specific situation, plus all previously learned behaviours and experience) a person will react the same way. If we took the same person with the exact same past and the exact same attitudes and thoughts up to the point in time we are examining, and placed him in the exact same situation in two simultaneous "alternate realities," will he do the exact same thing in both of them? If the answer is yes, then we are a product of our past and our environment, and we cannot possibly deviate from the preset course of things. If the answer is no, then any myriad amount of possibilities can unfold, and our actions cannot be predicted or understood.

In either case, we see difficulties for god. If our course is set, then logically even god cannot alter it. If our actions are unknowable, then even god cannot know.

This is just further illustration how the common conception of an omnipotent, omniscient god is incoherent.

[headcase]

Coming from a weak athiest, I don't believe it is.

Looking at it from both sides (and presuming there is a god, and he's the Christian man in the sky, which I'm kind of bored of discussing but maybe we can bring it to a close sometime soon. Anyway, this bracket is dragging on a bit...);

If our course is set, what's to stop God altering it? Presuming he's omniscient and omnipotent, nothing, surely? In fact, if he's omniscient, he'll have set out the path in the first place. God transcends time so really, everything just "is" for him.

If we have free will, as I stated, whats to stop God knowing what we're going to choose? It's our decision. We're not being influenced or forced. We have free will, but if God transcends time, of course he knows what we're going to choose.

Finally, given we're rooted into the factual discrepancies of the bible, I guess I should give my opinion on the point of it all (according to the bible). The whole "Heaven and Hell" thing. Not the book. We live our lives according to our own decisions and at the end of it all, we meet the man in the sky, who tolls up our good versus our evil and decides whether we get into the members area or not. Without free will, whats the point? But then again, if god's omniscient whats the point? Because if I was condemned to hell because God "simply knew" I wouldn't lead a good life, I'd feel fairly cheated.


This is my first time arguing for the bible so I expect some holes in the arguement, but I think the premise is fairly firm.

[icharianchem]

maybe (note: posed as a hypothetical) maybe God is simply aware af the varaibles that we would encounter and based on that would be able to accuratly understand the reactions that we would set out. I think Gods will is simply the course for our lives that would cause us the least amount of pain as promoted by a list of suggestions that helps avoid sticky situations(..everything is permissable, not everything is beneficial..)

also worth noting God (the Christian version of God anyways) doesnt tally your wrongs vs. rights. Its the whole believes in Jesus accepts his sacrifice thing and Jessu said who is a true follower, he that does the will of my father(circular argument but God gave us a decent idea what he wants)

w/e

[Armalite]

If god knows the outcome, and then changes it, his original appraisal is now inaccurate, thus god is no longer omniscient.

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

Supposing for a second that there is a god (you should try to argue from the other side every now and again - it's a great exercise. Plus, you're very close-minded); does his knowledge affect your decisions? Save the obvious (and unfortunate) exceptions of doing things for religious reasons. Look at it from an athiest's point of view in a scenario where there is a god. Every decision is your own. Whether or not God was previously aware of it is irrelevant. The "lack of free will" suggests that it was not your decision to make. Just because people have divided the arguement into two camps doesn't man you have to choose one or the other.

Oh, please now headcase... It's all in the spirit of good debate. I just put in the shocking subtitles just for fun.

And you didn't get my point. I apologize if my post was not clear enough. Perhaps it didn't get my point across. Let me try again. Without the zany subtitles.:wiggle:

---

The point is that God, being our creator, has a "perfect", unalterable plan for every individual
being the "perfect" god.

Being that this god created the world with certain circumstances (meaning that the world was created the way it is,) everything would already be laid out to happen.

Does it follow that people can choose and deviate from god's plan even if the world is set in such a way where everything is already set up and their actions already predetermined by god?

If it does, god himself cannot predict the future given that people can deviate from his perfect plan. Thus he is not omniscient, contradicting his own definition. God is incoherent.

If not, it means to say that God cannot change his plan. (which means to say that salvation, prayer, and all forms of religious solicitation are just meaningless things, predetermined by god himself).

But let us take note that most sects of Christianity preach that "humans have freewill" and can "work for salvation", even though the above completely destroys such a view.

God and freewill do not go hand in hand.

[odin_dax]

Oh, please now headcase... It's all in the spirit of good debate. I just put in the shocking subtitles just for fun.

And you didn't get my point. I apologize if my post was not clear enough. Perhaps it didn't get my point across. Let me try again. Without the zany subtitles.:wiggle:

---

The point is that God, being our creator, has a "perfect", unalterable plan for every individual
being the "perfect" god.

Being that this god created the world with certain circumstances (meaning that the world was created the way it is,) everything would already be laid out to happen.

Does it follow that people can choose and deviate from god's plan even if the world is set in such a way where everything is already set up and their actions already predetermined by god?

If it does, god himself cannot predict the future given that people can deviate from his perfect plan. Thus he is not omniscient, contradicting his own definition. God is incoherent.

If not, it means to say that God cannot change his plan. (which means to say that salvation, prayer, and all forms of religious solicitation are just meaningless things, predetermined by god himself).

But let us take note that most sects of Christianity preach that "humans have freewill" and can "work for salvation", even though the above completely destroys such a view.

God and freewill do not go hand in hand.

Ah, it's predestination and freewill that do not go in hand, but then they do. God sets a clock to run. He knows it's going to tick. So does He not make the clock because he knows it'll tick? To touch more on point, is it pointless to make the clock? Is it fair to never create something if you were god?

God and freewill works. God and predestination works. Predestination and freewill work together, in a way. Depends upon whose perspective.

Good works... A man decides to do nothing, to become selfish. God knows this, but the man doesn't. God knows the man is going to Hell, but the man doesn't. If God never created the man, the man's influence would never been felt. To God, it's not determined, only that God knows what's going to happen. Make sense? God didn't make the man to burn in Hell for selfishness, but because God obviously exists outside time, He knows what's going to happen. There's a difference between making something happen and knowing something will happen. To the man, he doesn't know the difference. To the man, he's making a choice to not act. Thus, we get freewill.

Hand in hand.

[headcase]

The point is that God, being our creator, has a "perfect", unalterable plan for every individual
being the "perfect" god.

But the whole point of the exersice is to get the little humans earn their way into heaven and hell. Assigning them a plan nullifies that, it makes no sense.

Being that this god created the world with certain circumstances (meaning that the world was created the way it is,) everything would already be laid out to happen.

In the physical universe, to an extent, yes. That is, until we alter the physical universe. It's probably better to assume the God unleashed the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics and let the universe run away by itselt according to it's own laws (with us along for the ride). Not so Deist that he's done with us, but not theist enough for the universe to work by magic.

Does it follow that people can choose and deviate from god's plan even if the world is set in such a way where everything is already set up and their actions already predetermined by god?

I don't believe their actions are predetermined. In that case, it's not their actions at all and the very premise of free will (and determinism) collapse. This is almost certainly not the case.

If it does, god himself cannot predict the future given that people can deviate from his perfect plan. Thus he is not omniscient, contradicting his own definition. God is incoherent.

God isn't an idiot. He doesn't have a perfect plan where every one of your thoughts and actions are preprogrammed. He created the universe and our free-willed selves in it to go about our lives making our own decisions. God is simply aware of that wer're going to choose. He is, after all, am omniscient being.

If not, it means to say that God cannot change his plan. (which means to say that salvation, prayer, and all forms of religious solicitation are just meaningless things, predetermined by god himself).

And what's to say this? I'm sure God is perfectly capable or altering his system how so ever he likes. He just doesn't. Ever see that episode of South Park?

But let us take note that most sects of Christianity preach that "humans have freewill" and can "work for salvation", even though the above completely destroys such a view.

The above disagrees further.

God and freewill do not go hand in hand.

To those who deny one, the other is closed to them.


Quick analogy; none of the above provies an arguement for God's existence. I only seek to demonstrate that this particular logical paradow, well, isn't.

[Armalite]

I don't see how you have demonstrated that freewill is compatible with an omniscient god.

If god lays out the universe according to rules, then from the very instant of creation a butterfly effect is set in motion. An inexorable chain of cause and effect leading up to and shaping every moment of every molecule's existence. That selfish man is selfish because god created a proton instead of a boson 10000000000000000000 years ago. An omniscient god would have to be aware of this beforehand, and therefore responsible for every bit of it.

So is god incapable of knowing this? Or is he incapable of changing it? You get to pick one. Or perhaps he doesn't care to change it.

[icharianchem]

i think we are having trouble seperating the idea of knowing everything from controlling everything. just cuz i know someone will do dumb stuff doesnt make me responsible for there actions. the reason god lets all this terrible stuff happen is simply because he allows the full repercussions of our actions to enact upon us as well as other peoples actions (effects into our lives that we cant control i.e. starving kids in Darfur)

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

And what's to say this? I'm sure God is perfectly capable or altering his system how so ever he likes. He just doesn't. Ever see that episode of South Park?

God can not change this universe.

If he did, his original plan of creation would be faulty. Being omniscient, he would not need to "alter his system". His plan is "perfect".

If god did, that would prove his first plan of creation is faulty, thus proving said god is not omniscient.

Therefore, he cannot alter his plan, which proves that god also cannot be omnipotent.

God is incoherent either way.

And if he does not care to change it, prayer (a fundamental teaching of religion) is pointless.

---

God created the universe in such a manner that you would come about, with all your attributes conceived beforehand, just like everyone else. Everything comes about only by god's will. God makes no mistakes, so they say. God had already conceived you in his mind long before you existed. If you become "evil" and get thrown into hell, you can only conclude that it's god's fault. You cannot blame external factors, such as people, for influencing you. God already knew that such things would happen. It's all in the grand scheme.

This is a controlled setup. No deviation is possible.

Some people are just destined to go to hell.

You can toss freewill out the window.

[odin_dax]

i think we are having trouble seperating the idea of knowing everything from controlling everything.

Which is what the freewill people have been saying all along! ;-)

[odin_dax]

I don't see how you have demonstrated that freewill is compatible with an omniscient god.

If god lays out the universe according to rules, then from the very instant of creation a butterfly effect is set in motion. An inexorable chain of cause and effect leading up to and shaping every moment of every molecule's existence. That selfish man is selfish because god created a proton instead of a boson 10000000000000000000 years ago. An omniscient god would have to be aware of this beforehand, and therefore responsible for every bit of it.

So is god incapable of knowing this? Or is he incapable of changing it? You get to pick one. Or perhaps he doesn't care to change it.

You're under the belief that God made the selfish man, not that the man became selfish on his own.

[odin_dax]

God can not change this universe.

If he did, his original plan of creation would be faulty. Being omniscient, he would not need to "alter his system". His plan is "perfect".

What are we talking about? No talk of God changing the universe has been brought up.


If god did, that would prove his first plan of creation is faulty, thus proving said god is not omniscient.

Not necessarily. If God sets everything in motion that works perfectly to a point, because of the laws of chaos and freewill, God can "change" His "plan" at that point so everything works perfectly afterwards. An all knowing God who creates chaos/freewill will know when to fix it. ;-) Besides, the troubles of man are like the microbes living in the dirt under one blade of grass in a lawn the size of the Pacific ocean.[/QUOTE]

Therefore, he cannot alter his plan, which proves that god also cannot be omnipotent.

You're pretty much saying God has to do something, which doesn't make logical sense. God chooses to do something or not do something.

God is incoherent either way.

Leave to us to think we can understand all of what God is by our limited, linear thinking and self-structured logical reasoning.

---

God created the universe in such a manner that you would come about, with all your attributes conceived beforehand, just like everyone else. Everything comes about only by god's will. God makes no mistakes, so they say. God had already conceived you in his mind long before you existed. If you become "evil" and get thrown into hell, you can only conclude that it's god's fault. You cannot blame external factors, such as people, for influencing you. God already knew that such things would happen. It's all in the grand scheme.

This is a controlled setup. No deviation is possible.

Some people are just destined to go to hell.

You can toss freewill out the window.

That doesn't make sense either. God creating somebody knowing they'll eventually burn in Hell is not to say God controls freewill. It isn't to say we don't have a choice or that the system is controlled, only that God knows what's going to happen. The importance of freewill is genuine love for God. The faulty logic you're stuck on makes 1000x more sense than God creating people to burn in Hell by predestination.

What's so hard to understand about these concepts?

[Armalite]

In fact foreknowledge combined with opportunity to act IS control. If god is omniscient, then he must fully understand every minute implication of every action. A butterfly flaps its wings in China and in New York you have rain instead of sunshine. Everything is interconnected by an insanely complex system of cause and effect. It is impossible for god not to be responsible for the selfish man and still retain his claim of omnipotence. Some action, or inaction, of which god was aware caused a huge chain of events that eventually led to the man becoming selfish.

[Heavy_'TalMeMan]

What are we talking about? No talk of God changing the universe has been brought up.
And what's to say this? I'm sure God is perfectly capable or altering his system how so ever he likes. He just doesn't. Ever see that episode of South Park?
Your "god" gave you eyes. Perhaps you should use them more.

Not necessarily. If God sets everything in motion that works perfectly to a point, because of the laws of chaos and freewill, God can "change" His "plan" at that point so everything works perfectly afterwards. An all knowing God who creates chaos/freewill will know when to fix it. ;-) Besides, the troubles of man are like the microbes living in the dirt under one blade of grass in a lawn the size of the Pacific ocean.
There is no such thing as chaos to an omniscient god. An already perfect system does not need to be changed. It needs no "fixing". The meager existence of man in the universe has no relevance in this discussion unless you mean to posit that god does not care about man. Once again you make no sense.
You're pretty much saying God has to do something, which doesn't make logical sense. God chooses to do something or not do something.

No. What does not make logical sense is the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient deity. There are no "second strokes" for an omnipotent, omniscient deity. God cannot alter his "perfect" system because if he did, it would only prove a flaw in the original, which would mean that god cannot be omniscient. And if god cannot choose to alter his already perfect system, it would mean to say that god can not be omnipotent.

Leave to us to think we can understand all of what God is by our limited, linear thinking and self-structured logical reasoning.
What do you mean?

Do not tell me that god cannot be comprehended by logic. Don't give me that god is mysterious garbage that you ardently claim to be bullshit.

If you posit that man cannot comprehend god, you mean to say that the concept of god is indeed incoherent. Either god can or cannot logically exist. From a rational point of view, an incoherent concept such as god cannot be said to logically exist due to its contradictory nature.


---


That doesn't make sense either. God creating somebody knowing they'll eventually burn in Hell is not to say God controls freewill. It isn't to say we don't have a choice or that the system is controlled, only that God knows what's going to happen. The importance of freewill is genuine love for God. The faulty logic you're stuck on makes 1000x more sense than God creating people to burn in Hell by predestination.

What's so hard to understand about these concepts?

You are the who who fails to understand.

Omniscience plus omnipotence in a creator deity equals said deity's ultimate responsibility for all creation. Creating creatures in an environment where it is already forseen that some will become evil, then throwing these into hell, makes no sense. You fail to question why in the first place god does these things. God performs an experiment on our existence, but already knows all answers to said experiment. This is pointless. God does not make sense.

And you call the law of cause and effect faulty logic? If so, then practically any faulty logic should make sense for you. "1000x more sense", I dare say.

[headcase]

I don't see how you have demonstrated that freewill is compatible with an omniscient god.

If god lays out the universe according to rules, then from the very instant of creation a butterfly effect is set in motion. An inexorable chain of cause and effect leading up to and shaping every moment of every molecule's existence. That selfish man is selfish because god created a proton instead of a boson 10000000000000000000 years ago. An omniscient god would have to be aware of this beforehand, and therefore responsible for every bit of it.

So is god incapable of knowing this? Or is he incapable of changing it? You get to pick one. Or perhaps he doesn't care to change it.

I don't see how you've demonstrated it isn't.

The question here seems to be about the value of consciousness more than amything else. You take the materialist view that it is an almost inaminate process. I disagree. We all experience consciousness and have the free will to do as we please. Even if God did create said boson and is completely aware of everything, it doesn't take from the fact. It's an arguement about free will, not the right to privacy in our own minds. icharianchem seems to be the only one who understands what I'm saying;

i think we are having trouble seperating the idea of knowing everything from controlling everything.

Moving right along;

God can not change this universe.

If he did, his original plan of creation would be faulty. Being omniscient, he would not need to "alter his system". His plan is "perfect".

If god did, that would prove his first plan of creation is faulty, thus proving said god is not omniscient.

Therefore, he cannot alter his plan, which proves that god also cannot be omnipotent.

God is incoherent either way.

And if he does not care to change it, prayer (a fundamental teaching of religion) is pointless.

This arguement lacks any real logical progression. If God is onipotent, he can change the universe. If it's perfect, he doesn't have to. If your arguement can be refuted in two lines then you haven't thought about it hard enough.

Prayer asking for something might hence be pointless, but most prayer is just appraisal. It's also argueable whether God can't answer requests (they might have been part of his original "perfect" plan, but your arguement against it is reasonable so I'm willing to concede. If the subject of your arguement is imniscient and omnipotent you should avoid ambiguities.

God created the universe in such a manner that you would come about, with all your attributes conceived beforehand, just like everyone else. Everything comes about only by god's will. God makes no mistakes, so they say. God had already conceived you in his mind long before you existed. If you become "evil" and get thrown into hell, you can only conclude that it's god's fault. You cannot blame external factors, such as people, for influencing you. God already knew that such things would happen. It's all in the grand scheme.

This is a controlled setup. No deviation is possible.

Some people are just destined to go to hell.

You can toss freewill out the window.

Two points to consider here, and they're both pretty similar. It's the nature of consciousness (again) and the nature of free will, specifically icharianchem's quote above.

To quote Wikipedia;

The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions.

You're arguing that because God is omniscient, we lack free will. I'm arguing that this isn't a logical progression because God's knowledge has no input on out actions. We have independant consciousness make our own decisions. God is simply aware, even form the start.

I understand where you're coming from. You're saying that because we are utterly created by God, almost intrinsic with his "perfect thoughts", that God creates us and thus our future paths inherently. You have to consider religions arguement about the "tree of life" and whatnot. Religion doesn't demand that our consciousness and decisions are decided by God. Consciousness has a unique quality which can be viewed as divine. Imparted by God, we are it's masters. Throwing objective time out the window (because it doesn't exist anyway), of course God knows our destination from the start. But with our own gift of consciousness, we decide the judgemental causation. God's "perfect plan" does not necessitate writing scripts for everyone on the planet. There's nothing to say (an omnipotent) God cannot impart consciousness and free will. If you're destined to go to hell, it's because of your actions.



The basic premise of this arguement is God's ability to impart consciousness (whcih I take to mean indepentant thought and decision-making). The very idea of judgement is incoherant without consciousness. This is why humanity considers itself on a plateau abode animals.

Some action, or inaction, of which god was aware caused a huge chain of events that eventually led to the man becoming selfish.

Omniscience plus omnipotence in a creator deity equals said deity's ultimate responsibility for all creation.

But man is sonsciousness. He could have decided not to become selfish. Imparting consciousness should not be a task beyond the power of an omnipotent god.

[odin_dax]

[QUOTE=Heavy_'TalMeMan;12706]Your "god" gave you eyes. Perhaps you should use them more.


There is no such thing as chaos to an omniscient god. An already perfect system does not need to be changed. It needs no "fixing". The meager existence of man in the universe has no relevance in this discussion unless you mean to posit that god does not care about man. Once again you make no sense.


No. What does not make logical sense is the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient deity. There are no "second strokes" for an omnipotent, omniscient deity. God cannot alter his "perfect" system because if he did, it would only prove a flaw in the original, which would mean that god cannot be omniscient. And if god cannot choose to alter his already perfect system, it would mean to say that god can not be omnipotent.


What do you mean?

Do not tell me that god cannot be comprehended by logic. Don't give me that god is mysterious garbage that you ardently claim to be bullshit.

No, I mean the human mind is limited, and thinking we can understand all of what God is by our "tools" is preposterous.

[odin_dax]

There is no such thing as chaos to an omniscient god. An already perfect system does not need to be changed. It needs no "fixing". The meager existence of man in the universe has no relevance in this discussion unless you mean to posit that god does not care about man. Once again you make no sense.


Well, if you don't understand, then why answer or comment?



What do you mean?

Do not tell me that god cannot be comprehended by logic. Don't give me that god is mysterious garbage that you ardently claim to be bullshit.

No, I mean the human mind is limited, and thinking we can understand all of what God is using our "tools" is preposterous.

[icharianchem]

can i just take a moment to say that i love this thread and all the key dynamics at work in it.

thank you all

[Armalite]

I understand where you're coming from. You're saying that because we are utterly created by God, almost intrinsic with his "perfect thoughts", that God creates us and thus our future paths inherently. You have to consider religions arguement about the "tree of life" and whatnot. Religion doesn't demand that our consciousness and decisions are decided by God. Consciousness has a unique quality which can be viewed as divine. Imparted by God, we are it's masters. Throwing objective time out the window (because it doesn't exist anyway), of course God knows our destination from the start. But with our own gift of consciousness, we decide the judgemental causation. God's "perfect plan" does not necessitate writing scripts for everyone on the planet. There's nothing to say (an omnipotent) God cannot impart consciousness and free will. If you're destined to go to hell, it's because of your actions.

But the problem here is that even without god creating everything, free will is still an illusion. Your actions are determined by many factors outside of your control, and indeed, the scope of your control is is determined by these factors. Genetic predispositions toward certain behaviours, cultural programming, the fact that many of our thoughts and emotions are controlled by the almost robotic reptilian brain, all of these factors contribute to and shape our choices. They determine our reactions to different stimuli, even to the level of thought. You are predisposed to form certain thoughts based on these factors. Even things like love can be isolated to specific reactions in the brain to outside stimuli, and these reactions can be artificially triggered.

[Comrade Jim]

God doesn't exist

The debate is over

[icharianchem]

thanks for your contribution to the discussion:hitwithro

[headcase]

But the problem here is that even without god creating everything, free will is still an illusion. Your actions are determined by many factors outside of your control, and indeed, the scope of your control is is determined by these factors. Genetic predispositions toward certain behaviours, cultural programming, the fact that many of our thoughts and emotions are controlled by the almost robotic reptilian brain, all of these factors contribute to and shape our choices. They determine our reactions to different stimuli, even to the level of thought. You are predisposed to form certain thoughts based on these factors. Even things like love can be isolated to specific reactions in the brain to outside stimuli, and these reactions can be artificially triggered.

That's over-simplifying tha matter. Even Richard Dawkins in his bible of Evolutionary Psychology, "The Selfish Gene", accepted humankinds uniqueness in this respect. I can't remember the exact wording of the last line in the book but it went something like "We, alone on the planet, have the ability to rebel against our masters, the Selfish Genes". If someone could find an online copy (or have a hardcopy on hand), he puts it much more eloquently than that. Regardless, brushing aside humanity's entire decision-making faculties on genetic dispositioning is much too broad an arguement. Right now I'm reading "Alas, Darwin! (http://www.amazon.com/Alas-Poor-Darwin-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/0609605135)", which is a book specifically rebeling against your Evolutionary Psychology argument (coincidence?) but I'm only 50 pages in. I'll try to come back with a more focused arguement when I'm done with it.



Oh, and good work Jim! I think you've earned yourself some time in the sandbox for that! Careful not to get the sand in your eyes now.

[MaDMAn]

If God exists does the Devil exist?

Theres nothing down there but volcanic lava, no Satan to be seen?

Up above is just space.

MadScientist once said the bible was probably induced by mushrooms, I agree.

[Comrade Jim]

Oh, and good work Jim! I think you've earned yourself some time in the sandbox for that! Careful not to get the sand in your eyes now.

Thanks, care to join me?

Nihilism is serious business and Dookies is the one true God

[Armalite]

You have cherry picked a portion of my argument that cannot stand alone, once again.

Genetic predispositioning certainly cannot explain all human behaviours, but when combined with the myriad other factors influencing behaviour, you will find that it doesn't have to.

BTW Richard Dawkins is a biologist, and his biggest claim to fame is his position on religion. I suppose his expertise may apply when discussing the effects of genetics on behaviour, but it seems sketchy. His opinion is of no help when discussing psychology.

[Comrade Jim]

thanks for your contribution to the discussion:hitwithro
My pleasure.......


......you friggin' fascist

[headcase]

BTW Richard Dawkins is a biologist, and his biggest claim to fame is his position on religion.

Why do you think his position on religion matters? Because he distinguished himself in the field of evolution and genetics in his earlier bibliography. "The Selfish Gene", "The Extended Phenotype", "The Blind Watchmaker" and "Climbing Mount Improbable" specifically, and possibly "River Out of Eden" to a lesser extent. The relevance of some of his later book could be argued too.

Cherry-picked an arguement? What other point did you make in your post other than that?

And like I said, a book specifically arguing against Evolutionary Psychology (which supports me) clearly targets The Selfish Gene (which supports you), yet both books accept humanity's free will. Have you read The Selfish Gene (which I highly recommend - fantastic book)? It champions genetic disposition like nothing else.

[icharianchem]

My pleasure.......


......you friggin' fascist

anyone know who the kewl kid is?

and facsist is a little strong my opinionated, ill informed friend

[REL0AD]

My pleasure.......


......you friggin' fascist

How is what he said fascist? Explain?

[Comrade Jim]

anyone know who the kewl kid is?

and facsist is a little strong my opinionated, ill informed friend

Yeah I would never dare to call you a facsist thats just terrible, I called you a fascist

Damn right I am "kewl"

HEADCASE JOIN US IN THE SANDPIT RIGHT NOW!

Dookies has asked I stop being an ass so I will

[Armalite]

You cherry picked by focusing in on the genetic portion of my argument, and ignoring all the other factors.

Dawkins is popular and well known because of his stance on religion. He may well have groundbreaking work in biology, but that is not well known on its own. Just as Chomsky is known for his politics, but few know of his breakthroughs in linguistics.

[headcase]

Dawkins is popular now so his earlier work becomes irrelevant to arguements on predisposition?

Given that genetic predisposition is not a solid arguement against free will, your assigning a lot of responsibility to cultural input. Writing off human free will because of someones upbringing isn't a much more convincing line of arguement.

[Armalite]

These factors must be considered together. And since they determine the manner in which your brain and conciousness function, their effects underpin decisionmaking processes. How is that free will?




And I still don't know what the definition of "free will" is supposed to be. I'm quite nihilistic, and see things from an dd perspective that causes friction in discussion. I try to strip as as many abstract, arbitrary values of a concept as possible, often resulting in the implosion of the concept entirely. Language itself is impossible without using abstract symbols for things that don't even exist. I fail to grasp the value assigned to "free will."

The Dawkins remark was meant as an observation that Dawkins is often brought out in debate as though he is some infallible deity. It is only because he is popular, I doubt very much that it is because of his academic rigor.

[Axxess of Evil]

Faith is nothing more than glorified wishful thinking.

[REL0AD]

Faith is nothing more than glorified wishful thinking.


Amen. I totally agree.

[Armalite]

lurk moar

[REL0AD]

lurk moar

A popular variant spelling of lurk more. It is an expression used when someone demonstrates their ignorance of the customs and social expectations of an online community, or otherwise makes an idiot of themselves online. Its use indicates that the person so instructed should gain familiarity with the community before posting further.

I've been here since the proboards. I was merely expressing my opinion & certainly didn't mean to offend anyone Sir Armalite.

[Armalite]

I'm not talking to you.

[odin_dax]

Faith is nothing more than glorified wishful thinking.

Many lines can be drawn on this issue, within a vacuum. Faith can be seen as glorified thinking, sure, but what's wrong with it? It's a question that's already be addressed in this thread, so it's not a question to dredge up the same issue. Many people are victims of wishful thinking outside of religion. Some have faith in outcomes, but not when it comes to religion, but gambling for example. Can faith be seen as optimistic, and atheism pessimistic? In other words, if there are two sides to a debate, doesn't one have to be the opposite of the other? So, if faith is more than glorified wishing thinking, what is atheism, Axx?

Saying faith is glorified thinking really doesn't address any issue, nor carry weight. It's an opinion, but what does the statement really say? Thinking about it, nothing at all.

[REL0AD]

Appologies.

Which 22 idiots clicked on yes anyways?

[icharianchem]

1

and i prefer to think of faith as the evidence of things unseen

[odin_dax]

Appologies.

Which 22 idiots clicked on yes anyways?

Now, now, Reload.

One could ask, "Which 34 idiots clicked on no anyways?" but that would only stir things up, not adding to the conversation.

[Armalite]

Indeed, lets not dredge up the same issue. The argument over what constitutes faith has been dealt with. Hence, lurk moar.

[REL0AD]

Appologies.

Which 22 idiots clicked on yes anyways?


Yeah, delete that shit. It's the result of heavy benzo's doses & lack of serious sleep. Sorry.

[odin_dax]

It's all good, bro.

[Vallen]

There is luck and coincidence in the universe.
And people that experance the later blame it on god.

[ComfortablyNumb]

Is there really a significant difference between the meanings of "luck" and "coincidence?"

[REL0AD]

I'm going to admit this, the times I've been lying in a hospital bed because of E and diazepam I have hoped there was indeed a god to take pity on me.

So I guess I'm a two faced arse hole on the whole religion thing & I suppose there are people who ?believe? drugs, weapons etc are all well & fine so I?m going to leave the people who believe religion is ok alone & get on with their own beliefs.

[Armalite]

http://moblog.co.uk/blogs/13/thumbs/moblog_d6708eb9d2374.jpg

[.VX]

This is stupid. There is no way to know for sure if a God, or Gods exist or not.
Personally, I didn't vote.

[headcase]

Hence the quetion was phrased "Do you believe in a God"? Although personally I wouldn't have capitalised the "G", but the meaning carries.

[eOs]

Believing in a God and believing in a major religion brought onto us from our institutionalized society are two different things.

For me, God is about the unknown. He doesn't exist for in a certain form, he doesn't have a book that I can refer to when I become upset. I can't go to one of his buildings and pay, err I mean pray. But what I do is hold my own belief system. It's simple really: Be nice to people, treat all men as equal. Just be fun to be around. That's it. Shit man, here's two quotes.

"A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."


?Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.?

[DominoKett]

i dont see why anybody wouldnt believe in god because look at it this way

if you believe in god and are wright, you go to heaven
if you believe in god and are wrong, you just dead

if you dont believe in god and are wright, you just die
if you dont believe in god and are wrong you burn in hell

and i mean call me crazy, but it looks like the people who believe in god are getting the better options. its not as if the people not believing in god if wright will get to be like "i told ya so" cause there religion of not believing in god means that they are simply dead when they die

[Nemesix]

thats almost exactly how i feel ^.^

[headcase]

Pascal's Wager, which is fairly groundless arguing. First of all, it assumes that if there is a god, he's your god. Surely worshipping Jesus will piss Allah off even more than believing nothing at all. Secondly, it seems to assume He cares whether or not you're worshipping him. I know if I was God, I wouldn't give a shit. However, if some smart-ass was trying to decieve me by being a sort of thiestic double-agent, he'd be going to Hell. In fact, maybe God appreciates hedonism and excess. He gave us these bodies with so much potential for bliss, wouldn't it be shunning His handywork not to use them to their full potential?

But if you're sure you've got the right god, and you think you can trick Him with logical non sequiturs, go for it. I'd rather real answers than number games.

[DominoKett]

i didnt mean it in the fashion of trying to "trcik" god but more as a foundation for someone who is deciding between believing in god or against god. its just a different approach/outlook of why you should or shouldnt believe in god. in my experiance ive noticed people who seem to analyze things in deep detail and interpret things in a unique way (i.e. people on Rorta) tend not to believe in god, and most of the people who do believe in god are the "normal" people. and i know normal is a horrible word to describe what im tring to say cause im not implying people who dont believe in god or think differently are abnormal, but what i mean by normal is people who are satisfied living the basic life of working a 9-5, paying taxes, and living in a mediocre way.

[odin_dax]

It's not "wright" it's "right"

For fuck's sake...

[ZionBlack]

If the Questions is "do I believe in a god" the answer is obviously yes. Is it the all merciful god portrayed by Christian, the holy god of the Jews, or the sacred Allah of Muslims, or any god ever contemplated by the human mind... no. but mathematically, this universe just .. appearing is an extremely minute chance.

[headcase]

But through the anthropic principle, chance can be ignored. However unlikely the event, the universe had an eternity to appear and if it didn't then we wouldn't be here to argue about chance.