Prove God Exists - Act Three

[CurtSibling]

Why must there be a creator? Our world was created from swirling matter- why do you believe that whatever started it all must be an intelligent and alive creature?

@Corsair:
I agree with your point.

It is so human for us to attach our sad little arrogances to all and sundry.

By the authority-seeking logic of our forebears:
Even the macro-universe must have been made by a humanoid entity,
because we cannot face the reality that we are alone on this world.

Well that counts the for religionists anyway.

 

[FearlessLeader2]

@FL2-
If you think true Christianity is the word of God without mans interference, then you must ignore the entire Bible as it was written by men, and was not dictated directly by God.

In this you and I disagree. The Bible was set fown by man, but dictated by God. I believe this because that is what the evidence tells me. 30-odd humans, from 2 religions, several cultures, and many languages, over the span of 2500 years, managed to write a book that maintains a common theme and writing style throughout, that the Oxford Literary Society, a group noted for its humorous reductions of political speeches, could do nothing to. I regard these facts as strong evidence that the Bible is a superhuman work, and that the men who penned it were not authors, but secretaries. You don't believe this, for whatever reason.

None of the religious books were- they were by men who said they were acting in God's name- there is no proof if they are or are not, so I judge by the odds, the history of Christianity, the evidence either way (such as it is) etc., whether it is ture- I decided it is not.

The odds are utterly irrelevant, ask any evolutionist. The history of false Christianity is likewise irrelevant. The evidence, as I noted above, is powerful, and favors the divine.

Religious Fundamentalism stems from taking holy books too literally, especially since the Books were wrote in a rather barbaric time in the past, and many of the things mentioned would not be tolerated today, so the trick is, essentially to choose what part of the Bible to listen to, which even you yourself are guilty of- you choose yourself what you take to be literal or metaphoric, despite the fact that the very people who wrote the Bible often believed many things, such as the Garden of Eden to be literal. Then again, some didn't. Religious people simply seem to pick and choose what parts suit them.

No studious reader of the Bible has difficulty distinguishing between the symbolic and the literal. Many axe-grinding atheists easily blur those lines to their arguments' advantages. Since no atheist cares to carefully study the Bible, and no theist is neutral, it becomes a matter of choosing which bias to listen to. Why should I listen to the bias of one who is willfully ignorant of that which he decries over the bias of one who has at least studied it carefully?

 

[FearlessLeader2]

A small theological point brought to mind by some of the recent posts - God made man in His image. Man is flawed. Is God perfect? Either God is as flawed as man (because man is an accurate image), or God was unable to make an accurate image of himself (in which case he is not perfect).

When Adam drew his first breath, he was perfect. He did not get sick, he did not have any need to fear death, for it held no power over him. Only when he sinned did he begin to die.

 

[King Alexander]

When Adam drew his first breath, he was perfect. He did not get sick, he did not have any need to fear death, for it held no power over him. Only when he sinned did he begin to die.

One has to wonder about WHY did God forbid Adam to eat the apple? Why indeed... Maybe because he was mean, and wanted his creatures to be punished
OR, according to my theory, he didn't want to share paradise with others.

 

[FearlessLeader2]

One has to wonder about WHY did God forbid Adam to eat the apple? Why indeed... Maybe because he was mean, and wanted his creatures to be punished
OR, according to my theory, he didn't want to share paradise with others.

The only thing one has to wonder is why Adam chose to think with the wrong organ that day. WTG, great^nth grandpa! (not)

Our morality, IE what is right and what is wrong, comes from God. If He says don't eat it, then you don't eat it. They were God's 'apples', and Adam received stolen property. Case closed.

 

[CurtSibling]

The adam and eve myth has given me a good idea for a thread...

 

[the mormegil]

Pray tell.

 

[Moss]

Oh God please no...

BTW, all of this discussing is really worthless, but interesting. We'll never find the answers to these questions until we are dead anyway...

 

[Smidlee]

If God was interested in improving the human nature, he would make his creations flawless.
Worship IS NOT only an act of love: it is also an act of FEAR; without it, all the believers will go to hell instead of paradise.

Would a flawless creations include man though? Personally I found even the creation under the curse is beautiful which makes me wonder what will it be like when God does remove the curse.

Your idea of worship is a strange concept which I know nothing about unless your are referring reverence as fear which is a deep respect with awe and affection.

To make is simple : "Praise" is telling others what God means(and done) to you and "Worship" is telling God what he means to you and being thankful.
Mary in John 12:1-8 it a great example of worship. She took very costly ointment and poured it on Jesus head then anointed his feet and wiped his feet with her hair.

What we do with our choices concerns only us and not God: this is called FREE WILL.

this "free will" seems to be in conflict with flawless creation idea. I remember someone in the news business commented one time that heaven would be a boring place because there would be no more war, crime, etc. to report. To some peace is very boring.

I don't want a God to judge eveyone: I'd want a God that makes NO unfinished jobs(with he's creatures, that is - make them perfect), and get over with it; play civ, chess, or whatever(once 'did his job).

So you want your god to be anti-social? God not planning to leave anything unfinished. The only thing standing in God way to creating a perfect world is man himself so because of His Grace and Mercy he allow unperfect people like you and I to live in his creation.

EDIT: I'd also like to add in #1: It's in the parents' nature to love their children. Isn't it obvious, that God SHOULD love his creations? Can't we pass that, and continue in something else?

God does love his creation and he loves you but love can be rejected. Love can be worst than hatred to the one who rejects it.

 

[Blasphemous]

If Adam was so perfect at first, why did he sin?
God, having created him, obviously knew how he would react when forbidden from eating from the Tree of Knowledge. What this means, is that god designed Adam in a way that would lead him to sin, and then went and coaxed Adam right ahead into exile, making humankind imperfect while he's at it.
Seems to me like a roundabout way to first flatter ourselves by saying god created us in his own (perfect) form, then put in the obvious imperfection while still maintaining the notion that we were created perfect.

 

[smalltalk]

For the believers

Any believer will agree that God is said to be transcendent.
- Which means that no one is ever to understand what "God" really is.

How can you believe into something, when you don't know exactly what it is?
This would be superstition. It is impossible to believe into something, when you don't know it.

You can't believe into God, when you don't know what "God" means.


To the non-believers

Nobody knows what is out there. The universe is much bigger than our imagination. How can you believe there is not something out there, that you never ever thought of?

Edwin A. Abott's novel "Flattland" comes to my mind, where a single-dimension entity says:
"I am the all and only. There is nothing outside me and there is nothing except me."

****

You might call God the "Toe" (Theory of Everything). But it is just semantics.
Before I believe in God, I'd like to hear a strict definition of God.

For practical purposes - it doesn't matter, if there is a God or not. It only matters, what you do in your life - with regards to your friends, to your loved ones and to your enemies.

So, come down to RL and forgett about the devine. The task at hand is to develop a pratical moral stance.

(Difficult enough, considering all the moral juxtapositions.)

 

[anarchywrksbest]

If Adam was so perfect at first, why did he sin?
God, having created him, obviously knew how he would react when forbidden from eating from the Tree of Knowledge. What this means, is that god designed Adam in a way that would lead him to sin, and then went and coaxed Adam right ahead into exile, making humankind imperfect while he's at it.
Seems to me like a roundabout way to first flatter ourselves by saying god created us in his own (perfect) form, then put in the obvious imperfection while still maintaining the notion that we were created perfect.

In my humble opinion I think the snake was a mistake. I don't understand why God put a talking snake there, especially one that blabs about magic trees. And where was God when the snake was doing all the talking to Eve? If God is everywhere then shy didn't he just tell it to piss off.

 

[King Alexander]

Would a flawless creations include man though? Personally I found even the creation under the curse is beautiful which makes me wonder what will it be like when God does remove the curse.

Why not? God can make anything he wants. Why not make a pefect man? Doesn't God wish to make perfect creations, or does he keep "perfection" only for him?

this "free will" seems to be in conflict with flawless creation idea.

I don't get it. A perfect creature, shouldn't be allowed to have free will?

The only thing standing in God way to creating a perfect world is man himself so because of His Grace and Mercy he allow unperfect people like you and I to live in his creation.

If man stands in God's way of having a perfect world, then why he created man? Maybe he should "disband" the human kind.

 

[King Alexander]

For the believers

Any believer will agree that God is said to be transcendent.
- Which means that no one is ever to understand what "God" really is.

How can you believe into something, when you don't know exactly what it is?
This would be superstition. It is impossible to believe into something, when you don't know it.

You can't believe into God, when you don't know what "God" means.

So far, well said.

To the non-believers

Nobody knows what is out there. The universe is much bigger than our imagination. How can you believe there is not something out there, that you never ever thought of?

I believe that there is an alient life form out there, but I'm not sure where.

Edwin A. Abott's novel "Flattland" comes to my mind, where a single-dimension entity says:
"I am the all and only. There is nothing outside me and there is nothing except me."

That sounds to egoistic. Maybe he didn't traveled the universe to find some company. As they say, hope dies last.

For practical purposes - it doesn't matter, if there is a God or not. It only matters, what you do in your life - with regards to your friends, to your loved ones and to your enemies.

That's the point. We should be concerned for letting millions and millions to die from starvation, and diseases, and if some of them them make it to live, we kill them with wars; that's the glorious nature of the human race. If we close our eyes and pretend that we don't know what's happening around us, then all is ok.

 

[nihilistic]

To the non-believers

Nobody knows what is out there. The universe is much bigger than our imagination. How can you believe there is not something out there, that you never ever thought of?

I don't completely negate the possibility of a deity, I merely estimate with the knowledge known to me that that probability is 0. (Note that having a 0 probability is different from being impossible.) Theories with such low probabilities of being correct and having such little ramifications simply do not warrant me expending any extra energy to consider.

 

[luiz]

I have the proof!

If God doesn't exits then who created such beauty?

 

[Perfection]

No studious reader of the Bible has difficulty distinguishing between the symbolic and the literal.

That's a good one!

 

[Birdjaguar]

@Perfection: Is our dialog over?

 

[HamaticBabylon]

Maybe if we stop replaying to these kinds of threads, maybe they will just go way!

 

[Perfection]

@Perfection: Is our dialog over?

Heck no!

Regarding ‘cause and reason’. I see reason as an explanation for an event within a specific context and cause is the explanation when you back up one level. One’s view of how much depth there is to the universe determines when you stop looking for a prior level.

I think that it your definition of cause is bundled with reason. For cause, I thought you were refering to a temporal cause for a certain effect, the thing is all efects don't have a cause.

In a dualistic universe everything exists in relationship to something else. It is the only way we can define discrete things, events and concepts. The self and everything that is not self is the first one we learn. “Somewhere” can only exist in the context of a somewhere/nowhere duality; the same applies to exist and non existent. Both must be possible or the duality is lost. Once you lose duality you are left with an undifferentiated uniformity that is beyond time and space; an all encompassing everything that is permanent and unchanging. This uniformity will swallow all duality by its very nature. If you assign this singular nature to the physical universe, then you are saying that it is the most fundamental to all existence, beyond time and beyond change. Difficult to defend cosmologically.

That's an absurd arguement! We could use that to argue the existance of purple monkey dishwashers!

Within duality our universe fits easily and should have a shadow non universe (characterized by anti matter??). Virtual particles can migrate back and forth according to whatever laws determine such movement. Does this seem to fit with current thinking? Science operates in the dualistic universe.

The don't need a "shadow universe" they simply don't need to exist. Sure I suppose you could say it does, but it's unceccesary.

Whether one accepts that there is anything beyond duality is strictly a personal choice. There is no firm proof.

So?

Are you assigning “real “ to those ideas that exists only within or only outside the mind? Is there really a difference? Does anything exist outside (independent of) the mind? Is all love real? Sometimes I’m not sure whether or not it is all in the mind or all outside the mind. The probabilistic nature of things is only real in the context of our time based, dualistic, physical universe where those laws have to actually work. If that context is the only one you choose to accept, then they are only as permanent as the universe.

Well, it’s a tricky thing because the matter that is our mind is real, but the information that the chemical pathways signify, may or may not be a representation of what is real. That’s basicly how I define real.

I’m not a physicist, but it’s my understanding that’s what string theory and brane theory is all about. Folks are trying to put our time dependent, big bang starting universe in a larger context that accounts for all that before time non universe stuff and still include quantum mechanics and the probabilistic nature of the universe intact.

No, that’s not what it is all about, it’s about explaining how all particles are created. Understanding weather there was a beginning or not may come with the ideas, but it’s not the central point.

The big thing I am rallying against is the fallacy that all things must have a temporal cause.