I’m out for the weekend.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Or maybe he just screwed up on you. Hah.[/quote]
But then that would only reinforce my claim that he is incompetent.
The Bodyguard wrote: Why Doesn’t God Communicate With Us Anymore?
Maybe if you tweak the way you frame the question, you can get more helpful answers.
For example: How does God Communicate with us (you/me) now?
I think it would also be helpful to expand your concept of ‘communication’ beyond spoken and written words.
Question: Why doesn’t Sky Wizard just say “Hey everybody, listen - I exist and want you all to stop killing each other” in a nice big loud booming voice, so everybody hears it?
Answer: Because Sky Wizard doesn’t exist, all accounts of him “communicating” with humans were lies, and all the believers are just making this shit up as they go.
Also, thank you dnlcdstn, well said. Its 2011, people believing in Sky Wizard and Magician Boy and how people will be sent to Fire Land after they die is not only unnecessary but detrimental to humanity.
Also, it’s funny that the Sky Wizard folk claim that God refuses to prove himself, but in the same breath will point out things they interpret as “evidence” of Gods existence - wouldn’t that be proof?
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Question: Why doesn’t Sky Wizard just say “Hey everybody, listen - I exist and want you all to stop killing each other” in a nice big loud booming voice, so everybody hears it?
Answer: Because Sky Wizard doesn’t exist, all accounts of him “communicating” with humans were lies, and all the believers are just making this shit up as they go.
Also, thank you dnlcdstn, well said. Its 2011, people believing in Sky Wizard and Magician Boy and how people will be sent to Fire Land after they die is not only unnecessary but detrimental to humanity. [/quote]
Either Sky Wizard doesn’t exist…or doesn’t really care. Maybe all Sky Wizard sees is an infinite cycle of life and death. What difference does it really make if people are killing each other? Or dying of disease, or whatever? They are just reborn again to do it over again. I agree that any belief in Fire Land is just ridiculous. Not to mention names, but a church made that up to keep people in fear, compliance and dependency – perfect survival mechanism.
How on Earth did this turn into an evolution/creationism debate? This thread isn’t about the validity of either subject, it’s about getting information from religious believers about their viewpoint on a subject. Attacking their religion isn’t warranted and is incredibly rude because it’s not relevant. I’m an atheist, I’ll be open about that, but that’s why I’m a little bit angry, I want to know the thoughts of those following a different belief system and their reasons for thinking so. This is like a religious person asking for your opinion on the universe, and then having a passerby cut you off and tell you what an idiot and misguided fool you are in the middle of your explanation.
Debating religion may have a place, but it’s not in this thread. I ask myself this question all the time, because I want to understand other people and their belief systems. Refusing to even attempt to understand someone you disagree with is incredibly ignorant. You don’t have to agree with them, but I think that understanding is something that both sides of an issue like this really needs to be worked on, otherwise we’re just causing division and intolerance and that’s a step backward for humanity.
If any religious members are browsing through this topic and didn’t get turned off by the debate, know that there are members like me who really want to legitimately know what you think about the subject and are interested in an actual discussion, not an argument.
[quote]Chushin wrote:
I don’t know; I’ve met lots of people who claim that God does communicate / has communicated with them. And I’m not talking about the schizophrenics I used to be a counselor for, either.
Maybe God only communicates with some people. I certainly am not one of them.
If my hypothesis is correct, though, it seems awfully damned reasonable that he’d not communicate with those of you who are so derisive towards others’ beliefs. Hell, I know I’D avoid you pretty much at all cost.
[/quote]
For what it’s worth, he has never communicated directly with me in any manner I could distinguish as different from any other natural experience. That said, I would never have the hubris to demand that he do so, nor the audacity to require he fit into the mold of my limited conception.
Do I believe he does still communicate, with me, you and even the bodyguard? You betcha.
[quote]Reygekan wrote:
How on Earth did this turn into an evolution/creationism debate? This thread isn’t about the validity of either subject, it’s about getting information from religious believers about their viewpoint on a subject. Attacking their religion isn’t warranted and is incredibly rude because it’s not relevant. I’m an atheist, I’ll be open about that, but that’s why I’m a little bit angry, I want to know the thoughts of those following a different belief system and their reasons for thinking so. This is like a religious person asking for your opinion on the universe, and then having a passerby cut you off and tell you what an idiot and misguided fool you are in the middle of your explanation.
Debating religion may have a place, but it’s not in this thread. I ask myself this question all the time, because I want to understand other people and their belief systems. Refusing to even attempt to understand someone you disagree with is incredibly ignorant. You don’t have to agree with them, but I think that understanding is something that both sides of an issue like this really needs to be worked on, otherwise we’re just causing division and intolerance and that’s a step backward for humanity.
If any religious members are browsing through this topic and didn’t get turned off by the debate, know that there are members like me who really want to legitimately know what you think about the subject and are interested in an actual discussion, not an argument.[/quote]
I hear you. There are plenty of us here, actually, on both side of the aisle, that are happy to engage in honest apologetics or even just listen and question. This place is probably about as good as you can expect for an unregulated forum regarding this sort of thing on the internet.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Question: Why doesn’t Sky Wizard just say “Hey everybody, listen - I exist and want you all to stop killing each other” in a nice big loud booming voice, so everybody hears it?
Answer: Because Sky Wizard doesn’t exist, all accounts of him “communicating” with humans were lies, and all the believers are just making this shit up as they go.
Also, thank you dnlcdstn, well said. Its 2011, people believing in Sky Wizard and Magician Boy and how people will be sent to Fire Land after they die is not only unnecessary but detrimental to humanity. [/quote]
You know, your “scientific” theories can be made to sound stupid too.
I think it’s of great value to get other points of view and understandings, whether you agree with them or not. It’s all ultimately good and helpful. Everyone needs to work out their own enlightenment (salvation). So, the great variety of opinions that are expressed are very useful in helping one find and establish their Truth.
I don’t believe we are supposed to agree. Can you imagine a world where everyone conformed to the same Stepford-Religion? Seems un-natural to me. God expresses through the diversity in all religions, leaving out no one. I believe it’s a mistake to think God needs a human-made cookie cutter to reveal Himself to his creation.
[quote]Sweet Revenge wrote:
I think it’s of great value to get other points of view and understandings, whether you agree with them or not. It’s all ultimately good and helpful. Everyone needs to work out their own enlightenment (salvation). So, the great variety of opinions that are expressed are very useful in helping one find and establish their Truth.
I don’t believe we are supposed to agree. Can you imagine a world where everyone conformed to the same Stepford-Religion? Seems un-natural to me. God expresses through the diversity in all religions, leaving out no one. I believe it’s a mistake to think God needs a human-made cookie cutter to reveal Himself to his creation. [/quote]
That seems perfectly reasonable.
The thing is that people with unbridled egos think that they can define and therefore control what purpose god is to serve in their lives and in this world. They get the terms of the relationship and functions backwards.
If, as it happens all too frequently, they can’t define or control and therefore understand a concept of god or the god that they were exposed to, then they must dismiss the existence of one.
[quote]Rockscar wrote:
Ever hear a voice in your head telling you that what you are about to do is a bad idea?
I believe the communication is in the form of what we call a “conscience”.[/quote]
Is conscience “God”? Does God therefore reside in each of us?
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Thanks for the response DD. I’m looking for an earnest response, regardless of religion but I am curious about the Jewish and Christian perspective because one day, according to the Bible, God stood atop a mountain and directly communicated to an entire nation. And then his alleged communication ceased, except thru alleged incarnation in human flesh (disputed by even the jews that make claim to national revelation and were coincidentally around the time of jesus) which was later recorded by MAN.
Why allegedly speak to a nation one day and never again? And why only the Jews? Are we not all god’s children? What special relationship can the Jews realistically claim to God that no other race of people at the time can similarly claim?
The President gives a national address. He is not almighty. Yet when he gives his national address, there can be no dispute at to whether he spoke, and what his exact words were. Why does not God give the equivalent of a “national address” now? Why leave behind an alleged record, to be scribed by man, that He knows can later be disputed, argued and corrupted?
Why not direct communication with his children?[/quote]
Well, first I would say that maybe he did that because it was sufficient. Something like 4 billion people in the world believe in that god.
For me, the mystery is a lot of the allure.
But I think there are Decent Christian answers.
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Blessed are those who believe and have not seen. So, if he did that he’d take away some of our on possible reward.
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The Bible also lays out that the greater knowledge and truth you have the greater your responsibility and the harsher your possible judgment. Essentially, if the father were still personally present and apparent to us, we would have no excuse for sin. Look back at the old testament to the way god treated those same people who got to personally converse with him. If he were to appear today, we should then expect the harsh judgment of one who has no excuse and no saving grace in Jesus. To remove faith would be to make us unworthy of god.
I’m willing to bet a lot of Christians take most of the bible as allegory anyway.
But take all this with a grain of salt from a guy who is more Christian philosopher than Christian religious.[/quote]
Oh, so it’s one big trick? You say 4 billion people believe? And I reply the entire planet disagrees with each other. So God spoke, but spoke in such a way (thru man) so as to leave legitimate doubt, but still requires “faith”. That’s a curious argument. And it’s not very logical.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
Rational conversation about the past/present/future necessarily assumes uniformitarianism–the notion that the physical laws under which our universe can be observed to operate today have always existed and will continue to exist. In other words: it has been my experience that apples fall down, not up. Though I have no direct evidence of it, I must assume that it was so even in prehistory.
When we marvel at the size of the rocks at Stonehenge, we don’t say “well perhaps someone lifted them with their mind Charles Xavier-style and just walked them over here and set them up like a giant game of mind-Tetris.” I cannot prove that this isn’t how Stonehenge was built; but I MUST assume that it wasn’t, since no man or woman has been observed to be able to lift things with his/her mind in MY world. If uniformitarianism is not assumed, intelligent postulation is lost in an infinitely expansive hurricane of absurd possibilities.
It is through the lens of uniformitarianism that I evaluate history and theology. The claims are extraordinary: talking snakes, God walking with humans, celestial bodies frozen in their orbit in the sky, walking on water, resurrecting the dead…the list goes on. Nothing of the sort has ever been observed in MY world–people live and toil and die and no fireworks light up the sky save for the ones built in factories and perfectly explicable by science. I cannot reasonably accept that such miraculous phenomena as are abundant in the Old/New Testaments were for some reason only present in the distant past. Why did they cease? Why does God no longer communicate with us? He is all-powerful, is He not?
Thankfully, uniformitarianism provides me with an answer which I decided long ago was perfectly satisfactory: people make shit up. I see it all the time. I do it myself some times. For as long as human beings have existed, so have lies. Misdirection. Complete and utter bullshit. MY world is full of it, the world of Aquinas was full of it, the world of Jesus was full of it, the world of David was full of it. That to me seems to explain the miracles perfectly.
The stories are either true or false. In MY world, miracles do not exist, but lies do. I have no reason to believe that in the past it was any different. Therefore, the most logical explanation for ancient stories about miracles is that they were made up by people seeking power.[/quote]
So parts of the bible are the bronze age equivalent of “star magazine”?
[quote]Jewbacca wrote:
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Why not direct communication with his children?[/quote]
Well, it’s not like He didn’t already write down how to communicate directly.
Read the fucking instruction manual.[/quote]
We haven’t even passed one page and here comes you being direspectful.
Which “fucking instruction manual” shall I read? Shall I read the OT? Shall I read the Koran? Shall I read the NT? Shall I continue?
And last I checked, “He” did not write down anything. Had “He” written anything, there would be no dispute. Man wrote. And therein lies the problem.
[quote]kneedragger79 wrote:
So you want direct revelation? You even admit in the OT that ‘people still turned in droves’ away from God. Plus where does free will come into the equation if you have direct proof? And final point, if you want to see proof of God you simply have to honestly look for it. I will NOT answer anymore in this thread because I refuse to explain things to people which walk around in the dark and choose that route.
Tell me where the complex eye comes from, without making huge leaps and bounds. We have a lamprey then some animals have different eyes like the sharks and other predators. Certain species of animals like many raptors can perceive great distances and then other species see worse than we do. And how many genetically related animals follow an obvious evolution to the equivalent higher and more evolved species. So because we ‘evolved’ from apes tell me the number of different base pairs we have from the orangutan? And it makes logical sense that number evolved in one quick transition with no obvious line of fossils to back the claim? Finally, how many animals ANY species walk vertically and have our complex structure of knees with the complex network of tendons, muscle points and blood vessels with the nerves that impregnate the entire structure? One species is all I ask for.
I’ll try to keep this as concise and clean as possible:
How do primates teach their young? Then how do we train our best friends, the canine? Now realize how we interact with our children. We train infants and the canine much the same way until the child grows and develops. However primates do NOT. Why do you suppose that is?
If these points are not clear then I apologize. If you do not have a clear answer with every single point, could it be that science will never be able to prove the gap and leap you must make. In fact to think we evolved from apes, that takes leaps and bounds of its own. That takes blind faith. Why not see the obvious truth. God is the answer IMHO. Look for the truth from a logical sense.[/quote]
I read your first paragraph and stopped. I’m not going to get into some off topic debate with you. My OP does not wonder aloud that God does not exist. It wonders aloud the veracity of any given religion. I don’t have to “look around me” - I already have. You’re “preaching to the choir” there up and until you tell me a bible is the unerring word of God.
[quote]Sweet Revenge wrote:
I think it’s of great value to get other points of view and understandings, whether you agree with them or not. It’s all ultimately good and helpful. Everyone needs to work out their own enlightenment (salvation). So, the great variety of opinions that are expressed are very useful in helping one find and establish their Truth.
I don’t believe we are supposed to agree. Can you imagine a world where everyone conformed to the same Stepford-Religion? Seems un-natural to me. God expresses through the diversity in all religions, leaving out no one. I believe it’s a mistake to think God needs a human-made cookie cutter to reveal Himself to his creation. [/quote]
What religion do you consider yourself?
[quote]Reygekan wrote:
Attacking their religion isn’t warranted and is incredibly rude because it’s not relevant.[/quote]
It’s absolutely warranted and relevant. I’ve had it with people thinking stupid things, calling these things “beliefs”, bundling them up with “religion”, and hiding their stupidity behind “Its my religion!”
Respecting someones right to believe something does not mean respecting the thing they believe. I respect the right fools have to believe in an Invisible Wizard Man In The Sky. However, I dont respect the belief - its stupid.
When you look at all the detriment religion has had on society, you have to see that it all comes from the insane notion that “You have to respect other peoples religious beliefs”. Fuck that. My religion says fuck your religion.
If I wore a tinfoil hat because I “believed” the aliens were trying to steal my thoughts, people would rightly call me a nutjob every chance they got. Yet you watch people gather weekly to talk to the man in the sky and you have a problem with my observation that its insane? forbes justifies the murder of a child “if God says so”, and I’m wrong to point out that talking snakes and magic fruit are retarded fairy tales?