Evidence for creationism
- Thread starter Arakhor
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Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
Someone has been watching QI 
And I believe in crop circles as well.
And I believe in crop circles as well.
Chukchi Husky
Lone Wolf
What is UU?
Haseri
Emperor
Unseen University, of Ankh-Morpork, Discworld.
Guilty as charged.Someone has been watching QI
I can however list the twelve monarchies of Europe without consulting a map.
Tani Coyote
Son of Huehuecoyotl
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I suppose; God doesn't act because of the limits he imposes on himself. He imposes the limit of respect for free will, much as humans generally respect eachother's right to life. It probably tears him apart inside watching his children suffer, but he can't intervene, lest he violate his greatest gift to them.
...Of course, that doesn't stop him from cheating and planting suggestions for good in people's heads. He can try to push us all towards a better path... but at the same time, retain his respect for free will.
Well I already explained why this is irrelevant in regards to me.
If any goalposts were shifted, it wasn't intentional.
Well, this isn't my God per se, just what I think any Judeo-Christian God would be like. I'm not religious.
I take good concepts and expand upon them in my free time; God's policy of free will is the most noticeable one. Another would be that, in his kindness, he doesn't require belief in him to be welcomed into Heaven(you will, after all, believe in him right away upon entering, most likely); he merely requests you act good to get into it. An extension of this is that any sinner who genuinely repents and changes their mindset will be forgiven.
There could be none, one, few, or many as far as I'm concerned. One god or group could be the source of life, or could be super-powerful spirits that grew over time. For the purposes of this debate, I use a monotheistic, Judeo-Christian God.
God is a term of convenience since it's an easily-identifiable entity. I could call him Chuck Norris, Shadow the Hedgehog, or Pikachu and it would still be a useful placeholder for simplicity's sake. But "God" is considered the most respectful and easily recognised title.
You sound awfully like the Judeo-Christian priests, but now you claim not to use the same source...
Jesus is supposed to be the closest to God.
But he did not write the Bible; it was written by men as easily corruptible as anyone else.
Furthermore, between schisms, changing interpretations, manipulation, and translations, the Bible should moreso be a source of inspiration, rather than any literal source.
One should think individually about God and come to their own conclusions; you have concluded he is either evil or limited in power, whereas I have concluded the horrors of mortal life are explained by his respect for free will.
Not to mention... why does an idea become more/less valid based on age or people endorsing it?
Well, if you know a person's nature, you can make predictions. Especially if they are bound by their own personal restraints, as God is(in my opinion).
You chose to not believe, did you not? You chose to question him when you could have submitted. You can choose what to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or choose not to eat at all. You have choices; real slaves do not. This is beyond what we humans could do; God could enslave the mind and soul itself.
Well, first, you're a human being, so chances are you're not Satan.
Second, the many views of Satan.
Third, you probably have a strong code of moral ethics, something any incarnation of evil could not have by definition.
Freedom of choice covers the grains of sand that are humans as much as Satan; chances are you're just like me, a human being with their own set of choices.
please show how the definition "sadist" includes slavery of all humans
Well, it would be very sadistic for God to turn you into say, a human sock puppet and make you kill your loved ones... all the while, you get to witness this going on but have no control over yourself. Slavery's a very nice way to enact widespread sadism.
Who are these people who don't have free will? Even when cornered at gunpoint, you have freedom of action. You can sit there, or you can try and fight back.
We also need remember that God is likely more concerned with the eternal rather than the temporal. He desires us all to be good or, if evil, repent, so that we may enjoy eternal bliss with him in his domain.
And, on top of that, even when you are restrained physically, you are probably still in control of your mind and soul. Thoreau said it was the folly of government intimidation; it treats you as if you're solely flesh, blood and bone, not capable of comprehending your eternal soul and your mind, which can live on long after your body perishes. Evil humans, similarly, suffer this fatal flaw: they cannot comprehend that while they can crush a person into dust, they cannot crush their spirit.
If God lets people suffer, I don't think he enjoys it one bit. He just has no choice but to painfully accept that he can't violate free will... He's erected a prison around himself.
I meant, unpunished by God.
God would not hold genetic issues against someone, I'm pretty sure. Only one's choices; the baby did not choose to be addicted, and so cannot be held accountable, at least until it is able to try and wean itself off the substance.
This is easily explained by a Deist God whose main purpose is to set the natural laws in motion - those same things that cause birth defects, even when nobody did anything to the developing child. Just as how God may have started the Big Bang, but let things develop on their own from there.
As compensation for this cruelty, God won't hold things that weren't of your choosing against you. I also imagine any killed unborn goes automatically to Heaven... that or is reincarnated to give it the chance it was deprived of.
Explained by a Deist God, who respects the actions of nature as much as the actions of humanity.
Now, as to why he'd do that, I don't have an answer; nature is not a person and cannot think, thus it cannot have free will. It does, however, have laws that govern its behavior, and God must respect these for some reason or another.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
One of two shows I watch religiously on the BBC (other being Top Gear)Guilty as charged.
Impressive :darth vader: I can do ... 4.
the best evidence is the big bang
another one is the third law of thermodinamics, shure randomness could have produced live, but not in the time span that the universe has. So there must be a force of order repeling entropy.
I suppose; God doesn't act because of the limits he imposes on himself. He imposes the limit of respect for free will, much as humans generally respect eachother's right to life. It probably tears him apart inside watching his children suffer, but he can't intervene, lest he violate his greatest gift to them.
...Of course, that doesn't stop him from cheating and planting suggestions for good in people's heads. He can try to push us all towards a better path... but at the same time, retain his respect for free will.
but you continue to argue within the constraints of Judeo-Christian tradition, as long as it pleases you. Very confusing, usually called (if done intentionally), obfuscation. You also ADMIT that this debate is about the Judeo-Christian godWell I already explained why this is irrelevant in regards to me.why then dismiss the very basis that god is founded on? That's called cherry-picking, another favorite of apologists, but not a fair tool in debates.
I believe you. It happens to all of us. The reason here is that you, on one hand, argue about the JC god, but at the same time "make up" (in the broadest sense) your personal version of it. That means that I have barely any data on the god you talk about. And that's not going to lead to any reasonable result, and it is not going to give any insight on creationism.
Good for you
I am not interested in talking about your personal (not-)god, and I am sorry if I misunderstood your post I first quoted as talking about the Judeo-Christian god that supposedly created heaven and earth and all life, either 6000 or some billion years ago. That god is usually claimed to be benevolent and omnipotent, and as we both have shown that's impossible.
(sorry, post probably somewhat screwed up, firefox keeps crashing)
Well, on the Internet it's impossible to prove that I didn't check, but they're Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Spain, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Monaco and the Vatican City (Europe's only absolute monarchy).
It's also wildly off-topic.
How does the Big Bang prove creationism? Also, given 15 billion years or so of proposed universe existence, I find it very hard to believe that these so-called "random factors" could not do almost anything at all.
Haseri
Emperor
You can't get any colder than -273.16 C (-459.67 F/0 K), and because of the second law of thermodynamics (heat energy moves from hot areas to colder areas), such a tempreture is impossible to cool down to? How does that prove creationism?
Or are you talking about the first law, which says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed into another form?
http://ncse.com/rncse/30/3/americans-scientific-knowledge-beliefs-human-evolution-year-
That's an interesting link to a Gallup poll about how widespread various creationist beliefs are in the US and how inconsistently believed they are.
That's an interesting link to a Gallup poll about how widespread various creationist beliefs are in the US and how inconsistently believed they are.
Akka
Moody old mage.
Yet, again, God created a world where life is based on creatures preying on each others, while his omnipotence + omnibenevolence would make it logical and possible to make a world where all lifeforms simply can live together in happiness.This is getting tiresome very quick. Could you be less rude?
Omnipotence: God's only limits are his self-restraint. He could kill all of us, kill Satan, etc. if he so chose. But he himself has choices, and he chooses love over bloodlust and vengeance. Therefore, God is perfectly omnipotent. But just because you have power doesn't mean you must use it.
Omnibenevolence: God's emphasis on free will, capability of forgiveness for those who genuinely wish to atone, and reward for those who stay good is proof enough of omnibenevolence. That emphasis on free will forbids involvement in this world's suffering.
Ignoring facts disproving your logical gaping holes won't make them go away, though that's the favourite tactics of people proved wrong.
Tani Coyote
Son of Huehuecoyotl
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I concurred with CarlosMM that this is veering off-topic, but let's take another angle:
If we assume God to be non-interventionist in the world's nature as much as its people's actions, then it is perfectly explainable. God set the natural laws in motion, yes?
Those natural laws gave rise to evolution, natural selection, and all that nifty scientific stuff. In Heaven, we wouldn't need to prey on eachother since God wields total control over that realm from start to finish, but for the temporal universe, he only created the start.
Anyway, this is getting tiresome. If we're just going to go in circles, what's the point? I'm agreeing to disagree. I believe that is all.
If there was no need to prey upon each other in Heaven, then why did the Devil feel the need to rebel? Obviously, he had unsatiated needs. Alternatively, he just knew God better than we do.
Whiskey_Lord
Deity
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An interesting point about the devil. I'm still wondering why a God of perfect goodness would create such complete evil. Boredom and want for a cosmic chess opponent?
No i'm talking about the steadily increase of entropy in the universe due to the imposibility of nule or negative entropy. Spontaneous changes are always accompanied by a dispersal of energy. From that we have that creation was the moment of lower entropy and hance order and that creation could not be a spontaneous fenomenon because the need of negative entropy to put the universe in its initial state. Armagedon also has its conterpart in science called "the heat death of the universe" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_Universe
In other words the universe had to be worked by an entity that is outside of the universe before it could be created.
Akka
Moody old mage.
He made the laws that give rise to lifeforms that needs to prey on each others. So he created a situation that he knew was full of preying and death and pain. That just doesn't reconcile with an omniscient, omnipotent being.
We're going in circle because you fail at logical reasoning. It's not about "agreeing" or "point of view", it's just broken logic, and you just refuse to see it.
You don't set up rules that create a situation of misery if you're omniscient and omnibenevolent, no matter how you try to twist the point around and ignoring this simple fact.
Well, the devil cannot be 'complete evil', because it would have to be omniscient to excise all the good from its personality. But it's the same question as allowing any evil. Almost all answers require a constraint upon omnipotence much greater than is logically necessary.
However, I prefer the answer that the 'Creator is not good'. It's simpler and it fits all the evidence.
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