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Moira, as I am sure you are aware............ "Credo in unum Deum, sanctificatur nomen tuam, adveniat regnum tuam, fiat voluntas tuam............."
:D
If we are to have free will rather than predestination, God has to create a "mechanism" that is self proprelled, rather than "steered"??????????
That's how I look at it.
Just ask Kevin :D
Nobody ever argued that we didn't have free will. Good grief, is this thread onto its 10th page ?? All because I posted a link to an article claiming to have found the end of the universe ......
The reverse is also true...also how can mankind be so arrogant to believe we are the only one's in this vast area we call "space" or "universe", what is going to happen to everyone's beliefs when little green something or other's show up asking directions to the next sector of space on their way to a vacation.;)Quote:
I'm sorry but nobody has been able to prove that God doesn't exist
It also asks the question that with all of this free space hanging about, why god didn't go on a spending spree and populate numerous planets, why just one, were we an experiment and he/she/it got bored and moved on?
dalek, I agree that the reverse is true. Believing in God requires faith, but that goes for absolutely everything in life. Nobody actually knows anything themselves, we all depend on having faith in somebody else's beliefs. Let me give an example - do you know how your computer works? I mean, really, really works. Of course not! If you follow that line on and on, sooner or later you'll get to a part you don't understand. Disbelief doesn't necessarily follow, you probably do believe silicon works as a semi conductor - not because you *know*, but because to challenge the logic why it does would be ridiculous.
And who says there aren't similar civilisations on other planets? I don't see that and creation being mutually exclusive. Personally I believe the spotlight in heaven is on our earth at the moment as we live out the prophesies in Revelation which may be hugely relevant to other civilisations.
I was being snarky. If Moira's right that "beginnings and ends are inseperable", then if souls are eternal, then they have no end. And if they have no end, they cannot have had a beginning. Ergo, your soul is not your own, either because it's pre-owned by another person, or it always existed and you're just borrowing it. Furthermore, promises of eternal afterlife in heaven directly contradict that God created heaven, which therefore means that heaven ends. (For that matter, if your afterlife "begins" when you die, then therefore your afterlife must "end", so even the "eternal afterlife" bit is impossible.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Godsrock37
Would you believe I was personally lectured at by Behe over lunch with slideshows at someones house? :cool:Quote:
think it adds character ;) if u wanna get into bio, look at irreducibly complex machines and ask how evolution makes those. we find those all over at the subcellular level and further. or the sickening exactness of DNA conscription, how does evolution account for all the mechanisms coming together perfectly (1000's of 1000's of mechanisms) and it would fail if any one of a few 1000 were taken out. there have been a few arguments for a few of these ill concede, but there are to many to ignore it.
Try this link when it comes to "irreducible complexity". The underlying logic of "irreducible complexity" is flawed: "Because something is currently in a form where it cannot lose a single component and yield the same benefit, it therefore can never have existed any other way."
It's like saying that just because your hand can't grab things after you remove the fingers, it therefore can't ever have been used to punch things, with the fingers coming later.
What I wanted to get across was that people desire and automatically attempt to see patterns even where we attempt to create patternlessness or have solid knowledge that something is as random as possible. If you believe this means an intelligent designer, then I question where you're placing the burden of proof.Quote:
very true, we see patterns and order,[...] its a scary thought having to recognize something bigger than urself. i could go into the psychology area but thats my older bros area of expertise and im not so good, so ill leave it.
Since when is lightning, flies laying eggs that hatch into maggots, or basic magnetism a "higher power"? The point was that people saw something they couldn't explain, but they are cases where nowadays we would never say it was a supernatural intervention.Quote:
im not sure i understand your point, it seems like all of your examples are examples of an intervening higher power. could you clarify?
I am referring, of course, to heat in a thermodynamic sense. Heat inside your house doesn't end when you switch off your heater any more than a water disappears when it evaporates.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moira
You cannot scientifically prove I do not have an invisible incorporeal dragon in my garage either, but you don't see me trumpeting it as clear evidence that I am correct, do you? There's no real difference between the Dragon and God (or an Intelligent Designer). Every possible hole you may wish to use for disproval can, at the very least, be "explained" by saying "He meant it to be that way. Don't ask me why. I'm sure he had his reasons." (Read the Dragon in the Garage thing, and tell me how it differs from believing in God in quantitative evidentiary provable/improvable terms.)Quote:
I'm sorry but nobody has been able to prove that God doesn't exist - and far more learned people than you or I have tried over the centuries. Mathematicians, theologians, scientists .....
Everything you have breaks down to a normative claim that we should assume God exists unless he is disproven, which I disagree with.
Creation as in the verb? I certainly believe in it! As in Earth created 6000 years ago? Hokey.Quote:
too many highly intelligent people believe in creation for anyone to be arrogant enough to simply dismiss it as a fairy tale.
Because people keep pushing it due to religious beliefs. You're confusing "truth" (or perhaps "divinity") with "influence" or "political power".Quote:
If the bible was little more than that, how come it's been so enduring, so widely read and caused so much debate?
I don't believe people would succeed in "pushing" religious beliefs if there wasn't something in it. Like it or not, there's just too much that cannot be explained or dismissed and there are too many patterns in nature to fit comfortably with the random chaos theory. Like the way plants grow new primordiums at the so called golden angle which results in an ideally compact arrangement, which coincidentally is the the most pleasing arrangement to our eyes. Moreover, the number of spirals resulting from growth based on this golden angle is usually based on the Fibonacci series.
The unique circumstances that result in the occurence of a total eclipse is another example. Random chaos or evidence of intelligent design by a creator who intended us to enjoy life? I think people get hung up on the idea of "God" as an old man with a white beard sitting on a throne in heaven. Once you get past that, your mind is more open to the idea of God (whatever you conceive him to be).
I do see your point about this slightly though, ie have we made the maths fit the facts, or the other way round?
That's very true .... but it wouldn't make sense. In fact, it's a bit like the argument that if the wind howls through a tree and nobody's there, has it caused a sound? I believe my faith has stood the test of time and my arguments stand up because they fit. In fact, it can be a blinding revelation when suddenly everything makes sense to you. That's not to say I understand the universe - I don't believe human beings have the capacity any more than a fly on the wall has the capacity to understand the Taylor series. It's pointless trying.Quote:
You cannot scientifically prove I do not have an invisible incorporeal dragon in my garage either
At the end of the day I place my faith in the bible and to me that's enough evidence. It's not a case of "he made it that way, don't ask me why". The logic can be explained by going back to this book again and again and until someone gives me proof that it's untrue then these will be my beliefs.
Incidentally, your "afterlife" doesn't begin when you die :) we have to wait till Armageddon for that :) read Revelation. It's made clear in the bible that the dead "know nothing at all".
I'm still trying to figure out why you can't believe in intelligent design and evolution... As much as Moira does not want to admit it there is a quit a bit of evidence available to prove that many, if not all, forms of life have evolved from other forms of life. But no where in any evolution book or belief does it say that the process of evolution was not created by an intelligent designer.
I think it is far more beautiful to think that "god's" most magnificient creation was not man but rather a system that allowed man to evolve into what he is.
But most human's are to egocentric to actually see that. They have to think that they are the "center of the universe" in god's eyes... We had to be at the center of the universe physically until we could prove that the heavens didn't rotate around us. Of course you can find people that still think the earth is round and that the stars actually do rotate around us.
It is only a matter of time until we are able to prove that man is no different from a dolphin with the exception of a differrent arrangement of adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine.
mohaughn I'm not disagreeing with that, except to say that we have something dolphins and other animals don't, ie soul, conscience, call it what you like. We have the desire to question our very existence.
I'm agnostic myself. I do not believe in an "interventionist" God, however. God, such as the meaning behind the loaded word exists, could very well be or have created the quantum-level rules of the universe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mohaughn
If anything, evolution elevates the powers of God. Sure, it's not that nice for people who believe God personally speaks to them, etc, but surely a God who can create a self-improving system is more to be respected than one who made things ad-hoc.
Of course, X years from now, quantum mechanics will be in the area biology is now, and we'll have some further elaboration on the universe in it's place.
Referring to "the random chaos theory" is hardly a way to convince people you understand the evolution you're arguing against, you know...Quote:
Originally Posted by Moira
Which is an entirely subjective tradition-based argument on your part. It means nothing. I can use the dragon to explain just as much as you can use God to. You only really object because the dragon isn't named God and doesn't fit with the romantic (and biblical) idea of the universe you want, not because it is a fundamentally different kind of claim or is any different in how provable it is.Quote:
That's very true .... but it wouldn't make sense. [...] I believe my faith has stood the test of time and my arguments stand up because they fit.
Why are mammal's retinas "backwards" in our eyes? Tell me the answer that doesn't involve "God knows best", or something like that.Quote:
It's not a case of "he made it that way, don't ask me why".
Irrelevant to my point. If it "begins after Armageddon", still has a beginning, so (according to you) it must have an end. Therefore afterlife is not eternal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moira