CABER: Good call. In short, God is a grab-bag for all unexplained stuff. You throw in what you want.
With that type of logic, nobody can prove you’re right or wrong – specially if one does not want to hear contrary evidence to his PERSONAL belief (or PERSONAL truths) or open-mindedly submit it to evidence/burden of proof/scientific analysis.
I have a math degree, and what I learned my senior year of classes is that everyone has faith. If you didn’t, you could not believe the universe is really here. There are basically too many things we cannot prove that we assume.
Ask anyone WHY they believe in evolution. Most people can’t tell you, or when they do, they mention Neanderthals, which anyone who even does a cursory study knows we are not descended from. For that matter, ask anyone WHY they believe in anything, most people can’t say. That is well a demonstration that everyone has faith. It’s just is your faith in a God? or is it in the laws of science that you think exist but don’t know about or have even thought about?
Just like another poster said, you can’t argue with faith. I just say everyone has faith.
Two good book that relate that deal mainly with Astronomy and Cosmology and Physics:
Show Me God- by Heeren - this obviously is from a Theist (actually Christian) perspective, but it is a good summary of thought over the past 50 years.
The End of Physics - by Lindley - this is not a christian book, but rather pure science. It is about how many of the theories of science nowadays are merely theory with no way to prove them. i.e. FAITH. Science has in effect become a religion. This goes along with (Kant’s I believe) the view of paradigms driving scientific thought.
Airborne11b: So there is nothing intrinsically wrong with rape? What about child abuse? Indisciminate murder?
In our culture we are taught to love our neighbors and in others they are taught to canniblize them. According to your world view nothing would be wrong with cultures who eat their neighbors because these are the values that they grew up with.
During WWII Hitler convinced most of Germany that the exterminations of the Jews was a good thing, Again, according to your philosophy, that is okay because they were brought up to believe that. What if Hitler would have won WWII and convinced most of the world that ethnic cleansing was acceptable?
In the view that you espouse nothing would be wrong. But to the absolutist it would still be wrong even if Hitler won and convinced the world that genocide is good, because an absolute value of right and wrong are independent of what people may think.
A world of subjective moral values is plainly unliveable in the real world.
Objective moral values do exist!
Funny thing is people always think of God as supernatural…he could be the ultimate scientist. Creating the universe sounds like a kickass display of skill. Hehehe. 
It still begs the question of where did his universe come from etc etc. Damn that circular logic!!!
I am Roman Cathloic but I a don’t follow it on a religous basis. But, I do believe in God and Jesus.
Here’s my thoughts on religon its not wether or not you believe in Jesus or not as long as you have some type of religon it gives you guidence and faith. The ones that don’t believe in anything usually are lost and have know faith.
In essence all religon preach the same thing. Its a guide that we follow and believe in.
I do not think that anyone can confirm or deny god without actually trying to develop a relationship with him. I am a Christian and believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. It is not about mearly following the rules and “Dogma” so to speak but actually knowing god. To many Christians today acknowledge God with thier mouths and then deny him with thier lifestyles and I firmley believe that is one of the leading causes of disbelief in the world. I have no way of putting into words the works god has done in my life that are beyond the relm of chance. But i can guaranty that if you actually seek Jesus and a real relationship with him, he will prove himself real to you. But it takes you truly seeking that before anyone can truly argue if God exists or not.
fitone: I disagree. One simply cannot say that all religions are essentially the same. To illustrate, the various world religions view the human problem differently - whether it is from desire(Buddhism),ignorance(Hinduism),or sin and rebellion against a holy God(Christianity). Different views of the human problem will affect the path of "salvation"or"liberationto be sought. Most religions tend to see salvation as achieved through human efforts - whether through asceticicsm,mysticism, illumination,or good deeds. Christianity on the other hand, asserts that salvation isn’t the result of human achievment and human endevor but through the initiating kindness of God’s grace. There are other examples I could give but I’ll say this as a wrap up - All religions are superficially the same but fundamentally different.
Quote, DAN C: “or open-mindedly submit it to evidence/burden of proof/scientific analysis.”
This’ll probably get me flamed, but whatever- I know God is there because I can feel his presence- I talk to him, and he talks back. I ask questions, I get answers.
How do I submit that for scientific analysis? And more to the point, why should I?
I don’t have to justify my beliefs to anyone, nor do I have to prove God’s existence. At the same time, neither will I try to force YOU to believe in God, if that’s your choice.
What kills me is the hostility non- believers have for those with faith- i guess it comes from the hypocrisy of those who preach the loudest but fall the hardest.
Anyway, this debate won’t end here, but I know what I believe and I hope the rest of you find what you’re looking for.
Jesus died for my sins 2000 years ago. I bet he would have changed his mind if he could see all the tranny porn I look at! God I love sinning!
"Jesus died for my sins 2000 years ago. I bet he would have changed his mind if he could see all the tranny porn I look at! God I love sinning! "
lol…
You’ll rot in hell for all eternity for that one.
Caber good point. Don’t condem just do valid science. Likewise don’t preach down our throats. Utopia is so easy.
chrisb has a good point. The more scientifically geared forumites have forgotten that nothing can be proven perfectly. F=ma is an approximation, and so is all mathematics when applied to the real world.
Speaking of F=ma, lets go down a crazy road. Lets say that there is no God and the big bang has been proven to be 100% true. If you knew all the positions and velocities of all of the particles everywhere you could then use it then to predict where everything is where everything is going.
Now say that we have done that and we can now go a step further. If we know the position and the exact make up of our primordial soup particles we can figure out every species known to man from the time of conception and even predict the future of each.
One more step, now that the universe and species permutations are predictable, we come to a freaky thought. If you are a product of the universe and the primodial soup, a organic machine than only processes and responds to stimuli ( which is becoming the “in” view of evolution ) and are subject to the laws of the universe then you have no say in anything! Every choice you make is really not a choice at all but the result of a huge formula that spans the universe. That is if there is only the big bang. I hope someone understands my rant as everyone knows I have a huge problem with the English language despite being born and raised here. 
People take this stuff too seriously.
Reason to believe in a god:
If you believe and you are wrong, it won?t change a thing.
If you don?t believe and you are wrong, you might be in fucking trouble.
Reason not to believe:
People often have the statement that the universe is so phenomenal that it had to be created. But is God more phenomenal then the universe or not? If he is then wouldn’t that mean he had to be created by an even more phenomenal God? A god of God? Then again if he is not more phenomenal then the universe then what does that mean?
And on to my rant:
Some believe that the universe is God. If so then god exists. Personally I don?t think it really matters. If you believe, great, and if you don’t, that’s fine too. If there is a god then I doubt he would actually be so conceded to want himself put on a pedestal. Why would he want to be worshiped? What does he gain from it? Wouldn?t being good caring people be enough?
Science is full of theory. If a theory is proven wrong then it must be dropped. But it must be proven so. As long as God is not disproved then he can theoretically exist. Then again I think it would be centuries before we would be able to prove or disprove the existence of a god, if ever.
As far as evolution, it exists. I understand the idea that “microevolution” exists, but not “macroevolution”, but this is incorrect logic. If it can occur once, then twice, a third time, and so on, then what happens after the millionth microevolution?
I read a story of a scientist who took a strain of bacteria that could not metabolize a certain form of sugar. The bacteria began dying, and did a 180 and began thriving of the sugar. This occurred time after time. This might be evidence that evolution does not always occur randomly, but is influenced by stress on an organism.
People take advantage of this in the breading of plants and animals. Dogs are a human creation. A forced evolution. Nature never created a dachshund. The breeders of palomino ponies say you can only make them so small, then they quit looking like a horse.
I caught a scientist on the 700 Club a few years ago (strange for an atheist to watch this?) and he stated that evolution was not only real, but that creation never ended. It is an ongoing process. He even stated that life on earth appeared in the order stated in the bible, and becomes understandable if the days are defined differently using a mathematical formula used in physics. So his argument was that creation is evolution, or that evolution is the tool god uses for creation.
One of the theories of the creation of the universe is a superstring theory. The universe was originally 10 dimensions, but was unstable as such. Eventually it collapsed and caused the “Big Bang”. The higher dimensions shrunk and the lower three (or four) expanded.
And as far as creating something from nothing, this is a hard thing to understand, but if you take noting and divide it into two parts, one positive, and one negative, you end up with something from nothing. It is believed that if you total all the energy of the universe up you end up with zero.
The best way to understand this division is think of what banks do. If you borrow a $1000 then you have $1000 that you didn’t have before. But you also have a $1000 debt. Total these up and you end up with nothing. But that $1000 can still be used, whether it exists or not.
Back to the original subject, I don’t believe I have the right to tell anyone whether they should believe or not. This is a personal thing, and I won’t call anyone ignorant for believing or not, but I will always point out the facts, and if anyone tries to give me their beliefs they had better be ready to listen to mine.
Now lets muddy the water. Anyone heard about that study that found a minor, but “statistically significant” result from prayer assisting people to get better? (The patients were not aware of this prayer.) Also it didn’t matter what religion was involved in the prayer, if any.
mace, lol at that.
You can’t really know the position and velocity of any of the small particles so we don’t risk comming to that conclusion.
Anyone read that book by Stephen Hawkings that goes something like “Searching for a theory of everything?”.
I started reading and it has been a really interesting read so far. I’ll probably finish it soon and post some remarks here.
First off, Awsome post! The Mage, I’m with you buddy, I have delved deeply into my own spiritual life and can shed some light for you. It is obvios that not many of you seriously meditate, for if you did many things would be more in focus. The universe is infinite, that is a common belief, and since it is impossible to prove then it can and will always remain a belief. There are other things which are infinite. Just because we cannot physically detect or measure something yet, does not mean it doesn’t exist. Each human (and any other living thing), has spiritual energy. Some eastern cultures call this Chi or life force, Western cultures look at this as our spirit, our connection to god. I view it as a very physical extension of our bodies, which is connected to our physical bodies via nerve ganglia and nerve endings, and on the metaphysical side through Chakras. Methods of communication are not clear between one spiritual form and another, however this can easily explain how you can feel someone staring at you which is a common phenomenom. This is how Praying can effect a sick individual, through the spiritual mechanisms. There are some people who claim they can see spiritual entities. Many of you know of john edwards show on sci-fi, he has a sensitivity to a portion of his spiritual mechanism. Believe it or not this is what I have learned through many years of reading and practicing various metaphysical arts.
Still cant shoot energy balls out of my hands though!
Shaf - You do not have to burn in hell for that, that is what Jesus died for was the forgiveness of sins. I know you ment what you said as a joke, but it was a perfect oppertunity to make the point that God is not a condemming God, we make the decesion about what we want here, he just makes sure to give it to us.
rep9210: Well can something come from nothing? What does science say about it?
The problem of genetic probability is so vast that to use an analogy of a “roayal flush” is truly absurd and could only come from someone who hasn’t read anything about the subject.
Here we are talking about the origin of the universe. Hoe does a world without absolutes work out existentially?
restless: I gave you 2 examples of aetheistic scientists who thought evolution highly improbable in an earlier thread. If you need more I can give them to you.
How does my use of the words “apes or whatever it is” negate the assertions made by atheistic scientists on their doubts about evolution?
In reference to your previous thread - since when do atheisitic scientists become clouded by faith?
TECHDAWG:
(…)You do not have to burn in hell for that, that is what Jesus died for was the forgiveness of sins.(…)</block quote></font color>Man, I`d rather believe/trust in somebody who really lived, who was willing to die for others, like any Navy SEAL, USMC Bulldog, or any person in the military who puts his guts on the line for others.
At least, they exist for real, and you don
t have to rely on <u>biased</u> history books to prove it. Its hard to forge a legend, specially with a big trackrecord of the likes of Patton, Chesty Puller, Richard (Dick) Marcinko, Lt. Col. Harold Moore (We Were Soldiers) (the list is too long) with all the administrative and ID checks of the last century.On the other hand, the further you go back in time, the easier it is to forge a legend. Without insulting any one of any religion, forging a Buddhah or a Christ and building a mythology around them nowadays would be damn near, if not absolutely, impossible.
Just my 2 cents.
Actually it has been proved through science. The earth was created 4.5 billion years ago, not 3000 B.C. and certainly not in 7 days.