[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Seriously, I want to know.
If God does exist who will he favor the most?
What if the true religions hasn’t been invented yet?
Do you think an all-powerful god would really be jealous and smite you if you accidentally were born into the wrong one?
These questions burn in my mind and feel like there is a gap in my understanding that needs to be satisfied.
Discuss.[/quote]
I find it ironic that atheists start all the religion threads.
What the fuck is going on in here?
All of you, prove it.
[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
What the fuck is going on in here?
All of you, prove it.[/quote]
It?
K, anything can be an ‘it’ so long as the pronoun refers to a corresponding noun.
Therefore, if the word ‘it’ refers to something that exists, then ‘it’ is a correct pronoun.
[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
What the fuck is going on in here?
All of you, prove it.[/quote]
Hey! Look who the cat brought in! Slow day in GAL?
The biggest mistake atheists make is they always start with religion. Which makes absolutely no sense to me. If you want to figure out the validity or invalidity of any or all religions, then you have to start with whether or not God exists. If you haven’t dealt with that questions first, then you are wasting your time with the rest of it.
The biggest complaint I here is that religion doesn’t make sense or is silly. Well so is a belief that nothing can do something. That’s both silly and completely illogical on every level. Well if you don’t believe in God, no shit religion looks silly.
But if you don’t know and haven’t really examined whether God exists or not, it stupid to even delve in to whether or not religion is right or wrong. If God doesn’t exist, they’re all wrong. If he does, they may still be all wrong, or they could all be right, at least to some degree, or they can be mostly right, but flawed to various degrees.
If you believe in God, this is a worth while pursuit, if you don’t, why do you even care? I mean really, why?
[quote]pat wrote:
I find it ironic that atheists start all the religion threads.[/quote]
Outside of Tirb’s Catholic Q&A thread…which…well, yeah…It does appear to be the case.
The only problem is you are interested in mouthing off. So when you don’t know what you’re talking about you will have only yourself to blame as you are just another uninformed kid.
Yes, college boy I took the same course that you are taking only a few decades before you took them. (eye roll–I hate it when they’re fresh out of college)
The rest of your nonsense is not worth answering because you seriously do not know what you’re talking about when it comes to the Bible. You surf the Interet and land on sites which give you so much crap.
I’ll end with one fact for you.
The New Testament is the most reliable book in antiquity! It has been shown to be something like 98.9% accurate.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Seriously, I want to know.
If God does exist who will he favor the most?
What if the true religions hasn’t been invented yet?
Do you think an all-powerful god would really be jealous and smite you if you accidentally were born into the wrong one?
These questions burn in my mind and feel like there is a gap in my understanding that needs to be satisfied.
Discuss.[/quote]
I find it ironic that atheists start all the religion threads.[/quote]
Because many of them are searching. There is a restlessness about not knowing if there is a God. And the they start these threads because they want to berate Christians. It’s part of their “religion.”
[quote]pat wrote:
The biggest mistake atheists make is they always start with religion. Which makes absolutely no sense to me. If you want to figure out the validity or invalidity of any or all religions, then you have to start with whether or not God exists. If you haven’t dealt with that questions first, then you are wasting your time with the rest of it.
The biggest complaint I here is that religion doesn’t make sense or is silly. Well so is a belief that nothing can do something. That’s both silly and completely illogical on every level. Well if you don’t believe in God, no shit religion looks silly.
But if you don’t know and haven’t really examined whether God exists or not, it stupid to even delve in to whether or not religion is right or wrong. If God doesn’t exist, they’re all wrong. If he does, they may still be all wrong, or they could all be right, at least to some degree, or they can be mostly right, but flawed to various degrees.
If you believe in God, this is a worth while pursuit, if you don’t, why do you even care? I mean really, why? [/quote]
You have said several times now that atheists believe that “nothing did something,” and it is a good point even though it is not necessarily correct (I don’t know since I am not an “atheist”). There is more than enough evidence of causality that we can pretty much accept it as fact, but religion is not the only answer to the question of this supposed “first cause.” The idea of a “first cause” would seem to necessitate that at one point something did in fact come from nothing. If a deity such as the Christian god did in fact create the universe and everything in it, including causality, then that would imply that deity itself, which is something, exists outside of the rules of causality and, being the creator of everything, was not created himself, since that would mean that he is not the creator of everything, and thus always was and is. That is an example of something from nothing. I really don’t see any reason why whatever this supposed “first cause” has to actually be a sentient and immortal and omnipotent being and is still around today.
[quote]Sweet Revenge wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Sweet Revenge wrote:<<< I think God is A LOT bigger than that. [/quote]Here’s the trouble. He doesn’t care what you think. Ya know bein God n all. To be clear, He doesn’t care what I think either. I do however care what He thinks, which is how I know He doesn’t care what we think. HE tells US what to think and we either think it or die. Couldn’t be simpler, though that’s not very groovy so you don’t like that.
[/quote]
Whatever God wants to do is groovy with me Tirib. Why do you say I wouldn’t like it?
Oh wait, you’re not going to tell me that God wants to punish people and banish them to hell are you? Hell is a man-made mental construct that denies that God is Loving, Omnipresent and Omnipotent.[/quote]Says who?
[quote]ZEB wrote:
The only problem is you are interested in mouthing off. So when you don’t know what you’re talking about you will have only yourself to blame as you are just another uninformed kid. [/quote]
I think I have engaged you respectfully.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Yes, college boy I took the same course that you are taking only a few decades before you took them. (eye roll–I hate it when their fresh out of college)[/quote]
Then you should understand my position.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
The rest of your nonsense is not worth answering because you seriously do not know what you’re talking about when it comes to the Bible. You surf the Interet and land on sites which give you so much crap. [/quote]
The links I have given you are to scholarly sources.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
I’ll end with one fact for you.
The New Testament is the most reliable book in antiquity! It has been shown to be something like 98.9% accurate.
[/quote]
With respect to Jesus and his divinity:
When you try to determine if someone existed you have to take an assessment of what you know about them when you build this character story. Take George Washington’s life for instance. We try to find out what of it is true. When we find out a good chunk of it is true we can say you know what? This person most likely existed although there are most likely one or two things like the chopping down the cherry tree I cannot tell a lie story that are pretty much mythical and we throw them out.
The thing is, theists actually believe something can come from nothing.
God apparently came from nothing.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
I find it ironic that atheists start all the religion threads.[/quote]
Outside of Tirb’s Catholic Q&A thread…which…well, yeah…It does appear to be the case.
[/quote]
I find it a lot of fun, an enjoyable mental exercise.
I bet you’ve participated in several abortion, gay marriage threads several times for the very same reason.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I find a lot of fun, an enjoyable mental exercise.
I bet you’ve participated in several abortion, gay marriage threads several times for the very same reason. [/quote]
Nah.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
The thing is, theists actually believe something can come from nothing.
God apparently came from nothing.[/quote]
No we don’t. By definition, God could not be preceded. And nothing, literally, doesn’t exist. Hence why Philosophically we call such a thing an Uncaused-cause. If God were caused or preceded, then he would be God. I am not speaking in a temporal sense, it just a limitation of the English language.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
The thing is, theists actually believe something can come from nothing.
God apparently came from nothing.[/quote]
No we don’t. By definition, God could not be preceded. And nothing, literally, doesn’t exist. Hence why Philosophically we call such a thing an Uncaused-cause. If God were caused or preceded, then he would be God. I am not speaking in a temporal sense, it just a limitation of the English language.
[/quote]
That’s nothing but a special pleading fallacy.
If you start with the premise that everything has a cause, then you are contradicting yourself.
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
The biggest mistake atheists make is they always start with religion. Which makes absolutely no sense to me. If you want to figure out the validity or invalidity of any or all religions, then you have to start with whether or not God exists. If you haven’t dealt with that questions first, then you are wasting your time with the rest of it.
The biggest complaint I here is that religion doesn’t make sense or is silly. Well so is a belief that nothing can do something. That’s both silly and completely illogical on every level. Well if you don’t believe in God, no shit religion looks silly.
But if you don’t know and haven’t really examined whether God exists or not, it stupid to even delve in to whether or not religion is right or wrong. If God doesn’t exist, they’re all wrong. If he does, they may still be all wrong, or they could all be right, at least to some degree, or they can be mostly right, but flawed to various degrees.
If you believe in God, this is a worth while pursuit, if you don’t, why do you even care? I mean really, why? [/quote]
You have said several times now that atheists believe that “nothing did something,” and it is a good point even though it is not necessarily correct (I don’t know since I am not an “atheist”).
[/quote]
Religion assumes God’s existence or if would be a waste of time. The proposition of God’s existence is a philosophical one.
Incorrect, it’s logically impossible for God, First Cause, Necessary Being, or whatever you want to call it, to come from anything. It cannot because by definition then, it wouldn’t be the said ‘First Cause’ maybe the second or third but not the first. It’s impossible for this Uncaused-cause to have been brought into existence. It, by definition, must exist without cause and transitionally eternal, or else it is not what it is.
Exactly, if God isn’t the Uncaused-cause, then he isn’t God. He there could never have been a point at which He or it did not exist.
The way to think about it again is much like a math problem, everything after the equals sign operates as an inverse of whats before it.
There never could have been a moment when this Necessary Being did not exist, and there could not have been anything that made Him or “it” exist.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
The thing is, theists actually believe something can come from nothing.
God apparently came from nothing.[/quote]
No we don’t. By definition, God could not be preceded. And nothing, literally, doesn’t exist. Hence why Philosophically we call such a thing an Uncaused-cause. If God were caused or preceded, then he would be God. I am not speaking in a temporal sense, it just a limitation of the English language.
[/quote]
That’s nothing but a special pleading fallacy.
If you start with the premise that everything has a cause, then you are contradicting yourself.[/quote]
I never said everything has a cause…
One thing by definition cannot have a cause, but also, it can only be one thing, it cannot be two or more.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
The thing is, theists actually believe something can come from nothing.
God apparently came from nothing.[/quote]
God never came. He always was, that is the definition of an uncaused causer.
Okay Pat, I usually don’t get into philosophical debates or discussions but this is getting interesting. You, in several posts in this thread and the “can atheists go to heaven” thread, berated atheists for “believing that something came from nothing.” I don’t buy that, mostly because I don’t know what atheists believe outside of that there is no god. We seem to be in agreement that there must exist something outside of the rules of causality that started things in motion and ultimately led to the universe as we know it today. That seems logical enough even though we have no “real” (by real I mean scientific) evidence of that other than the fact that we are here and can observe causality and are capable of critical thinking and logical reasoning. What I am saying is that there is no reason that this “first cause” or whatever you want to call it has to be a sentient being. It is entirely possible that it is, but at that point it comes down to which of the literally thousands of gods that are and have been worshiped here on Earth and possibly elsewhere in the universe is this actual “first cause”. There is also no reason that this “first cause” has to be a sentient being at all, which I doubt that it would be. Sentience implies existence and existence is governed by the rules of causality so I do not think that a sentient being, as most gods are described as being, could be this “first cause.” This basically means that it is still an even-odds bet on whether or not atheists or theists are correct.