You can be grateful without believing in God. It’s not mutually exclusive.
I don’t know anything about you. And you I would assume don’t know anything about me. So I’m not sure why you decided to call me out and talk about caving after all the “accusations” I made. Look at how many posts and accusations you went through from me? Please we had a discussion on a message board which is intended for discussion. If you felt I was constantly accusing you or whatever my apologies but I don’t think I put you through much except a discussion. Which is why I assume you are here posting. That just rubbed me the wrong way and I didn’t ignore it when I should have.
Nor does he need to. “I don’t know” is a valid answer here, and dosen’t resign him to the fact that Christianity is true or untrue.
I think the crux of the argument here is what logic allows us to go from the premise “the universe is inexplicable” to the conclusion “God is real.” I don’t think it’s more or less valid than any other explanation.
Rather it poises the question “how can you be certain there isn’t forces beyond our understanding at play?”
I believe there is something beyond our comprehension at hand. That’s what “god” is to me. Perhaps science will be able to explain what led to everything being the way it is.
@unreal24278
We can’t be certain of that. We can be reasonable sure that there are forces beyond our understanding at play - partly because we’re constantly discovering new ways to explain things we previously couldn’t.
I just don’t see how any of this loops back around to the existence of a God. I was under the impression that that was what was being discussed here.
Ah, this is what I was misunderstanding. Thanks for that edit - I thought you were trying to defend Christianity specifically.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you on this. I tend to think that “God” dosen’t need to be a deity; it’s just our way of defining things that are fundamentally unknowable by our current standards.
And for what it’s worth, I hope there’s a benevolent God. And preferably one who won’t send me to hell.
It seems to me that the only reason to discuss the existence of God, is to know whether we are accountable to a Supreme Being for our actions on earth. Apart from that it is a moot point.
One makes about as much sense as the other. And you do get something out of it if you’re a believer. I got a few coins for my belief.
Others got more than that for people’s belief.
Albeit I’m a terrible jew as I have tattoos, eat pork and don’t regularly observe
However I do celebrate shabbas, put on tefillin from time to time and I’ll go to synoguge if someone asks me to go with them as I went every week when I was younger.
Not related but I was on Reddit earlier today, and some women made posts about how they’re more afraid of being raped by men now because of the outcome.
I think it’s outlandish but it is sad for them to feel that way.
Definitely an odd way of thinking. Like you’re more okay with being raped as long as you can have an abortion? I know that wasn’t the intent but it just sounds weird. “If I’m gonna be raped I just hope it’s in Illinois and not Indiana.”
I moved my family to a state that better fits our values. Maybe this will be a catalyst for more people to do the same.
That’s correct, although most ethnic Jews here are not religious, nor do they give much thought to God.
Not only are you correct, but some Jews were the prime movers for abortion rights, such as Betty Friedan, Ruth Proskauer, Bernard Nathanson, and Lawrence Lader, as well as LGBTQ rights and feminism.
Can I ask you what caused you to change you mind re: Athiesm?
I always find it fascinating when people who are well into their adult lives and have scientific backgrounds become believers. FWIW, I am an agnostic that very much struggles with the meaninglessness of nihilistic reality.
Can you expand on this? I don’t believe in an afterlife and that makes me even more passionate about the life I do have. I don’t think life is meaningless at all I just don’t think I will “go somewhere” when dead.
I have few friends who are agnostic and far more religious and the agnostic ones are super active in the community and with their families.
When I married my wife (who is my ex-wife) we adopted twin boys. It seemed appropriate to bring them up in a Christian environment, so we joined a Church.
One of the Sunday School members was having a preacher from out of the city do a Bible teaching at another members home. I have always been open to hearing another side. That preached opened up the Bible like I have never seen before.
I wanted to hear more of what he had to say and I bought (or technically donated) about 10 tapes. I grew more interested with every tape. Over the years I listened to over 400 90 minute tape teachings.
He had said that he never found a contradiction in the Bible. I took the challenge. I searched for contradictions. There was always an explanation.
Dispensationalism laid out the Bible where a person can easily see the timeline. Clarence Larkin is an excellent resource. If you are a scientific minded person and want to give God a chance Dispensational Truth by Larkin is a great start. He was an architect and his drawings are extremely helpful to open the Bible much more than words alone can do.
Next I looked for types of Christ throughout the Old Testament. It became clear to me that the Bible was the word of God. No man could have written a book with so much continuity.
Next numerology pointed to a continuity throughout the Bible.
I had to account for an old earth. I believe strongly in science. The Bible addresses that.
Through my search there are no contradictions in the Bible. I still look for them.
That doesn’t make sense to me but I’m not a woman. And it’s a scary and uncertain time for them. Especially as many other countries have expanded their rights once they have seen the consequences of bans. If you’re a woman and you google like Ireland and some of their instances there I’m not sure how you couldn’t be scared for yourself or your daughter.
A reason exists for why those places changed and it has nothing to do with being able to “kill babies” or some dismissive argument like that.
