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I don't get it
Topic Started: 28 Jun 2010, 02:48 PM (5,639 Views)
Concolor
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Barabbas
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@ARAZEC:
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-I think you concolor are asking-why didnt God make this world such that one could never will to lose his salvation ? and at the same time asking why didnt he make this world so that one would never will to lose his salvation ?
No, that was a previous question. This question is asking why does God create unbelievers (like all those who have never met Christians to strengthen their faiths) when he knows they will go to hell. He knows what will be in their hearts, so why doesn't he spare them the eternal torture of hell by simply not creating them in the first place?

But I did ask the questions you adressed earlier, so let's discuss them as well:
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Answer to the first part is God did make it so its your choice - freewill - the answer to the second part is answered by the first-hell is the absense of God for eternity- now you can ask why make freedom of will if God knew beforehand man would choose to make evil ? because freedom to be obtained is the absense of what ?
What is the adsense of freedom ?
You seem to suggest that free will makes there necessary for evil to exist, so that one can choose between good and evil, but why can one not simply choose between different kinds of good? And why does there need to be free will in the first place, even without there being good and evil?

I can't remember man having the power to create evil? Did not the snake tempt Eve before the apple was tasted, and is this not an evil act?

Absence of freedom means a deterministic universe, which one would kinda expect if it was run by an omnipotent, omniscient God.
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Did he create it this way-must of if i am to beleive the Bible - why dont we evolve into knowing the answer?
We did: The answer is "there is probably no God" :D
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surely we could evolve a collective concience by now that would have us working like ants for the common cause of propelling our evoulutionary purposes?
What a strange and unfamiliar notion. Such a mysterious arrangement would have a fantastical name like..."society"
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surely change and adaptation should have us striving to be more like the cockaroaches that makes more sense
Not only cockroaches, but also bacteria, viruses, toads, fish, elephants, cheetahs, fireflies, humans, dogs and monkeys.
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what does freedom have to do with survival? why IS freedom survival ?
Answer question #1: Nothing. Answer question #2: It's not.
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why do you have rights Concolor?
Because that's a pretty good way to organize society to make sure suffering is limited.
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how does the freedom to choose fit into evolution?
The same place it fits into gravity: not really central to the theory.
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the big bang theroy
What does cosmology have to do with this? anyway it is at lest as marginal to the big bang model as it is to gravity and evolution.
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why does everything strive to live if only to die?
That's how life works. Why do things fall down? That's how gravity works.
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why have emotions?
one of many suggestions: Because it's quicker to run from danger out of fear than to calculate human/tiger muscle-ratios before making a move.
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Why evolve emotions when they can influence your mind to your own detrement?
Because they can also do much good. Besides emotions came millions of years before rationality, maybe it just takes a while to get rid of them?
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This process of evolution - for the purpose of surviving why?
Must there be a purpose?
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why live when there is pain loss,life,greif,unjustice,suffering for the chance to have pleasure-when around any corner can be pain but ultimately death (and taxes)?
Not everyone chooses to live.
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what is the purpose what is your purpose what is purpose ?
The purpose of what? My purpose is to learn, help and enjoy the ride. Purpose is what we decide to do with our lives.
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YOUR WORLD OF UNBELEIF in GOD SEEMS A LOT MORE COMPLEX TO ME
These things we've discussed so far seem rather simple to me, but I've never said that the world is not a complex place.
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AND another thing why have reason ? reasoning- your prized reasoning- something that you value-something that offends you if ppl dont use ?
Because it's really handy to have when doing complex things, decide complex questions or simply to go where our instincts can't take us. (among loads of other things)
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reasoning is for finding reasons because there are reasons = The basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction
No reasoning is for MAKING reasons, and finding other peoples reasons. We can also use it to find causal chains and the organization of systems, like when a marble knocks another marble, does it do that for a reason?
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whats the reason everything is striving to survive ?
No reason, but I'm sure you could make one up if you pretended that everything has the power to invent reasons for itself (like pantheists do: "The water falls down from the skies because it wants to help the plants").
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things change,adapt to survive to live-whats the reason ?
Why do you need a reason?
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why do the living live if only to die?
Didn't we talk about this one earlier?
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why does the sunflower turn to the sun and follow it ?
Because it maximizes the energy-intake of the plant.
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whats its purpose for surviving ?
Why does it need a purpose? it's simply what sunflowers do. They grow, they bloom, they reproduce, they die. Then their offspring does the same. It's the circle of life, and we can find beauty in that if we want to.
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well heres what i think-

I think that this life here we have is temporal and not by accident for no reason
I think that we are created and designed by a maker called -God- for a reason
Relationship with him and with others and that every human soul has a purpose- speacific and unique to only that person.
We are not a clone and are not identical to anyone else-your life is not a meaningless accident or a product of some evolutionary accident.

"life is just like that" to answer my question - why is everything geared to trying to survive ?

i mean you talk about Christians beleiving things that dont make sense and not questioning things and then you just stop there?!

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Why does it need a purpose? it's simply what sunflowers do. They grow, they bloom, they reproduce, they die. Then their offspring does the same. It's the circle of life, and we can find beauty in that if we want to
yes very beautifull - the circle of life ? nice ! but it doesnt explain why - When i say pornography is BAD i have my reasons and you have yours for thinking it GOOD and we talk but when it comes to the very questions of life you dont explain why you think like this -if you dont know the answer you just say-"oh thats just how it is" how Concolor can YOU OF ALL PEOPLE just except that ?

what is this life ? lifeforce? circle thing you say that propels things to survive ?

and you have rights Concolor because God gave you the right to choose
Not because its a nice way to prevent suffering in society !
You have society to help you survive because you need relationship to survive
Humans were created for relationship and you will look for your entire life for realationship of some kind-trying to replace the very one realtionship you are searching for with anything you create will come up lacking eventually everytime....


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Absence of freedom means a deterministic universe
this sounded really clever but makes no sense are you saying that is what you think or what i suggest? because i am saying that God gives you free will which means that your choice is not predetermined and he can do that because he has no beginning or end and exsisted then now and forever.....and the absense of freedom is exsistence without relationship with God.
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Concolor
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@ARAZEC: There's still quite a few questions I posed that you did not answer, but in the mean time:

I also think this life we have here is temporal and not by accident, but that doesn't mean that there's some kind of outside agent who made it for a purpose. Just like gravity has no reason to pull rocks together, I don't think the rest of the natural laws have any more reason or intent behind them. I think that we are not so much discoverers of reasons that we are the inventors of them.

I don't think that any of the Gods have created us in any of their images, I don't see any more reason that Odin should have given my ancestors life as a gift than that we hatched from the cosmic egg or that the God of the Bible made us since angels did not satisfy him. I think we're all demonstrably unique, and yet we all share something special with each other. Something that we share with all other life that we know of. It's a common history and heritage that binds all life together. We feel this in our hearts whenever we hug a dog or pet a cat. It's not just friendship, we're family.

I believe that we all have a responsibility to find our own purpose. If we expect someone to come along and hand it to us we might search for it all our lives, or we risk someone giving us a purpose that serves them at our, or others, expense.
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"life is just like that" to answer my question - why is everything geared to trying to survive ?
I tried to show you that the question you're asking is the same as saying why gravity pulls things together. It does not have to have a reason. If things didn't fall to the ground we wouldn't have gravity. If things din't strive to survive we wouldn't have life.
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i mean you talk about Christians beleiving things that dont make sense and not questioning things and then you just stop there?!
Well I don't have a habit of inventing an answer where there is no reliable answer to be found. Of course it is natural to question why things fall down, or why we have life. I do this myself. But just because you can ask a question does not mean that there is an answer.
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When i say pornography is BAD i have my reasons and you have yours for thinking it GOOD
*Sigh* Could you please stick to actual facts? I have repeatedly made a point of the fact that I have never said that pornography is good, I have merely (and without result) tried to make you explain why you think pornography is bad.
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if you dont know the answer you just say-"oh thats just how it is" how Concolor can YOU OF ALL PEOPLE just except that ?
You think I have given up on finding answers to these things? Of course not. I'm merely pointing out that in the search for whether or not gravity needs to have a reason to pull things together, no such need has been found so far. Thus I see no reason to suppose that there must be a reason for it.
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what is this life ? lifeforce? circle thing you say that propels things to survive ?
See, your questions suppose that there must be something "more" behind the life we see. But I see no reason to suppose such a thing, and you have not made any effort to convince me that there must be. And if there was, how can we be sure that there is not anything "more" behind what we suppose is behind life. What if the lifeforce has a creator? And what if this creator has a creator? And what if there's another creator behind that one? How would we know when to stop? Why do we even need to start that row?
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and you have rights Concolor because God gave you the right to choose
Not because its a nice way to prevent suffering in society !
I disagree. Mostly because I have noticed that rules DO work to prevent some kinds of suffering, and I have not been able to observe any of the Gods that could have given me these rights (and who gave them the right to do that?).
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You have society to help you survive because you need relationship to survive
I need relationships to thrive and reproduce, but not to survive. Many have survived without relationships.
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Humans were created for relationship
Neat, where did you get that idea from?
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you will look for your entire life for realationship of some kind-trying to replace the very one realtionship you are searching for with anything you create will come up lacking eventually everytime
How prophetic and extremely condescending. If you mean a search for a spouse I have reasons to believe I'm not the only one looking for such a relationship. In the mean time I'm quite content with the relationships I have with friends and family thank you very much. It almost sounds like you don't know of any Christians who are searching for a relationship in their life.
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Absence of freedom means a deterministic universe
this sounded really clever but makes no sense are you saying that is what you think or what i suggest?
That is what I think. And it makes perfect sense. A deterministic universe is a universe where there is no freedom as everything is predetermined. I don't really see a problem with that one.
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because i am saying that God gives you free will which means that your choice is not predetermined and he can do that because he has no beginning or end and exsisted then now and forever
No, the only way he could do that was if he was not both omniscient and omnipotent. In order to introduce actual freedom he must sacrifice one of the two. And speaking of sense: Having no beginning and no end is not something we can even comprehend, so how can you claim to know that this is the case?
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and the absense of freedom is exsistence without relationship with God
That is quite demonstrably not true. I can choose to eat fish or chicken for dinner, arguably a relatively free choice, even if I don't have a relationship with a single God. And how can people freely choose God if they don't have freedom until they choose to have a relationship with God?
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Concolor
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@Solar Flare: Don't let my debate with ARAZEC distract you, we can still have ours going in parallel. If I know Arzy and myself we will soon enough drift off in some random direction, and then it will be easy to keep the two discussions separate, even in the same forum. :)
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I also think this life we have here is temporal and not by accident, but that doesn't mean that there's some kind of outside agent who made it for a purpose.

Wow really? so like when Jesus says he is The "light" you can consider the possibility of a God whose relativistic mass makes him infinate and able to be in the past,future and present ?
i mean i also know their is a possibility of spagehhti head monsters doing Zumba but its not recorded in the worlds most famous book or said by the one of the worlds most influencual ppl in recorded History....

anyway we cant acknowledge that an event has occurred until the information about that event reaches us -so really if we cant grasp how God can be so fast he is everywhere at once we can think of it like we are just very slow compared to God at receiving the radiation from any occurrence of space and time :)

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I tried to show you that the question you're asking is the same as saying why gravity pulls things together. It does not have to have a reason. If things didn't fall to the ground we wouldn't have gravity. If things din't strive to survive we wouldn't have life.
well gravity pulls things together and the reason is God made the earth for us and he wanted us and our stuff to stick on it so we wouldnt get ourselves lost in space ;) i dissagree with you that we wouldnt have life if things didnt strive to survive-i think life goes on despite striving theres no absolute frame of reference in our universe -its God power its him thats the energy -spirit which is not matter and has no mass which is the truth THE LIGHT and the way !!!!

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Well I don't have a habit of inventing an answer where there is no reliable answer to be found
Well you do -except when you do it its called -a theroy :) or a paradox :D

Anyway Concolor srry to jump in with the disscusion with Solar -_-

but do you really really think about the reasons like you said even if you beleive that you invent reasons ? :unsure: or what did you say again about reasons ? there are none :huh: for somethings but others have reasons.....hhhmm









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I need relationships to thrive and reproduce, but not to survive. Many have survived without relationships
hhhmm nopey sorry thats incorrect -theres got to be some kinda relationship in for anybody to exsist we cant make something outta nothing......so there is no survival that is independant of some form of relationship.


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That is what I think. And it makes perfect sense. A deterministic universe is a universe where there is no freedom as everything is predetermined. I don't really see a problem with that one.


like everything ? so like you dont have the ability to change your fate? que sera sera ?

its all a done deal inevitable - is that how you live your life :blink:
not saying its bad,wrong or dissing u just r u being straight up here or what ?

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And how can people freely choose God if they don't have freedom until they choose to have a relationship with God?
by using their free will to choose true freedom from the power of sin by inviting him into their lives or by using their free will to be bound by sin forever.....
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Concolor
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@ARAZEC:
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when Jesus says he is The "light" you can consider the possibility of a God whose relativistic mass makes him infinate and able to be in the past,future and present ?
In the same way I in some way could consider our world to be surrounded by the giant serpent Midgardsormen and supported on the tree of Yggdrasil, I could also consider the scenario you describe. I do however find them both to be very little compatible with the world we see around us, and also that they make little sense.
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i mean i also know their is a possibility of spagehhti head monsters doing Zumba but its not recorded in the worlds most famous book or said by the one of the worlds most influencual ppl in recorded History
Popularity is not a measure of truth. Was the most popular kid in your high school also the one who did best in her Math-tests? Also, I can name some pretty influential people in history who were neither good, nor right, so I wouldn't go to influential people for truth either.
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anyway we cant acknowledge that an event has occurred until the information about that event reaches us -so really if we cant grasp how God can be so fast he is everywhere at once we can think of it like we are just very slow compared to God at receiving the radiation from any occurrence of space and time
Nowhere in the Bible is it said that God is the fastest, but Hare Krishna is reported to run faster than all other Gods in the Bhgavadgad Ghita.
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well gravity pulls things together and the reason is God made the earth for us
I find the notion that we are the most important thing in the universe and that everything was created for us to be ever so slightly conceited. And not really conforming well to the evidence.
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i dissagree with you that we wouldnt have life if things didnt strive to survive
So you think we would still have life if things didn't try to survive?
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i think life goes on despite striving theres no absolute frame of reference in our universe
Are you sure that the first and last part of this sentence go together? I don't see how they make a coherent sentence. Could you try to phrase it differently?
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its God power its him thats the energy -spirit which is not matter and has no mass which is the truth THE LIGHT and the way !!!!
See now you're just saying this for no reason. It certainly does not follow any kind of line of reasoning or argumental string. It seems like you just felt like saying it. Which is fine, but could you put in a lineshift or something so it's easier to see what your argument is and what is simply ranting? I rant too but I usually keep it in the beginning or end of posts.
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Well you do -except when you do it its called -a theroy or a paradox
You do know that a theory and a paradox are entirely different things, right? My point is that when we have empirical data to build upon we construct a theory, but when there is little or no data there is no reason to say that we have any knowledge about it.
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Anyway Concolor srry to jump in with the disscusion with Solar
No problem, I consider the two discussions as separate, just had to explain that to SF that's all :)
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but do you really really think about the reasons like you said even if you beleive that you invent reasons
What I said was that; if we by "reason" mean the intentional motivation for something to happen, as in "My reason for eating is because I want to stop being hungry", then reasons are invented by rational minds. This also means that we don't need to suspect that raindrops have a reason to fall from the skies, as raindrops show no signs of having rational minds.
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theres got to be some kinda relationship in for anybody to exsist we cant make something outta nothing
Why can't something come from nothing? Anyway, I'm not disputing the fact that a cell from my mommy and a cell from my daddy had to meet in a favorable environment to create me, I'm saying that you don't need personal relationships to survive. Life would suck, but some people do live like that.
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like everything ? so like you dont have the ability to change your fate? que sera sera
Yes, in a deterministic universe (i.e. a universe without freedom) that would be the case. That is what you wanted me to imagine and describe.
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its all a done deal inevitable - is that how you live your life
When did I say that we are living in a deterministic universe? I have no way of knowing if the universe is deterministic or not.
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And how can people freely choose God if they don't have freedom until they choose to have a relationship with God?
by using their free will to choose true freedom from the power of sin by inviting him into their lives or by using their free will to be bound by sin forever.....
Did you even read my question? I ask about people without free will, and you start your answer with "by using their free will..". I hope you agree that this did not answer my question?

Also, now there's a difference between freedom and true freedom?
Edited by Concolor, 21 Jul 2010, 12:25 PM.
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SolarFlare
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@Concolor (Sorry it's really late...)

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That is an interesting point. Yet you still judge them as wrong. I find that puzzling.

I think it's kind of like that saying, "if it's not broken, don't fix it." This religion [Christianity] has never failed me before, so why should I think it's wrong? I guess religion is one of the only things I'm not completely logical about.

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Why do you feel that the origin of complexity needs to be supernatural and not natural?

Just looking around, in my everyday life, I notice how things don't always go as planned, so I often find myself trying and help them along to get the desired outcome. I feel like things are just too perfect for them to have happened naturally; I feel they may have needed a little guidance. I like evolution. I like how it explains a lot of phenomenon in the world, but why can't evolution be God's work?

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You want everyone to go to heaven, yet you accept that there are "rules" seemingly without considering who made those rules. God made them, and he didn't have to. If he really wanted us all to go to heaven he would not have made them.

He is a just god. He will judge you. He doesn't want sin in His kingdom, so He is not going to let you in if you have sinned and have not repented. If he didn't make any rules and anyone was allowed into the kingdom of Heaven, how would it be different than Earth (ie, full of sin)?

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I would call it nonsense

Why? Did I not explain myself well?

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You do realize that I don't really count faith as a good thing?

I'm starting to realize that. I'm sorry, but that's what religion – mine, at least – is based on. I wish I could give you a more concrete answer, but I like to think that's how God works; we have to trust in Him because that's all we have...

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But you would believe exactly the same story coming from a bunch of guys living in the desert two thousand years ago?! I don't understand why you believe that God first gave us the old testament, then you accept he followed up with the new testament but then you don't accept that he followed up with the Quran. This seems to me extremely arbitrary.

I don't believe just anything. I like to think I carefully research things before I start to place my trust in their authenticity. Everything seems pretty logical in the Bible. The parables make sense, and the historical facts seem to line up with my history textbooks. Plus, I'm not the only Christian, so I must not be that crazy.

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I also think the benefits of a false sense of security are hugely outweighed by the dangers of putting dogma before reason.

In my life, when Faith and Science conflict, initially, I'm usually more persuaded by science. However, I have always heard explanations for these situations, which quickly resolves those conflicts. I try not to be brash and rush into decisions concerning my faith because I will readily admit that I don't know everything.

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The heart is not a tool for finding truth, it's a tool for finding feelings. Yet many people argue from their hearts against what the mind finds to be true.

I think I agree with you on that. I hope I don't do that. I constantly try to question my faith, and consistently come to the same conclusion: that I am doing the right thing. Perhaps my faith is clouding my judgment.

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You speak of the rules as if God is forced to follow them. He wants us to be saved but the rules say worship or burn. But God made the rules. He made justice. He made right and wrong. He made good and evil. If he had wanted it differently he could have made it differently. But he did not. So either he does not want all of us to go to heaven or there is some force that is stronger than God. I can't see any of these fitting very well with the all-powerful, benevolent God you describe to me.

Well, you could just not sin. That's difficult though.

You're completely correct. God will judge you when you die. But that doesn't mean he doesn't love you. If God made the rules differently, say, we don't get punished for our sins, how could we be expected to be loving toward one another, and to God, Himself? If God made it impossible for us to sin, it goes back to what we talked about before: free will. I feel like this was the only option if God wanted us to both behave and be happy.

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Helping us without seeing us please him.

How does this work? If I'm tutoring a younger child, and I have been working with them all week so they can learn how to do multiplication tables, I'm going to be really happy when they can do it all by themselves at the end of the week. I'm not happy because I'm an awesome teacher and deserve an award or something, I'm happy because I helped them learn a life skill, and I'm happy because they're happy that they can do it.

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You keep forgetting that God decides what is perfect. He is the one to decide that making us love him is not a good thing.

Yes. It's like Physics. It's just the law. (Sorry for the lame answer; I've been staring at this sentence for 10 minutes and that's all I could come up with.)

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Um, if I recall that story correctly, they didn't die from eating the apple. In fact they did learn of good and evil. Are you calling God a liar?

Oh, sorry, they would die figuratively, spiritually. If God told me that, I'd like to think I would have the common sense to listen to the being who created everything. But, then again, I'm human, just like Adam, and would have probably made the same mistake.

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So God made Adam and Eve without common sense as well as no concept of good and evil? I don't see how this strengthen his case?

I think they had common sense. They didn't eat the fruit when they weren't tempted, meaning they must have been thinking something. Even I do stupid things when I'm tempted and my judgment’s clouded, and I like to think I'm not completely stupid.

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Your teacher did not make you and the world you live in. If he made you, gave you all your instincts and knowledge, and decided whether you should have free will or not, then he would be the one to decide if you would handle the test or not. (BTW. Does the Bible really say that we have free will?)

It's like in James. “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins” (James 4:17). If we did have free will and were not able to choose for ourselves what to do, we would just do good because we know what that good thing is.

Some other verses I remember about choosing the right thing to do are in Deuteronomy and Proverbs:

“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live” (Deuteronomy 31:19).

“Do not envy a violent man, and do not choose any of his ways” (Proverbs 3:31).

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Does your father constantly test you, to make sure you still love him? Did he leave you alone at the supermarket when you were a kid, so that you would not be complacent? Would he put you out in the cold and make you sick, to test you and see if you handled it? Would you love him more then? Because that's what you said that your God does.

No, my father never did any of that, but then again, my father could never love me like God can. God has also never tested me in any of the ways you listed, but from the tests that I have endured, and how God has helped me recover from my stumbles in life, I have grown and I do love him more now than I did before.

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That does not answer my question. You said we need bad things so we would appreciate the good things. I asked why the bad things could not be more benign. I don't see what praying to God has to do with it.

I don't feel like I need God to help with the slightly less “bad” things (that's not true, of course) but when I see great tragedies, I am reminded that I can't do this alone. Praying helps me get closer to God and that relationship helps me to overcome these obstacles.

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The interesting part is that you said the answer was that this was God's way of helping us grow by putting us through tests that we overcome. Yet when I put the image in more detail so it became clearer, your knowledge of God's will suddenly disappeared?

I never claimed to know God's will. I know very little. Just barely enough to keep me on the right path.

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Hm, so if a villain tries to rape my (hypothetical) wife, I am not allowed to defend her by hitting him as it is God's privilege to inflict pain? Also, what gives God the right to do as he pleases with us?

Luke 22 tells us we have the right to self defense. It's somewhere in Exodus too, I believe.

I don't understand the part about “it is God's privilege to inflict pain” part. Could you rephrase?

He made us? We're filthy creatures that don't deserve the love and grace he provides us? I'm surprised he hasn't done more to us.

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Don't be. If you wish to never offend anyone, then you can never speak a word in case someone finds that particular word offensive. I'm the one who actively takes offence here, regardless if you meant it or not. That is my right, and it is also your right to say what you please even if it offends me. Harassment is something completely different, which you are in no way guilty of.

I have the right to say what I want, but I don't have the right to walk all over other people's feelings. Plus, it just makes me feel better knowing I haven't hurt anyone's feelings. I'm sorry again.

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And yet you make repeated claims of knowing God's will, his rules, his love and his justice. How can you be sure of these things if he's on a different plane from us?

I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I knew God's will. I do not. I know only what the Bible says and what I feel in my heart. I don't know anything about you, but I believe God knows everything about you, meaning he can make better decisions pertaining to your life. Thus, I believe we play on two different playing fields.

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The verse you quoted said nothing about forcing you to stop believing in your God, it said to teach you about their religions. I just told you something about muslims and hindus, are you allowed to kill me now before I tell you more?

I think the part I was focused on was “and thus, sin against the LORD your GOD,” meaning I can learn about other people's ways, as long as I don't sin against God and I don't think I would sin unless I'm forced to. Plus, the Bible teaches that we shouldn't inflict pain on other people if they sin against us (with very few exceptions, including self defense).

I'm always allowed to kill you (free will FTW!), I just wont go to heaven if I submit to temptation and sin.

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Ooops. I didn't find it. But I found a similar one with dashing babies against rocks: Psalm 137:9

Ooh, Psalm 137 is a popular one. If we start at the beginning, we see that Israel is taken over by Babylon. The Isrialites are taken captive and they are crying by the river, (Tigris or Euphrates, not sure which) because they are upset that Zion (Jerusalem) has been overtaken. Their captors force them to sing, but they refuse because they wold be killed if they sang about God. They sing, instead about the Lord (a less common word meaning God). They sing about when Jerusalem was overtaken and they sing about the future of Babylon.

This is where verse nine comes in. They aren't talking about literally bashing the Babylonian's infant's heads, rather, they are speaking of the future of Babylon – how it is going to crumble. This prophecy comes true in Isaiah.

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See, now that scares me a lot.

I'm sorry. If it helps, I've never felt the need to hurt or inflict pain on anyone.

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This does not really answer my question. Why does he let some of us live long lives, and some are killed at birth, when he could have skipped the whole world-thing and just looked into our hearts and sent us straight to heaven or hell?

Why is there an Earth in the first place? When he first made the Earth, it was supposed to be exactly like heaven, an extension, I would think. Then man sinned and now we're constantly trying to earn heaven again. It makes me think of the Lord's Prayer, when we say “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. It's like we're trying to make it as close to heaven as humanly possible by following what God had told us to do.

Sorry if that doesn't make sense, it kind of just fell out of my head in one big, non-coherent blob.

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Now there's a comforting thought. I'm created simply to be a tool to strengthen the faith of Christians. As a reward I will burn forever in hell.

Um, sorry? You are choosing to live your life according to your own rules, you get the consequences. But! Good news! It's not too late. You can still choose Jesus and live a wonderful afterlife with God. :)

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Again, my question was why is it necessary to create unbelievers (like all those who have never met Christians to strengthen their faiths) when he knows they will go to hell. I do believe non-existence is preferable to eternal torture. But perhaps that is just me.

I think there is a difference between people who were never fortunate enough to learn about God's love and people who outright refuse to believe God loves them and Jesus is their Savior.

He doesn't want you to fail, but he wants to give you the choice to succeed or fail on your own. He knows that Atheists are going to choose incorrectly and that saddens him a great deal, but, at the end of the day, they had every chance to change, and they still didn't. They choose to sin and choose not to take Jesus as their Savior, thus they choose Hell. God makes unbelievers because he loves them just as much as he loves believers. It's the actual non-believers that choose to turn from God.
Edited by SolarFlare, 22 Jul 2010, 02:40 AM.
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@Solar first i really like how you write you seem genuinely nice

Anyway its a bit confusus on here - living in the 6th dimension and running two debates in one topic
at least my brain feels the strain but first-

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When did I say that we are living in a deterministic universe? I have no way of knowing if the universe is deterministic or not.


well you said it here


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Absence of freedom means a deterministic universe
That is what I think. And it makes perfect sense. A deterministic universe is a universe where there is no freedom as everything is predetermined. I don't really see a problem with that one.


What really amazes me Concolor is how you question God so much eg why didnt God make this? why doesnt God do that ? and so on....which is really great......its Good to ponder about your creator...... whats strange is that you also say things like this when i ask you to explain certain atheiest beleifs...

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It does not have to have a reason. If things didn't fall to the ground we wouldn't have gravity. If things din't strive to survive we wouldn't have life.


so i say to you......

No reason - just without relationship with God theres no freedom does it have to have a reason? (there is but i already said why in a previous post)

oh and btw things striving to survive isnt why we have life

Its actually the stopping of striving to survive and trusting God that gives life (not in a physical sense-because i know Concolor will just say great lets all throw ourselves under trains and trust God ;) )








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@ARAZEC: If you read the quote by me you will notice that I describe what I think an absence of freedom means: namely a deterministic universe. No where do I say that I think our universe is a deterministic one.

The passage you quote is my answer to your claim that it did not make sense to say that absence of freedom means a deterministic universe.
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but i didnt say that you did
oh i get it - you dont actually think that -you dont think the universe is deterministic and you dont see evidence of a God/s and you dont think things have to have reason for being or a purpose....

O.k so what DO you think about how the universe is ?

Dont say you dont beleive in the universe now....that"d be a bit of a cop out :P

and also how do emotions evolve?
like i was sitting around in my cave with my caveman and cracked a joke which was helpfull as it initiated the act of him getting up and clubbing some dinner to death for us :blink: ?
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@SolarFlare:"He who waits for something good, never waits too long." - Norwegian expression
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I think it's kind of like that saying, "if it's not broken, don't fix it." This religion [Christianity] has never failed me before, so why should I think it's wrong?
I thought gambling was a sin? If a man was towing his child in a baby stroller attached to his car with a string, I assume you would question him as to how sound this setup was. But he could easily say that "It's been working great for me so far, why should I think there's anything wrong with it?".

You may think this is an absurd example, as it should be obvious for this man that it's not a good plan. But you might remember from my occasional outrage that that is precisely the view I have of your religion.

Also, you say it has never failed you before. But you also said in post #52 that "That's also what I'm kind of bummed about with religion. I don't mind having a little faith at the beginning, but I feel like I've taken my faith so far and I'm so far away from hard fact and science that I get scared and retreat back to safe ground." Wouldn't it make more sense if your religion didn't pull you away from hard facts and science?
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Just looking around, in my everyday life, I notice how things don't always go as planned, so I often find myself trying and help them along to get the desired outcome. I feel like things are just too perfect for them to have happened naturally
:blink: You do notice that these sentences contradict each other? You start by saying that "things are imperfect" and then you say that "things are perfect".

Besides, if you think that this world is in any way near perfect, then you have a rather limited imagination. Could you really not think of a single improvement you would have done to the world if you could?

How about a third arm that lets me open the door while carrying grocery bags? Reduce the number of natural disasters, or at least making sure they don't kill living things? Make a form of energy that doesn't have a negative impact on the environment? Not make parasites that infect us with disease? Slightly reducing gravity so even fat people could go jogging?
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I like evolution. I like how it explains a lot of phenomenon in the world, but why can't evolution be God's work?
Because he wrote in his book that he didn't use evolution, but spontaneous creation (and created animals in a different order than how they emerge by evolution). Either God is a liar, or he didn't use evolution. And yes, evolution fits much better with how the world is than spontaneous creation does.
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If he didn't make any rules and anyone was allowed into the kingdom of Heaven, how would it be different than Earth (ie, full of sin)?
So theres is no sin in Heaven? But how can we have free will in Heaven if we cannot choose to sin there?
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I would call it nonsense
Why? Did I not explain myself well?
I guess not. You said he was just, but not in a way we are just. You said he loved us, but not in a way we can understand. If I showed you a piece of string and called it a "chair", would you agree to my description? And if you asked me how I would sit in this "chair" of mine, I replied saying "I have no clue", would you agree to my string being a chair, or would you call it nonsense? And if this is not nonsense, what is?
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I like to think that's how God works; we have to trust in Him because that's all we have
He could have made it a whole lot easier for us, by giving us more than a wild guess to go by. How are we supposed to know that from all of the tens of thousands of God's that the one from the Bible is the right one. How are we supposed to know that this or that interpretation is the correct one? How fortunate you are to be one of the very few people on this planet who was simply born into a family who had exactly the right faith, and all you have to do is to stick to it. Think of a hindu boy in India who has to first realize that hinduism is wrong, then he has to find Christianity, then he has to interpret it the right way. How greater is not the chance that he screws up and becomes a Jainist or Muslim in stead?
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I like to think I carefully research things before I start to place my trust in their authenticity.
Ah, I thought you said that you had not read the holy books of the other religions and tried to worship the different Gods before you ended up realizing that the Bible was the right path. My bad ;)
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Everything seems pretty logical in the Bible.
Erm...have you read it? Would you like me to start pointing out logical inconsistencies in the Bible, or should I just refer you to some of the many hundreds of web-pages devoted to displaying blatant faults in the Bible?
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The parables make sense
Firstly, I have huge problems with many of them. Secondly, my copy of the Mickey Mouse magazine contains few or no logical errors. Does that make the stories in it true?
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the historical facts seem to line up with my history textbooks
Not with my textbooks. When Jesus stood up from the grave, many kings rose from their graves and were seen by many people. Have you ever found another historical source for this spectacular event? Besides, the Quran is a lot better documented in history, is it therefore more true than the Bible?
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Plus, I'm not the only Christian, so I must not be that crazy
"Eat sh!t, a billion flies can't be wrong!" I apologize for my language, but that's how the expression goes. Again there are billions of muslims, billions of hindus and buddhists. Numbers do not make right. I the old days "everyone" thought the sun went around the earth, were they right? Please tell me once again what good reason you had to believe in this religion?
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In my life, when Faith and Science conflict, initially, I'm usually more persuaded by science. However, I have always heard explanations for these situations, which quickly resolves those conflicts.
Funny, because I have seen many attempts at reconciling science and faith, but never anyone which is not seriously flawed. At the end of the day you still have the basic difficulty that faith has no place in the scientific method, which I'm sure you are aware of.
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I constantly try to question my faith, and consistently come to the same conclusion: that I am doing the right thing. Perhaps my faith is clouding my judgment
At least faith works for something :D
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If God made the rules differently, say, we don't get punished for our sins, how could we be expected to be loving toward one another?
Well, I don't believe that I will be punished for sins, and still I love loads of people. How does that fit into this picture?
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If God made it impossible for us to sin, it goes back to what we talked about before: free will.
I don't agree. You do not need sin to have a free will.
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Helping us without seeing us please him.
How does this work?
I was referring to what you said about God likes to see us go out of our way to please him. The kids you talk about do not do it to please you, and still you feel joy. That's what I'm talking about.
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You keep forgetting that God decides what is perfect. He is the one to decide that making us love him is not a good thing.
Yes. It's like Physics. It's just the law.
So this law is stronger than God, since he cannot change it?
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Oh, sorry, they would die figuratively, spiritually
Then maybe that's what he should have said. It had only cost him one word, and you'd think he might have seen that misunderstanding coming.
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They didn't eat the fruit when they weren't tempted, meaning they must have been thinking something
Not necessarily. If they weren't thinking they would have never thought of eating the fruit. Which they didn't until the snake (created by God, I presume) came and tempted them.
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BTW. Does the Bible really say that we have free will?
You quote many verses about making choices, but none of them say if we use free will to make the choice or not. A sorting machine can choose to sort buttons depending on which color they have, but it does not have free will. Does it not say something like "And God created Man out of dust with free will so he could choose to love God or not" or something like that?
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No, my father never did any of that, but then again, my father could never love me like God can.
To me the love of a father looks preferable to Gods love.
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God has also never tested me in any of the ways you listed, but from the tests that I have endured, and how God has helped me recover from my stumbles in life, I have grown and I do love him more now than I did before.
Lucky you :) God seems to favor you and me by giving us such pleasant lives and few obstacles to overcome. How fortunate that we can look upon those who do not make it and say "there but for the grace of God, go I".
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I don't feel like I need God to help with the slightly less “bad” things (that's not true, of course) but when I see great tragedies, I am reminded that I can't do this alone. Praying helps me get closer to God and that relationship helps me to overcome these obstacles.
Why does he have to force us to seek his help? Weren't we supposed to come to him out of free will?
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I never claimed to know God's will. I know very little. Just barely enough to keep me on the right path.
And how do you know that?
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I don't understand the part about “it is God's privilege to inflict pain” part. Could you rephrase?
You said that "I never said humans could inflict torture on other humans" and "It's not holy for humans to inflict pain on humans!", before you explained that God could do whatever he wants but we cannot. i interpreted this as God being allowed to inflict pain on us but not we on each other.

Also, if God can do whatever he wants, then he cannot be "good". As the word "good" does not make any sense if it is not to separate from something that is less god or bad. If all God does is good, then the word is useless as it simply means "what God does or can do" which is everything.
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He made us? We're filthy creatures that don't deserve the love and grace he provides us? I'm surprised he hasn't done more to us?
So if you made someone (like a baby) you would be entitled to do whatever you would like with it? And if you fed a homeless man you could abuse him as you wished? We did not ask to be created, we did not ask to be given doubts in our hearts, and when we strain from the path he created us incapable of following those of us who are so made that we cannot believe are tortured for eternity. I see no justice in that. Why did he make me so that I see injustice in all of his actions?
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I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I knew God's will. I do not. I know only what the Bible says and what I feel in my heart.
So how do you know that what the Bible tells and what you feel in your heart is anywhere near God's true will? Remember the story about the the muslim and the hindu preacher.
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I'm always allowed to kill you
Hm, I thought there was some sort of commandment against that one.
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Psalm 137 is a popular one. If we start at the beginning, we see that Israel is taken over by Babylon. The Isrialites are taken captive and they are crying by the river, (Tigris or Euphrates, not sure which) because they are upset that Zion (Jerusalem) has been overtaken. Their captors force them to sing, but they refuse because they wold be killed if they sang about God. They sing, instead about the Lord (a less common word meaning God). They sing about when Jerusalem was overtaken and they sing about the future of Babylon.

This is where verse nine comes in. They aren't talking about literally bashing the Babylonian's infant's heads, rather, they are speaking of the future of Babylon – how it is going to crumble. This prophecy comes true in Isaiah.
I can't really see that they sing any song in that psalm. Also all I found in Isaiah was another prophecy. That one is however quite clear that the army which is to destroy the infants and ravage the women is mustered by the Lord himself. And that is kinda my point. I sorta like Gods who don't order things like that to be done better than the ones who do.
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I'm sorry. If it helps, I've never felt the need to hurt or inflict pain on anyone.
Let's hope you never do.
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When he first made the Earth, it was supposed to be exactly like heaven, an extension, I would think.
Clearly that is not the case. God knew very well what would happen. or are you saying that he messed up? That he was clueless? If God is omnipotent, he can't "try" to do anything. His will is done, period. If something happens it is by the will of God. If it is a bad thing, then so is he.
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You are choosing to live your life according to your own rules, you get the consequences.
Yes, and God knew this when he created me. And you say that I serve the purpose of strengthening the faith of Christians. God saw this coming, and he created me fully aware of the fact that I would go to Hell. But he did not HAVE to create me!. I did not ask to be made. He saw my life, my heart and my end. And yet he created me with all my attributes in the way that they are. He did not have to, yet he did, and I will burn for all eternity. And you will be in heaven, and you will think of me in hell in all my unending agony, never resting for a moment, and you will smile in blissful happiness as there is no sorrow in heaven and you will laugh at my pain and rejoice in the glory of God's justice. My crime was to fail to understand which path to take, for I was so made that I could not believe.

To me this scenario is sick and repulsive, and it would be even if the roles were switched.
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I think there is a difference between people who were never fortunate enough to learn about God's love and people who outright refuse to believe God loves them and Jesus is their Savior.
How are they treated differently, and how do we know this?
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God makes unbelievers because he loves them just as much as he loves believers.
No, if he loved us he would be merciful enough not to create us for an eternity of torment. Would you not say that non-existence is better than eternal hell?
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@ARAZEC:
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No reason - just without relationship with God theres no freedom does it have to have a reason?
Nope, it does not need to have a reason. But you still need to demonstrate that it is actually the case, which you have not.
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oh and btw things striving to survive isnt why we have life

Its actually the stopping of striving to survive and trusting God that gives life (not in a physical sense
Well, I'm talking about in the physical sense, so that is entirely besides the point.
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oh i get it - you dont actually think that -you dont think the universe is deterministic and you dont see evidence of a God/s and you dont think things have to have reason for being or a purpose...
Exactly! Now we're getting somewhere :)
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O.k so what DO you think about how the universe is ?
Do you want me to list all the properties of the universe that I've ever heard of? It's expanding, it has stars and galaxies, it has a microwave background radiation...should I go on?

Oh and I do think we have sufficient evidence to say that there is a universe.
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and also how do emotions evolve?
I dunno. I wasn't around when it happened. I could venture a guess based on the mechanisms of evolution though:

Since some organisms eat each other, an organism that tries to avoid organisms that may eat it has a higher chance of surviving long enough to reproduce: Fear.

Since there is often not enough food around to feed all organisms, an organism that defends its food will have an advantage: Anger.
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Nope, it does not need to have a reason. But you still need to demonstrate that it is actually the case, which you have not.
Well i have shown clearly and deliberately that it is not scientifically possible to create something from nothing and seeing as you dont think things require reasons for being it makes perfect sense to say that God exsists and created the world for us for a reason -and gave us a purpose- even tho he himself had no reason to :) (being God and all)

So why do you have an unbeleif in that? How can you prove to me that this is so unbeleivable ? as an atheist you have said that its not just that you do not know if a God exsists- its also that you have an "unbelief" in the exsistence of God -yet- when it comes to it your beleifs of unbeleif seem dogmatic -I mean where is your empirical evidence that God does not exsist ?

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oh and btw things striving to survive isnt why we have life

Its actually the stopping of striving to survive and trusting God that gives life (not in a physical senseWell, I'm talking about in the physical sense, so that is entirely besides the point.


No its not entirely besides the point because no-where have we agreed that God is just a physical sense? If you want to have a disscussion about God and communicate without discussing things not purely physical you will purposely miss the point of learning about God and communicating and sharing and learning from each other which Concolor I know you like.....

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You think I have given up on finding answers to these things? Of course not. I'm merely pointing out that in the search for whether or not gravity needs to have a reason to pull things together, no such need has been found so far. Thus I see no reason to suppose that there must be a reason for it.


Well Concolor i dont think that you have given up finding the answers to these questions about life - but i do think that being an athiest thus being of the beleif of unbeleif in God limits you in finding answers to some of those questions because the way to knowing this God that we call the author of life begins with beleif !

Suppose you for a learning experience and in a quest to find answers that thus far allude you decide to drop the "unbeleif in God" from your beleifs and keep the "i dont know if there is a God" ?

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Do you want me to list all the properties of the universe that I've ever heard of? It's expanding, it has stars and galaxies, it has a microwave background radiation...should I go on?

Oh and I do think we have sufficient evidence to say that there is a universe.


No of course not - you were saying that you dont think that the universe is a deterministic one,so i was asking you about what you actually do beleive eg- Why you do NOT think the universe is a deterministic one?

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and also how do emotions evolve?I dunno. I wasn't around when it happened. I could venture a guess based on the mechanisms of evolution though:

Since some organisms eat each other, an organism that tries to avoid organisms that may eat it has a higher chance of surviving long enough to reproduce: Fear.

I can see how you attribute fear to avoidance but why do you say its fear and not just call it avoidance ?
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@ARAZEC:
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Well i have shown clearly and deliberately that it is not scientifically possible to create something from nothing
And may I ask exactly when you did this? And also, if you are talking about conservation of mass/energy I fail to see how that is related to rationality and reason?
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and seeing as you dont think things require reasons for being it makes perfect sense to say that God exsists and created the world for us for a reason
No, that would lead to the opposite conclusion. If things don't need a reason, why would we need to invent a reason-maker for all things?
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...God exsists and created the world for us for a reason -and gave us a purpose- even tho he himself had no reason to (being God and all)
I thought your claim was that God DID have a purpose for creating us?
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So why do you have an unbeleif in that?
Did you just invent the word "unbelief"? Am I to interpret this as to say "Why do you not believe this to be true?"? In that case, it is because I do not see your "God did it"-hypothesis as any different, any more explanatory or convincing than the claims that "Allah did it", "The flying spaghetti monster did it", "It came out of the cosmic egg" or "it's a conspiracy by the tree-elves". I reject the hypothesis as unnecessary and not supported by the evidence.
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How can you prove to me that this is so unbeleivable ?
I have just told you why I think it is unlikely, whether it is believable or not depends on the person who is to do the believing - and I am so made that I cannot believe such stories without empirical evidence, coherence with what we know from other fields of knowledge or at least some slight probability of being more likely than other alternatives.
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as an atheist you have said that its not just that you do not know if a God exsists- its also that you have an "unbelief" in the exsistence of God
The second notion follows directly from the first, if I don't know something it would make no sense to simply guess at the alternatives. Since I don't know if any of the Gods presented in the many mythologies of the world exist, it would be haphazard and arbitrary to simply pluck one out of the crowd and say "Sure, this one I'll base my life upon!".
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yet- when it comes to it your beleifs of unbeleif seem dogmatic
Let's ignore what that line says and pretend it says "yet when it comes to your lack of belief in the God of the Bible, you seem quite dogmatic". Well I don't think so. All I need is evidence and coherence with the world we observe and I'm sold.
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I mean where is your empirical evidence that God does not exsist ?
Well, when it comes to the God of the Bible I first of all find him to be logically impossible, as you can see from my discussion with SolarFlare. But there is also plenty of empirical evidence that fly in the face of many of the things reported in the Bible. Take the lack of independent historical records of the resurrection of the many kings around the time when Jesus rose, or the lack of evidence for a global flood or the lack of compatibility with most observations made in the fields of biology, astronomy and geology.

When it comes to the concept of theism per se, i.e. the notion that there could be some form of supernatural deity in some kind of existence, then I find this entirely possible. I just don't see any reason to suppose that there is. And if there was, the only reason as how this being could interact with the natural world would be not at all, as that would cause a measurable event in the natural world, thus making it a natural entity. And a being that cannot interact with the world in which we live is frankly not very interesting.
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No its not entirely besides the point because no-where have we agreed that God is just a physical sense? If you want to have a disscussion about God and communicate without discussing things not purely physical you will purposely miss the point of learning about God and communicating and sharing and learning from each other which Concolor I know you like.....
We were talking about life, not God. If you wish to bring in God you need to have a reason to involve him. As far as I know, life has only a natural component as I have never seen any reason to invent a supernatural one.
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Well Concolor i dont think that you have given up finding the answers to these questions about life - but i do think that being an athiest thus being of the beleif of unbeleif in God limits you in finding answers to some of those questions because the way to knowing this God that we call the author of life begins with beleif !
So in plain English you're telling me to "stop thinking and start believing already!".
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Suppose you for a learning experience and in a quest to find answers that thus far allude you decide to drop the "unbeleif in God" from your beleifs and keep the "i dont know if there is a God" ?
But they are the same. Otherwise I would believe in every single God in all of human history. And how could I? I barely know of a fraction of them? And no one has even been able to give me a coherent description of even their own Gods, so how am I supposed to believe in something that is unknowable, unfalsifiable, incomprehensible, wildly improbable and incompatible with most of my experiences in this world? Am I just to throw this "God" concept in a sack and slap the "correct" label on it and call it a day? What if Ch'tulu is NOT the right label?
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No of course not - you were saying that you dont think that the universe is a deterministic one,so i was asking you about what you actually do beleive eg- Why you do NOT think the universe is a deterministic one?
This one might be a bit hard to follow, but just because I am not convinced that the universe is deterministic, it does NOT mean I think we have established that the universe is NOT deterministic. My position is simply that we do not know this. A lot of your questions for me seem to assume that I am supposed to know everything, which is clearly absurd as I would then be omniscient - and I'm not sure that is even possible to be.
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I can see how you attribute fear to avoidance but why do you say its fear and not just call it avoidance ?
Avoidance is the physical reaction to fear, fear is the emotion that invokes avoidance.
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