[quote]forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
It does exist. It blew through my gut with rapt efficiency. It was evil.
I have faith that it exists. How is your faith in a fairy tale god any better than mine?[/quote]
Yours has a discoverable source with a finite beginning… Somebody made it up, but no logic could support it’s existence beyond the mind…All athiests and agnostics use it. You could not make a logical argument that the fly spaghetti monster is the uncaused-cause.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Personal revelation, faith, reason. Think of a stool with three legs. But, again, I don’t claim to be an agnostic who makes definitively claims as to who god isn’t.[/quote]
Personal revelation, faith, and reason can be misguided. They are not final proof of an absolute truth. So why not be honest and admit you could be wrong?
[quote]forlife wrote:
An infinite gravitational force is an energy; you’re only converting matter to energy rather than destroying it.
Let’s not get diverted, though. The point is that you can’t prove the universe is NOT an uncaused cause. It is entirely possible that it has always existed, and if you are honest you will admit the possibility.[/quote]
Gravity is not energy…at all.
The universe cannot be an uncaused-cause because by definition and uncause-cause cannot be subject to the causal chain as the universe clearly is. I already said that. It necessarily has to sit outside the causal chain.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Personal revelation, faith, reason. Think of a stool with three legs. But, again, I don’t claim to be an agnostic who makes definitively claims as to who god isn’t.
Personal revelation, faith, and reason can be misguided. They are not final proof of an absolute truth. So why not be honest and admit you could be wrong?[/quote]
Because I place faith that I’ve chosen correctly. You’re the one with the philosophy that requires you to accept that I might be right.
[quote]pat wrote:
The universe cannot be an uncaused-cause because by definition and uncause-cause cannot be subject to the causal chain as the universe clearly is. I already said that. It necessarily has to sit outside the causal chain.[/quote]
Oh really? So it is impossible for there to be a cause-relationship effect between let’s say, your prayers to god and the answers you receive to those prayers? As an uncaused cause, your god cannot be subject to the causal chain.
[quote]forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
The universe cannot be an uncaused-cause because by definition and uncause-cause cannot be subject to the causal chain as the universe clearly is. I already said that. It necessarily has to sit outside the causal chain.
Oh really? So it is impossible for there to be a cause-relationship effect between let’s say, your prayers to god and the answers you receive to those prayers? As an uncaused cause, your god cannot be subject to the causal chain.[/quote]
Uh, what?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Because I place faith that I’ve chosen correctly. You’re the one with the philosophy that requires you to accept that I might be right. [/quote]
Placing faith that you’ve chosen correctly without actual proof doesn’t make you right, it only makes you unjustifiably confident.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Because I place faith that I’ve chosen correctly. You’re the one with the philosophy that requires you to accept that I might be right.
Placing faith that you’ve chosen correctly without actual proof doesn’t make you right, it only makes you unjustifiably confident.[/quote]
Prove it.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Placing faith that you’ve chosen correctly without actual proof doesn’t make you right, it only makes you unjustifiably confident.
Prove it.
[/quote]
It’s called logic, look it up.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Placing faith that you’ve chosen correctly without actual proof doesn’t make you right, it only makes you unjustifiably confident.
Prove it.
It’s called logic, look it up.[/quote]
Cute. Now prove it.
[quote]pat wrote:
forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
The universe cannot be an uncaused-cause because by definition and uncause-cause cannot be subject to the causal chain as the universe clearly is. I already said that. It necessarily has to sit outside the causal chain.
Oh really? So it is impossible for there to be a cause-relationship effect between let’s say, your prayers to god and the answers you receive to those prayers? As an uncaused cause, your god cannot be subject to the causal chain.
Uh, what?
[/quote]
You said an uncaused cause is outside the causal chain, and thus by definition it cannot be affected by what it creates.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Cute. Now prove it.[/quote]
Prove that drawing a conclusion without supportive evidence can result in confidence, but doesn’t necessariliy reflect reality? WTF?
[quote]forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Cute. Now prove it.
Prove that drawing a conclusion without supportive evidence can result in confidence, but doesn’t necessariliy reflect reality? WTF?[/quote]
Prove that I’m wrong.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Prove that I’m wrong.[/quote]
I don’t know if you’re wrong or not. I’m honest enough to admit you could be right. Are you honest enough to admit that you could be wrong?
[quote]forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Prove that I’m wrong.
I don’t know if you’re wrong or not. I’m honest enough to admit you could be right. Are you honest enough to admit that you could be wrong?[/quote]
That’s what christians call doubt. If we didn’t experience it, then we’d be able to say “Jesus look, I DID move the damn mountain!” Not that “damn” would be polite in such company. Every christian doubts, that’s where the faith part comes in. The idea of faith is not hidden away in the super secret vatican vaults, waiting to see the light of day in a Dan Brown novel, it’s out in the open for all to see.
My point is that I live by the christian “philosophy,” not the agnostic. The agnostic, in order to stay true to himself, MUST entertain not only the possibility of my God, but the possibility of Odin. Or, even, the accidently stumbled upon omnipotent Spaghetti monster.
So you do admit that your god might not be real after all. Cool, that’s all I wanted to hear.
[quote]forlife wrote:
So you do admit that your god might not be real after all. Cool, that’s all I wanted to hear.[/quote]
Not quite that simple. I place my faith that God is real, but experience doubt. If you wanted to know if christians experience doubt, as I said, that’s out in the open. “Doubting Thomas” is a widely known figure.
If you experience doubt, that means that at some level you admit that your belief may not reflect objective reality.
[quote]forlife wrote:
If you experience doubt, that means that at some level you admit that your belief may not reflect objective reality.[/quote]
But I’m not required, per my “philosophy,” to accept it. You’re required to accpet the possibilty of my God’s, and a thick-sauced spaghetti monster’s, existence. And that, is where we shall never meet.
There is a difference between doubting something is and doubting to the point of losing faith. The first is a religious person logically considers whether God is present. The second is when the person loses faith and goes with logic to deny God.
Just because you doubt Gods existence doesn’t mean you deny God. All you are doing is using your free will to evaluate the situation.
As stated above, I believe in God. But how I live my life has little to do with this belief. Instead, I live my life to do what is right and to help others. I would do this whether God existed or not. If God exists, bonus for me. If it is the spaghetti monster, I will have a lot of explaining to do on why I avoided carbs for so long.
In the end, God doesn’t judge you on what you know, did, thought. God judges you on if you tried: if you tried to find truth with all your heart and if you tried to do what is right. Maybe your search for truth turns up that there is no God. If there is a God, how can God punish you for this belief but forgive me for my own faulty beliefs. Thus, in God’s eyes we are the same.
Forlife, how does trying to belittle someone’s faith or make them doubt it better you or the other person?