The belief in God and such things is a matter of FAITH and against faith a logical argument doesn’t hold.To quote Nietzsche on this:“Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature- is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.”
Johnny quick, they were too! They had all lived at the time of Jesus, and then eventually wrote about him. Not only that their writings, the writings of the Gospels (which are undeniably contemporary writings) and other sources all confirm same or similar things about the man called Jesus. Further more there were still contemporaries of Jesus who were alive that could have disputed anything that was written and being taught about him. There is no record of that happening until about 100-150 years after his death.
Berzerker, as for faith not being logical or whatever. Faith should be faith in evidence, not blind faith. Everyone has faith in something (even if that faith is in the non-existence of a deity), and generally there are reasons for that. Christian is logical an evidential, but you must take time to look into those evidences, rather than appealing to the emotion of your feelings which frankly your accusing those who hae a faith of doing.
You seem to misunderstand my statements as a dislike for religion. This is simply not the case. My point was that one’s belief in god is fine, I have never disapproved of that, Personally I’m on the fence. What I don’t agree with is one’s total belief in the Church!, and yes they are different. I’m going to make this about “ME” for a minute. When my wife & I were going to get married we went to see a priest… I had long hair, and only spoke with him for about 15 minutes. He told her not to marry me, because I was only going to get her pregnant and leave. Huh? we were trying to get married! He is supposed to represent the RC religion… did God give him devine knowledge or something? Flash forward to today… I have been married to my soul mate for 20 years, have a wonderful daughter. I open doors for people, excuse myself as is common curtesy (that’s not really common today). I respect my wife as an equal, I’m not a drunk or a gambler, actually do to a strong work ethic,I function as a Laboratory manager. Thank God that young woman saw in me what this priest didn’t even have the time to see. I’ll state it again in hopes that you’ll finally understand… churches are headed by men… not God… and as such are not infallible. This post asked for responses and I am within my rights to give mine…that’s right! My opinion… I never stressed that it should be everyones… you may see it as negative… but only to your point of view. And I’m not at all sorry if our view’s differ. As far as success goes, success is a state of mind… some have great wealth, but unhappy, unfulfilled lives, regardless if they go to church. That’s not success.Some cults believe in God, but won’t seek a doctor’s care for their ailing children… Let’s accept that there is a god … he gave us brains, and a will to think and do for ourselves… To many people rely on faith to do things for them, because they don’t want to think or are lazy… and yes it states in the bible that we are to think and do things for ourselves. I’m not attempting to infuriate Americans, there are good and bad like every other nationality, but I fail to see how writing “IN GOD WE TRUST” on currancy has amounted to anything. The USA has just as many troubles as less “model” societies and much of it involves hate. You say that’s a success story, maybe from your position in the middle class America… the success America has is mainly in wealth… such wealth that no child in the mighty USA should be going hungry, such wealth that no one should be getting killed for the contents of their purse. Why are all these succesful people not helping out their fellow man/woman? You said I should not find fault unless I tried it… got news for ya! I have, and I came away tainted… Not towards GOD or Jesus… towards “The Church” That’s been my only point! Am I being negative? Maybe in your eyes, to me… my eyes are simply just open.
It is not arrogant to seek the truth. Simply because we cannot regress to the begining of the universe and visibly see it being created and how it was create. These theories help guide us for better understanding for our selves. What would be arrogant is if somebody claimed they knew, it is not arrogant to answer a question you asked. Besides I never said that my explination is fact, I simply said that is one theory, it could, possibly, be right…
Now, I am not really sure what your stance is on the issue. I get that you believe it is a craps shoot in which you have a 50% chance of being write no matter what side of the fence your on. Also for every belief a person has, there is a point in which that person can be conviced otherwise. So, where do you stand and what would it take for you to believe the opposite?
Third, physics and philosophy not indepedent. Philosophy created phisics and all sciences for that matter.
Bible Guy you said “Johnny quick, they were too! They had all lived at the time of Jesus, and then eventually wrote about him.” This is incorrect. For example, Lucian wrote around 175 CE. Is this a contemporary? I suggest that you get your facts straight.
“Nuke the Gay Whales!”
Im not going to get into a debate about specific churches because Id expect that while none of them are necessarily perfect they are generally positive. I will say that if you sit on the fence you are bound to get pushed and prodded from time to time and will ultimately get knocked off (the fence). Its a significant issue we are purporting to deal with here - I say everyone here needs to be a man about it, inform themselves properly and then, but only then, take a view one way or another. IMHO neither view is beyond criticism or “trolling” but one view leads to greater happiness. I dont know if the purpose of life is to achieve success or happiness or to do good deeds, but I cant accept that we are on this earth to simply sit on a fence or criticise the options. I see myself as lucky in this case because the bible says I shouldnt complain and by applying it Im happier. It also says to forgive which is a particularly positive discipline. But thats all personal I guess.
We have a pretty funny debate on Creationism vs Evolution that seems to have emerge from all that religious talk…Which seems to happen everytime…But people on either side of the fence never seem to be able to stop themselves and realize that no good will come of it. Now don’t get me wrong, I thrive on philosophical/ethical debates. But we need to understand that the believers are immune in some ways to logical thinking and arguments having something of a far more powerful essence…faith ofcourse. Atheist/evolutionist do not possess this faith, therefore need to explain the world through logic/theories. Now, I understand that some believers need to formulate their beliefs and try to implant them or have them respected by non-believers, atheist on the other hand often feel the need to crush this ‘‘faith’’ because it feels to us(I being one of them ol’atheists) like it is unreal/false/nonexistant/illogical or seems like badly formulated series of arguments, and like a comptuter go: Bad command or file…when we hear it. Now, I don’t want to sound condescendind, well, maybe I do, a bit…but believers (I seem to lack a better word, so…) should try and slack the use of science againts science arguments, missing links in the theory of evolution/improbabilities…sorry to say but anyone who understands the theory in it’s entirety and not just the tidbits and keeps up to date with actual molecular biology will know that missing links are themselves actually (mostly) missing across the board and the probabilities of the auto-creation of the first biomolecules are actually quite high, taking in account the auto-replicating capabilities of a lot of them, RNA,biomembranes ( those capabilities being built-in by the laws of physics, meaning that they don’t really have a choice but to be that way, like salt crystals (NaCl) have to be cubic…) hell, high school students in a small lab can create some of those molecules with simple tools and some of the gasses and electrical currents found on a primitive Earth…Anyways, just to say that believers should stop or limit their use of science to disprove the Theory of Evolution, which like the Theory of Gravity and Theory of Relativity cannot be proven, they are theories so they cannot be proven by definition, they can only be disproved by 1, only 1 opposing fact, and can only be made more believable by millions of empirical facts and yet are not proven…(that’s just because it get boring to see people reply…it’s scientific FACT…then…No,it’s just a THEORY…we all get the point, what Evolutionist often dispise of Creationists is that the Cs (by right can)put their Theory of Divine Intervention on the same level of as the Theory of Evolution (which the Es feel is more respectable (and in a scientific way is) theory since there is no magical/divine/godly intervention that comes into play…we only need physics, and when you understand that things are like they are only because they had to be this way (this is not a metaphysical statement, but simply put: somethings can only be one way by their nature…when facing a miror, it sends you an opposite image, end). Also, there is no need for such arguments from a believers since their only-last-and best line of defense lies in faith. [oh yeah, for that also goes for those that try to use the statement that states that nothing is lost or created, seem to forget the last part, which says that nothing is lost nor created, but is transformed…yep humans are made of energy by the energy-matter relationship of Einstein, but when we die, that energy, which stay in matter form goes on to feed the worms/bacteria and other fungi that emerge from our bloated bodies as the body can no longer opposed the Laws of Entropy, and forced order is lost, so where those the body (at least that part, the Soul thing is something unknown…so do whatever you want with it), and all that composed it, like the ions than were used for your thought processes all go back in the cercle of Life…at this point I advise to input the CD from the Lion King).
Now, for us bastards atheists/evolutionnist (bar those strange nitwits that believe that god work through the mysteries of Darwinian Evolution) it is really of no consequence what we say or how we argue it, people will still believe in homeopathy/magic/vodoo/shakra balancing/cleansing of the colon. It is not such a question of giving up but of acceptance, time will go on and reason won’t probably win the fight against the irrational.
And it is also to be understood that the Holy Books were written by people who understood the concept of religion and this is a facinating fact, I mean in the sense that the concept implies the all-powerful, all-knowing God, that’s been, is and forever shall be, cannot be wrong and everything is pretty much circular from this point on, like blessed is the one who believes without having seen, now who in is right mind would go for something like that or the Lord works in mysterious way…now to a atheist this seems so convinient…well ofcourse it is, but it could be no other way other wise it could not be religion, so religion benefits from this, having a bullet proof shield from everything, now what is really said in the bible/torah/koran or anyother is pretty irrelevent but kinda makes you not so unhappy or doesn’t make you feel to sad that you weren’t blessed with faith by the holy spirit cause about half the population are kids wich makes most of their souls untouched or unable to stand judgement day and more than 2/3 of the population that exists now and believes something else than the one true religion if there is one, will be in hell with you, wich is not so bad, since misery loves compagny.
But even if religion cannot be logically explained, some metaphysical statement seem to qualify for a Premice-like title…something self-evident…for exemple statements like the wicked going to hell, especially coming from and all-forgiving, all-loving god (christian god) tend to make me feel as incomfortable as the times I scratch my scrotum with Rub-535 or some Bengay…or something like having an Elected/Chosen people for the more vengeful/protecting Jewish God (if you come back and say that they represent the same God…go back to a pre-school outside of Texas and figure out the irreconciliable differences between the two books New/Old). Then, there is the fact that the simple concept of Hell is illogical and in antithesis with the concept of a loving God, no loving parent would send an unrepentent person(if such thing could exist, I mean come on…you’re faced with God here not some guy who’s foot you stepped over in the bus, I think I would repent from anything…if it was humanly possible) in the depths of Hell/uncalculatable pain and yadiyadiaya for an eternity, the purgatory I would buy but Hell? Hell no!. These are just minor metaphysical flaws, which are somewhat more important than the sociological flaws found in some holy books, like the soiled porc, the sacred cows, eating fish on friday, eating therefore buying kosher…now when you read a book, even a holy book keeping a critical mind is always helpful…you might find some pretty intertaining stuff, and may make you a better business man or allow you to manipulate people a bit more easily…don’t go and tell people that unproperly cocked pork will get them kill by bacterial infection, a guy dying of hunger might not care but tell him that it is against the wishes of God and that eating such soiled food brings him so much closer to the pits of Hell…same thing goes for the sacred cow…now, while you’re not dying of hunger, you kinda need to eat kosher don’t you, hey, it’s God wish/order…go to your nearest rabbi, wich used to have a real job, but now he just needs to bless the food, gets paid and goes back to studying his ol’Torah and other books of commentaries and 600 or so laws, and now, while we’re at it…to be a good christian, we don’t you eat that fish, it’s friday…and since the pope who inspired the law had a fleet of fishing vessel, while ain’t it not convinient…and also there is not enough meat for everybody…fantastic, 2 problems solved…or why not cut your son’s foreskin so that we might celebrate are devine alliance made in the flesh by you, Israel, my people and me your God…or if you swing Muslim, well, we’ll cut it for some other reason, hech, your in the desert/hot like hell and there is not so much water to clean away that bacteria incubater that is your foreskin, but at least it’s gonna remain dry and clean, mostly, but I’m sorry to say that you’ll feel a certain keratinization of your dickhead and be a little dessensitized while being fruitful with your wife…or you could simply do it as a rite of passage…or in a more modern way, do it so you might grow more thant 50 football fields of skin with a single baby’s foreskin…sure beats stem cell research, for now. I might sound ironic or downright arrogant, but like I said this is minor stuff, thing is, faith remains, what can I do, nothing, how does that make me feel? ambivalent…I do not believe, therefore will die without the feeling of hope in an afterlife, so I believe I see clearly while others are blinded by myths and superstision, like a soma induced Brave New Worlder…but I also envy them, as each day brings me closer to noexistance, which should not seems so bad, but I still feel scared, but for my believing friend, each day brings him closer to eternal bliss, which in it’s own right is laughable. Maybe this is one of the reasons I wanna research genetics/genetics manipulation/engineering/enhancements…to escape death and to go on learning forever…but this is just the genetically encoded survival instinct speaking…Maybe I’ll die afraid, but rightfully so, unlike the blind man that walks across the street unaware of the danger.
And I am sorry to say, to those who might think otherwise, but I really do not believe that faith is something embraced by choice, it either happens or not, keeping it might be something else, but as of yet, witnessing birth, the life around me and seeing a couple of people die on their death bed (good for them) as not changed me in any way. So this put an end to my ranting on this ‘’little issue’’ for now.
And for those who keep interjecting that homosexual do it by choice in their posts for some reason…oh yeah, because the good book says it’s evil for some undisclosed reason, well, let’s see if you ask yourself why you get an erection when you see pretty girl bending over, showing you her ass, or when her shirt is skin-tigh/no braw and it’s a little chilly outside?…there is some hardwiring…And how, logically would someone in his right mind want to be gay, knowing that society strongly disproves it? If there were no underlying uncontrollable urges, you would not care and society wouldn’t either…but there are, and 90% of the animal kingdom goes one way and the rest are considered ‘’freaks’’ and of course there are the lucky bastards who go both ways…no problem for them…go to a bar trying to hook up with girls…fail to do so…and it’s the : Hey, Bob, it seems it’s you and me again tonight!…
But don’t feel the urge to reply if you live in the Bible Belt or if your IQ is not at least one standard deviation from the average one hundred…if you still acknowledge my post while failing one or both of these condition, then I’ll accept as fact that all men are not born equal and go on in some Nietscheian dissertation…for those who read all the way…you just read 3 full pages of TimesNewRoman-Size 12 font-typed text (margins are kinda wide though).
If you want some info on which to base your ad hominem sophisms/comments: 19 years-old, Canadian, Montreal, doing B.Sc. in BioMedical Sciences.
Really wonder how long this debate is gonna last, If Protagoras was right and man is the measure of all things, we might have to wait for a long time until this posting dies up…
Ok I’ll bite…
re: Tim 2001-07-12 18:14:38
“Ok, this message is to everyone who has posted. First to those of you who do not believe in the bible, what if it really was inspired of God? What if there was going to be a time in the future that God would destroy the wicked”
I would die laughing from the Irony.
I seriously have no need for any of it, I couldn’t care less… but to each his/her own, whatever works for you, just dont try to force it on me and vs. versa.
Ps: I was raised strongly Christian, totaly saturated in it, been there done that got the… they had to baptizzzzze me three different times because it “didnt stick”.
Johnny Quick - Lucian was a second century Greek, but his writings about Christ are generally accepted as being first century contemporary writings that he was quoting or paraphrasing. Even at that, you were wrong in asserting that there were no early accounts outside of the Bible concerning Jesus, and you were wrong in asserting that no contemporaries wrote about him. Ad I have not even discussed the good evidence for believing early dating of the gospels and their reliability. In fact, not of just the Gospels, but of the entire New Testament.
Aright Alexandre-H. Dandavino, first of all Creationism and Evolution are not incompatable. As a matter of fact they do compliment each other. No self respecting ding-dong would espouse the Adam and Eve story as historical fact. The bible is a book of truth, not fact. It strives to bring the truth through explination, facts be damned. It does not stand to reson that there are no historical facts in the bible, but it’s primary purpose is to speak the divine to common people, it does not have to be historically accurate to do that.
I think it is safe to say your atheism is a matter of faith as well as any theists belief is base on faith. You choose not to believe due to a lack of empirical evidence. This IS a FAITH based belief, unless you have found some deductive reasoning, that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that God does not exist. If you have this argumant laid out then I would LOVE to hear it. If you don’t have such an argument, then your ateism is a faith base belief. We theists, however are not as stupid as we look. There are some very compelling reason to believe in God. For one, His existance cannot be disproven, so at best you have a 50/50 chance of being correct no matter what side of the fence you stand on.
You mentioned metaphysics, which I found interesting. Mainly, because most atheists I have dealt with in the past, avoided it like the plague. Now if you believe in any form of metaphysics, then you must admit that something outside the physical realm exists. This naturally entails that there is something beyond, because we have an understanding of something that is not tangible (“I think, therefore I am”- Descarts attempt to prove he exists). So it stand to reason that there are things that do exist, but cannot be measured in anyway shape or form. This leaves open the possibility for all kinds of things to be true with out being able to gauge it, including God and life after death. My goal is not to convince you I am right. My goal is to show you that your atheism is as EQUALLY faith-based as my theism. If you are seeking a way to shake my belief then deductively prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that there is no God and I will turn in my Rosary beads immediately. I find the tinyest hole in you logic and I will not change my mind.
Sorry, haven’t lost my faith yet guys. I got to tell you that this really is a fruitless exercise. I would bet that if this page were to reach 3,5, even 8 forum pages long, not one mind would change. This arguement is a passionate one in a passionless arena (cyberspace). There are entire forums devoted to this, and I have yet seen anyone say “Hey, I 'm convinced that this side is right. I’m converting to their way of thinking.” However, I will make one comment. If humans are nothing but random chemical processes taking place so quickly as to make humans appear of conscious and random thought, then what value do we have? Are we just a sophisticated computer forged by random acts of nature? To put it another way…Are we equal in value to a rock or mound of dirt, only more sophisticated? Maybe, a bacteria or virus would be a better comparison. Are we nothing more than a sophisticated bacteria or virus? If so, then what claim to rights can we express? Why value a human life more than a mushroom’s? Why shouldn’t the strong survive? Why shouldn’t we lie, cheat, and steal? Why not kill our male competitors when trying to woo a mate? Why not set up a program to control the population by killing female babies, so we can curb future population induced problems (polution, famine, etc.)? After all, we are nothing more than a collection of elements reacting in such a complex manner as to produce an IMAGE of what we have deemed as life. Shouldn’t the strong survive (in mating, eating, land)? Why are the warriors not the one’s in charge? Wouldn’t this fall more inline with nature? Are do even the most stict of athiests feel that there is something purposeful by design to humanity’s existance. Is there something that demands the laws of nature to be set aside in the case of humanity even when it goes against some of our basest desires and instincts? Hey, maybe everyone so far is being illogical. Maybe there is no such thing as sentinent (sp?)beings. No soul, no after life. Just a bunch of soulless computers carrying out actions based on programs developed by our enviroment and chemical reactions. If so, what the hell are we doing wasting are frigging time not taking what we want, when we want. And be damned to whatever automoton bag of flesh steps in our way. Should we not just follow our desire to breed the way many animals do, and take the vagina with the complex life support system built around it by force? Aren’t we being illogical by being caring, loving, compassionate, and all those other unseen and vague concepts(much like the concept of a creator)? late.
I have to say one last thing to those that say that religion does not teach hate, READ THE BOOKS!!! sory but have you realy read them? not gone to your service and heard them read, not gone home and read what you were told to read, but have YOU sat down, started at the begining and read to the end? I HAVE if you say these books DON’T teach hate then I don’t think YOU have!! and again I am NOT against “faith” and I don’t have the answers, but I was raised in and involved in religion, until I READ THE BOOK (does not matter which religion, although I have been trying to learn more on budism and have not found the hate yet) I hate no one so please don’t take my HONEST opinion as an oppertunity to spew hate at me. peace hetyey225
What’s the deal with those Jews?
Ok, this is where I come from. I am very religious. I try to live a good life. No road rage, no intolerance, to bigotry or racism, no wife beating, etc. I feel that I am better for my faith. I believe that the bible is authentic and inspired by God. I believe what God has promised in the bible. What difference to anyone else does it make what I believe? It doesn’t. One thing I’d like to say is that if (I say if for those who don’t believe in the bible and that is ok for you) the day comes in our lifetime that God makes good on His promises, come back to this forum and write, oops I was wrong. If the day never comes, well keep training.
pat, again, if you and i are alone in a room and i say that there is an invisible monster in the room with us. shouldn’t i be the one to validate and prove the existence of such a creature if indeed his presence was ever questioned? why would i just look at you and say,“oh yeah, well prove it’s not there.”?
and though i do not have the attitude that i will ‘destroy’ any arguments proving the existence of god or jesus or whatever, i am very adamant that there is no god. and i don’t see the point of the ‘point in your life where you will change your mind’ thing. elaborate please on the specific relavance and where you were going.
jason
austin, tx
and how did philosophy create all of the sciences? (and in my earlier post i actually meant the sciences, not the study of the sciences.)
smokinghawk, what’s your take on this? (a rather trite discussion, but i am curious of your opinion.-given your uniqueness to most everyone else that has posted thus far.)
jason
austin, tx
Really, philosophy without an understanding of mathematics or logis is like a woman with no tits; what’s the point? Although it is true that God exists or does not, there are no probabilities attatched, it CANNOT be random (it is not one non repeatable trial of a random variable), so it cannot have a probability. Futher more, to say that a binomial occurance (yes there is a God or no there is not) is 50/50 because there are a total of 2 distinct outcomes is fucking ridiculus. Either I will win the lotery or not, does that mean the odds are 50/50? And it is trivially true that atheism requires a total of ZERO faith. The whole concept of faith is a (largly) Christian phenomenom, Descartes’ Meditations are a disertation of God’s light being the only sufficient and necessary illumination to see what is true. Holy shit, if you are a Christian, and you feel God exists, do some goddamn reading and thinking. There have been hundreds of Christian scholars of note (most of whom were ground breaking mathematician) who understood the need for what is essentially a cosmological proof of God’s existance. Lastly, on the subject of faith, if belief of absolutely anything requires faith, then what the fuck meaning does faith have? None. But faith does have meaning, which in our context here is:
2.Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
There cannot be any logical proof or material evidence for God (has anyone ever heard of the case for thaught’s immeteriallity? How about St. Thomas Aquines’ argument for God being the “Mover Unmoved”?). If you are a Christian, get with the fucking program and learn what being Christian actually means, and it ain’t supposed to be ignorant.
Bible Guy, Lucian was just retelling a story, not an eyewitness. If I retell a story about superman, does it mean he existed? You are the one who is wrong, spreading fibs that there were early or contemporary accounts outside of the Bible concerning Jesus. I’m anxiously waiting for you to come up with one. And show me your “good evidence for believing early dating of the gospels and their reliability”. So far you have spoken in generalities, yet have not offered a single piece of evidence. I’m waiting.
you know naturalman, i have no problem likening myself to a rock, mound of dirt, fungus, virus or anything else that you might see around you. we(such as examples listed) are basically the same. we all have our roles. and morality, as it were, is simply built on ‘tit for tat’–nothing more.
jason
austin, tx