[quote]Magicpunch wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]Magicpunch wrote:
[quote]kamui wrote:
“where it is in our power to act it is also in our power not to act”
the absence of an act is not a proof of impotence (nor a refutation of omnipotence).
in this regard, giving us free will or not giving it require exactly the same amount of power.
the only question here is :
does it require the same amount of love and goodness ?
to prove your “if god exist, he is evil” point, you actually have to prove it’s morally better to create perfectly programmed automata than to create free humans.
problem is that a world made of perfectly programmed automata would NOT be good, it would be absolutely neutral. absolutely amoral.[/quote]
you forget that the burden of proof is on the claimant. as soon as you claim a god, you must claim his attributes, you must define him (even if you say “he is not definable”)
most people on this forum are forgetting that to call god perfect, is to transfer human ideas of perfection, onto a being whom we cannot place in a box (apparently)
as for automatons and an amoral world - what is wrong with such a world? how is such a world worse than our “good” world? show me.
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What you and others might be missing here is one simple fact. Believing in God takes “faith” and in fact as the Bible states “it is impossible to please God without faith.” Hence, there is no burden of proof on kamui, me or anyone else who believes in God. I cannot prove his existence and I have never tried to. If at the very root of Christianity is faith then wouldn’t it be somewhat counter productive to waste time trying to prove God exists? There is no question in my mind that there would not be enough evidence to make such a claim as then faith would mean nothing and that would contradict the Bible.
That’s why most of these religious threads are pointless. But then again most threads on any message board that debate politics or religion are quite pointless. Something must happen in your life, that is very personal to you for you to have any sort of religious transformation. Some anonymous guy (like me) on a message board telling you to believe is just stupid. So, I’m not going to do it. As I said many posts ago, we are each on our own personal journey. Someday God may grab your attention in a variety of ways and then you’ll get it. Or, someday I may wake up and start thinking crazy thoughts like there is no God (Not going to happen:).
Peace To You In The Mean Time,
Zeb
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Exactly! Ok, phew! At least we agree that faith is the key ingredient. For the record, I had a considerable amount of faith until only a few years ago, and so I know the feeling. I have some faith even now, but it has been eroded over the last few years. I guess my transformation has gone the other way (certainly for now) and the bit of faith I have, I’m keeping it in check, so as to allow myself every avenue of discovery.
I’ve basically decided that faith isn’t enough for me. The very dumbed down reason for this is that, if I can have faith in x religion and x god, then why not have the same belief in y god and y religion?
And I also agree about debating on these forums. I don’t suppose anyone is really trying to change anyone else’s mind. But it does help to hear a novel argument, and to keep the mind relatively sharp.
Cheers for now.
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Catholic.com has podcasts of a Catholic radio station (under radio at the top) that talk about the Catholic faith and church. And, one of the things I like about the Catholic Church is that it is faith and reason. I came to the Church by reason and developed my faith from there.
As well you can look up Catholic information at newadvent.com. I wish I could point you to a certain thing to start you off with, but I suggest you listen to the open forums for non-catholics (they’ll say which one’s they are in the radio calender).
There are also tracts and other resources under the library link that are very useful, specially if you want to become an apologist.
