A very dark topic...Read at your own risk.

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Bullshit propaganda? The same could be said about previous evolutionary theories that have not panned out. Fossils millions of years old, give me a break! I read a post from evolutionary standpoint of universe being 16 billion years old and one being 4.5 billion years old. Contradictory statements about the same origin, yeah buddy.
You didn't answer any questions I asked, only attack my [or lack of in your words] education.
It was through my education that I started asking questions.
Since you're so fast to question God, why not question your educators?
 
I'm new here, but I love a good debate. There were lots of posts, so I cherry picked a few to respond to.

To Belisarius:

You say, prove that God doesn't exist. The burdeon of proof is first one you or someone else to prove that god does exist.
It is always much harder to prove a negative.
For example, I say that I was Julius Ceasar in former life. Prove that I wasn't.

There's no reason to attempt to prove me wrong, because I have no proof that I was. The burdeon is on me first. If I make a
satisfiable arguement that I was, then it's up to you to find the flaw in my arguement.

And as for a an arguement that God as defined commonly in this country does not exist,

here's a nice one

1. God is all good
2. God is all knowing
3. God is created the Universe
and everything in it
4. God is perfect
5. Evil Exists

Clearly if 1 - 4 are true, 5 cannot be true.

To Petersko:

> I believe that athiesm is a religion, and that it has its own breed of zealot.

I agree. I recall seeing a talk show years ago with lots of atheists and lots of devout christians.

And the one thing that sticks out in my mind was that someone said something about why God exists and this atheist stood up and go all emotional about how this wasn't possible...blah blah blah.

Sorry, but if God exists, I hope that he actually judges people based on how they lived there lives, not whether they happened
to go to Church (and the right one at that) and believed in God.
I'll stick with being agnostic. I tend to doubt that there's a god, or if there is, it's long since forgotten about this little experiment. However, I could be wrong. But if I am wrong, then I do not believe that this entity could be the first 4 assumptions and yet still need little ole me to praise him/her regularly. That strikes me as a very human need.

To Plague2040:

Actually, I think we do understand the 4th dimension....it's called time
wink.gif

you said,
> there is proof of gravity, there is proof
> that my breaks will
> or will not work. However, there is no
> proof that there is or is not a God.
> This is where belief and faith seperate.

I don't think this is a belief vs faith. It's fact vs. faith. I think that you believe that God exists and you have Faith that your belief is true.

But faith isn't limited to religion. For example is that you get married and you have faith that your spouse will always love you, never cheat on you and that you will stay married until death do you part.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Personally, I think people should believe whatever they like. If one finds comfort from believing in God, then who am I to mess with them. If they're willing to debate it, great. I might learn something, but otherwise, if someone doesn't preach to me, I won't be the Anti-preacher.

Hell there may be a god, and my lack of conviction might sentence me to an eternity of damnation, but I could never believe absolutely in something as intangible as God. But hey, I quit believing in Santa at 5. I might have held on longer if we'd had a fireplace....but they don't have those in the virgin islands
wink.gif
 
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Turbo, exactly, so you can't have one without the other. They cancel each other out.
Erase man from the face of this planet and you will also erase "evil". Not because man will no longer be able to do evil, but because there would be noone here to name it "evil".
I doubt you'll understand this.
You don't even know the difference between the age of the universe and the age of earth.
Universe: 16 Billion years expansion.
Earth: 4.5 billion years old. (I'm sure you know that the rock that was brought back from the moon missions was carbon dated at 4.5 billion years as well).
These ages aren't being debated (except for the age of the universe, it's argued at 10 billion or 16 billion, this is a lot more difficult to establish, but they're working on it.)
There's really no need to discuss anything further with you. You have been programmed to think the way you do, and that's going to be impossible to break through.
Turbo, we already know what you know, we've been there, I challenge you to try to understand what WE know.
Good luck.
 
hey Turbo-
Do you think that with humans (MAN) having freewill that we will ever be free of temptation? I dont think the devil had anything to do with our down fall. It was god if you think about it. Who put that TREE in our beautiful garden? God. I am starting to believe that God is our Devil as well as our Savior.
Just think about the discussion here...
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"When information is outlawed only outlaws will have information"
 
Hate ALL religions? No. Just the people who read the bible.
99.9% of the people I have ever encountered or heard of that read the bible are buffetarians. They treat the bible like a buffet dinner: Take the parts you like, leave the icky stuff behind. They will damn everyone they disagree with using some passage that fits their point of view at that particular moment, all the while ignoring the rest of the book that doesn't fit with that same point of view.
And I'm not talking about obscure stuff, I'm talking major things like, I dunno, the ten commandments.
Number 4: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy . . . in it thou shalt not do any work.
Hmmm. I guess just about 98% of the bible-reading population is going straight to hell, aren't they? And its gonna be a quick trip, because the penalty for violating the sabbath?
Exodus 31:14
Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Exodus 31:15
Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.
Sounds pretty straightforward to me! Whosoever doeth *ANY* work. Not some, not a little, *ANY*. Although figuring out which day you're not supposed to work will be a bit difficult, as I've never gotten a straight answer as to whether its saturday or sunday.
Yet adultery is still a sin according to every bible reader I've ever talked to. So which is it? You either follow all the commandments, or you don't!
But Jesus overrode all the "old" laws? Do we even NEED to get into the hundreds of things Jesus said that few, if any, people follow?
Ug, someone stop me please. I *KNOW* this is pointless, that anything I say won't even be considered, but I can't help it sometimes.
 
>Evil is an absence of good, just as darkness
>is an absence of light.
I'd love to buy that, but given
1. God is all good
2. God is all knowing
3. God is created the Universe
and everything in it
4. God is perfect
It is impossible for evil to exist.
That would imply that one of the following was true:
A. God Created evil.
B. God created something else that created
evil.
If (A) is true, then god is not all good.
If (B) is true, then God is imperfect, God doesn't know everything or the universe was not created by God.
A common arguement is that you can't have good without evil. Another is that god gave man free will and man created evil.
Unfortunately, since God knows everything -- past, present and future -- God had to know that man would choose evil. Thus god created a creature, man, knowing man would create evil. God could have just as easilly created man such that man could choose evil, but chose not to. In fact we are drawn towards doing what we should not do. Clearly a flaw in our creation. Would you create something that you knew would constantly do things that you didn't want it to do?
Me neither, and I find it hard to believe that God, supposedly the epitomy of perfection, would do so either, unless God is not what we claim God is.
 
well if there is a god, I find it funny that we are egotistical enough to think we could understand it. Or have proof that there is one or there isn't. I mean it is god. But who the fuck knows if there is one or not. And further more why care. In the end we all pretty much conform to our own personal moral values, so might as well understand everyone elses perspective and deal with it. And yes we can't deal with everyones values, because I'm sure some peoples moral values are to kill and such. But really it comes down to emotion and not the bullshit head trips. If your ideals make you feel happy, then so be it. It makes sense that those ideals you feel that make you happy, you'd want to give to other people. But ideals shouldn't be force fed. Tis a small fraction of what I believe, disagree, agree, or don't care. It really doesn't affect me.
 
As for the age of the universe, I believe it's been narrowed down to 13-14 billion years old.
glowstick- That proof (the problem of evil) is essentially the same as the one that convinced me not to believe in God. Have you read any Leibniz? He's a Christian philosopher that comes up with a really creative way of getting out of that problem, by saying this is the best of all possible worlds.
Leibniz is great to read because he's an example of a person who firmly believes in Christianity and comes up with a ridiculously complex and speculative way to explain and justify it.
Similarly, epicircles could explain the motion of the planets, but that's not the most logical or likely explanation.
Turbo- I don't know anything about you, so I won't venture a guess. But to any Christians out there who have not taken college level biology, anthropology, geology and astronomy, I think you really need to take those classes. If your faith can survive the challenges presented to you in those courses, then by all means you are a true believer, not just a blind sheep.
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Trance and Dance: the enlightened path to Trancendence.
 
According to the Bible, on the 7th day God rested, Saturday on modern calendars.
What I've found ironic is old school Jewish people observing the Sabbath more faithfully than Christians.
I'll be the first to admit that Christian's attitudes towards non-believers is often highbrow and pius, and I can empathize as to why people would reject it. I notice Christian's attitudes towards other Christians is often the same way, given they follow two seperate doctrines.
glowstix:
That rationalization is leaving out free will. If God were an all-controlling ruler who pulled all the strings, what fun would existence be? How would we be able to know right or wrong if we were only programmed to do one or the other? He gave us that choice, which is influenced by factors that we do not fully understand.
 
Turbo- Glowstix point is that there is no free will! God knew everything from the start. Creation + foreknowledge = predestination. In other words, God knows whether a person will go to hell before they're even born, or before he even cerated the world for that matter. So he created people knowing full well they would go to hell. It's God's fault if people go to hell then.
This problem is exactly what Leibniz tried to deal with, like I said previously.
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Trance and Dance: the enlightened path to Trancendence.
 
No free will? Please.
You can help someone out when they need a hand or you can kill them by putting a 40 caliber bullet through their skull, the choice is yours.
I can either go party tonight or I can stay home, I make that decision.
I can choose to believe God or I can choose not to.
Would you not consider that free will?
Are we "predestined?" Hardly. We like to think so, but we can do something about it.
We do have to end up somewhere [and an all-knowing God already knows where], and the choices we make now determine that.
 
You just proved my argument. God already knows every "decision" we make before we make it. In fact, God (if God is all-knowing) knew every single "decision" each one of us would make before God ever created the first atom of the universe. Thus, it was God's will and intention that makes us make the "decisions" that we do. If God knew where each of us would end up befoer he/she/it created he universe, that's a pretty damn strong case for predestination.
I, myself, believe in free will, of course. It's quite evident that we are free creatures.
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Trance and Dance: the enlightened path to Trancendence.
 
"We do have to end up somewhere [and an all-knowing God already knows where], and the choices we make now determine that." - Turbo

This is absolutely hilarious! I love the paradoxes that are used to explain "God". You don't seem to quite understand what it is that you even believe.

"I can choose to believe God or I can choose not to."

But if you choose not to, that is the wrong choice, and you will pay!!

"Would you not consider that free will?"

Not one bit.

"We do have to end up somewhere..."

Why do we HAVE to end up somewhere? Because your little mind cannot conceptualize nonexistence? I understand that it's very hard to imagine not "being". I'm going to try to make this easy for you. Stop and think for a second, think as hard as you can and try to remember your earliest memory. Ok, now, how old were you? Maybe three? Four or five? Why can't you remember back any further? Why can't you figure out where you were before you were born?

Do you know why? Because you became YOU when the neurons in your developed brain began recording information. Guess what, when you die, that stops. You go back to the same place you were before you were born, which was NOWHERE. It's not something to fear, it's just reality.

Something would have to download all of your brain's recorded information into another medium at the time of your death in order for YOU to be YOU somewhere else. So, I'll assume that this is what you believe will happen. Your brain will be downloaded into Heaven, since of course, you merely believed Jesus died for your sins and there you will "live" for eternity in peace. And the rest of us, those who chose not to invoke blind belief into our lives, will be downloaded into Hell, where we will be tortured for the rest of eternity. (Keep in mind that if we are to be tortured then we should also need to feel pain which would require a physical existence, which means we would probably die again.)

So, my question is, why didn't God just create us in Heaven? Is this a test? A test that is set up to fill Heaven with blind sheep? Yeah, THAT makes a LOT of sense. God wants to be surrounded by people who forego reason and will believe anything because they are told it's the truth. Why don't we give God more credit than THIS?!

Or, you could look at it this way. This actually IS a test, a test to weed out free thinkers (the true free willers). Maybe God is so bored in Heaven because He has noone even close to His intellectual ability to converse with that he set up this test to weed out the sharpest minds that have evolved to be in Heaven with Him. Hmmmm... I wonder where the rest of the blind believers go?

So there you go, TWO completely different interpretations of the same story. Which one is right? How do we know for sure? What would be the point of believing EITHER of them?

It can never change what IS!

Thank you for inserting some humour into my Monday afternoon.
smile.gif


Stasis
[This message has been edited by Stasis (edited 24 July 2000).]
 
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Wow... feel like I have just read a good book!! This is the endless topic of conversation....we never tire of it...Personally I believe to live as fully and as good as possible, without harm to anybody. We can predict, from things we have learnt in the past, our possible fates, but we may never truly know. So live life to its fullest, you will win either way...
 
TAKE HEED!!TAKE NOTICE!!
TAKE COVER!!
There is a warining here, and message. Encrypted in electric tones of tomorrow and brash rhythmic bashings as timeless as time itself, a voice rides the tide of chaos and tells us... "don't be afraid of the future, it doesn't include you it only removes you". Who knows such things?! Who dares prophesize our destiny by declaring "the secret of science" as a mrere equeation, the sum of which most certainly equals our very desturction. Could it all be true?
While studying each of these sound stories one will inevitably stumble upon a theme, a pattern, if you will. The future begets chaos, chaos begets desturction, and destruction begets escape. What is left frustratingly unclear, though, is the outcome. Is the escape successful? Is the monstrous shadow around the corner our certain doom or an open doorway leading us to our greatest truimph?
Alas, we are only onlooders and listeners. Searching every harmonious note and rhythmic riddle for a clue, but the search is never ending and aswers to questions as big as these are not ours to ever possess.
So, face forward with eyes open and mind reeling... your future has arrived. Are you ready to go?
Read this and believe it because it's everything because it means everything....
this is to end all discusstion of this post so please take my word truly madly deeply and believe them nobody is right or wrong so.....Do what ever you please just stop replying to this damn post ok.................................................................................................
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| |Don't Stop -|- It's the Real Sound| |
 
"According to the Bible, on the 7th day God rested, Saturday on modern calendars."
According to who? You?
Well, the priest at the church where I was growing up said it was sunday. So, who is correct? You both can't be right, depending on who I listen to I may or may not end up in hell for violating the sabbath. But I won't go to hell for violating the sabbath you say? Well my girlfriends priest said I would. So what do I do? Who do I listen to? I need to work on my car this sunday... is that work? Yes? No? Kinda-sorta?
Gays are an abomination you say? But Rev. Smith said God loves everyone! But Falwell says they burn?
Evolution is the work of Satan! According to Turbomonk anyway, *THE* voice of Geeee-zus!
And the Earth is the center of the universe! Burn the heratics who disagree, they.... Oh, wait nevermind, that was yesterday! TODAY Earth is no longer the center of it all, right? Or what?
I'm confused.
The bible the nice people who woke me up last Sunday says quite clearly that I will lose my soul for working on my car this coming sunday, they pointed it out for me. But Turbomonk says I'm safe, but Saturday is a no-no... what do I do??? My priest said evolution was "approved" by the pope, but Turbomonk says its EEEEEEvil! Help!
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You know, If I want to know the value of plancks constant, I can go ask a physicist, or look it up in a book and get the same answer 99.99999999% of the time (And I'm quite sure either Turbomonk or Brock will find the 2 guys on Earth who SWEAR they have the REAL value, despite every other scientist disagreeing with them).
I ask 10 bible-readers any question, I will get at *minimum* 3 different answers, usually 7-9. Ask the three who agreed on answer #1 another question, and they will all disagree.
Jesus dies for our sins. As proof, I am offered a reference to a crushed baby skull(?!?!?) and informed that he died of suffocation (and I always thought it was that spear. Silly me)
Why don't I believe in the bible? Is it THAT hard to understand?
 
"Do what ever you please just stop replying to this damn post ok"
Um, why?
The simple fact that it is approaching 200 replies seems to indicate to me that it is something people want to discuss.
How about this: If it disturbs you so greatly that people enjoy discussing the existance (or non-existance) of God, you don't read it?
 
I'm glad you're entertained Stasis.
'Somewhere' does not necessarily pertain to the afterlife. There are plenty of people out there who have made a stupid mistake or error in judgement and are now paying the consequences. Read where I wrote "the choices we make now determine that."
Anywhere in that post did I mention nonexistence? No.
That 'somewhere' can mean right now, and you'd be foolish to think that decisions you made earlier in life didn't lead you to where you are and what you are doing at this very second.
(take the red or blue pill, ya know?)
"I can choose to believe God or I can choose not to."
But if you choose not to, that is the wrong choice, and you will pay!!
"Would you not consider that free will?"
Not one bit
But I still have that choice, it is by my free will that I choose to or not to.
What it boils down to is faith, you either have it or you don't.
Rob:
By making reference to a crushed babies skull, then hanging him on a cross when he got too big for that, illustrates the vulnerability of God in the form of a human being. (didn't I explain that in the earlier post?) I think it was something along the lines of 'he appears to us in a way where we can always reject him... by crushing the babies skull (decree ordered at the time of Jesus birth to kill male babies) or nail him to a cross once he got too big for that.
I should probably explain it further in hopes that it won't be misinterpreted: when God appeared in human form in the birth of Christ, soldiers were sent to kill all male babies, the ruler must have sensed some kind of threat.. when that baby grew up, man nailed him to a cross to kill him.
How_much_more_simple_do_I_need_to_make_it? I'm not going to get nit-picky as to whether he died from suffocation or died from a spear, I'm sure the combo of the two had something to do with it.
I have to say your uproar about the Sabbath has me in stitches!!
The Bible simply states, "remember the sabbath and keep it holy". It never says which day of the week. Do you think God really cares whether it's Saturday or Sunday? I would hope He's not that anal and lets us slide as long as we observe one day of the week as the sabbath to rest and relax.
What does 6.626 × 10 to the -34 joule/second have to do with this discussion?
Has any scientific theory or find disproven this?
The same thing can't be said for evolution.
[This message has been edited by Turbo Monk (edited 24 July 2000).]
 
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