God, what's the nature of... ?

Definition of god...

Written by: wikipedia

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God is the term used to denote the Supreme Being ascribed by monotheistic religions to be the creator, ruler and/or the sum total of, existence. Conceptions of God vary widely, despite the common use of the same term for them all.

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Or according to Dictionary.com

Written by: Dictionary.com

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God
A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.

The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.

A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.

An image of a supernatural being; an idol.

One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed: Money was their god.

A very handsome man.

A powerful ruler or despot.

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"God" is a term that is used by many to decribe something totally different. Just as "love" I consider the word "god" to be as one of the least defined.

What's your conception/ understanding of "the supreme being"?

Tell me/us... To you: is it a "very handsome, perfect man, ruling the universe"? Or is it more the "universal life force" - as in my personal understanding - that is in all beings and objects that exist/ don't exist... ???

*runs and hides*

FANTASTIC

FANTASTIC picture!
you know, the church near us won't let us help out at their homeless persons shelter because we're not church goers!

Well Tom, to me, God is Ultimate Love. It is an intelligent, creative energy which is ultimate love.
If you've ever read Conversations With God...that's my kinda God

well he is a monster, but cooler than the cookie monster

he can fly, even through bad turbulence

and he is made of spagetti

they call him: the Flying Spagetti Monster

Alanis Morisette

I thought it was really funny....Alanis Morisette as god in dogma.....I mean I always figured god was a woman but Alanis Morisette? GEEZ

For any system that believes in a God that is good but denies the fall (the world was first created perfect but man made it corrupt), it is very difficult to answer the question "Why would a good God have made a world in which bad things are required to happen?"

Of course, this question can dismissed by claiming that good and evil are merely human preferences with no basis in an external "morality." Thus, to complain about "suffering" being "bad" is like claiming that the gravity is "bad." Thus the question would really be "why does God do things that I don't like" to which one might reply "because God only does things that he likes, and you don't have the same likes/dislikes as God."

I don't agree with it, but it's an interesting theory.

Patriarch's idea on the fall intrigues me.

God creates Exhibit 1. This is called Earth. Why did an omnipotent and benevolent God create a place so full of suffering in the first place??

Versus (apparantly):

God creates Exhibit 1. This is called Earth. He then creates Exhibit 2. These are called Humans. Why did an omnipotent and benevolent God create such a flawed creature in the first place??

What's the difference? God still screwed things up pretty badly. I mean, if he created a flawed earth, then he screwed up. If he created a flawed species, then that's just as bad. I want to know how blaming humans themselves is possible, because if God created us and the world we live in, then it's HIS fault it's so screwed over.

maybe we aren't really as flawed as we think, i mean how long has humanity survived for? we seem to be doing pretty well me thinks.

Is it possible for a creature to be created perfect, but with the ability to disobey God? Satan would be a good example of this.

Should the ability to disobey really be considered a flaw, or is freedom actually an essential part of being fully human?

Why didn't God create complicated puppets, that would be incapable of disobeying him? I've heard a few theories.

There are some that think God wanted people to love and obey him freely. Thus, he had to give them an option.

Another theory is based on the fact that God has characteristics besides creativity and perfection. He also has the characteristic of justice. When a thief is caught by the police and sent to jail, most of us would not consider the punishment to be an "evil" act on the part of the judge. In a similar but perfect way, the punishment that someone who disobeys God will experience will exactly fit their crimes, and they will glorify God for his justice.

In a similar way, God has the attributes of mercy, love, and self sacrifice. Since God allowed man the ability to become a sinner, God now has the opportunity to demonstrate mercy by forgiving man, love by accepting man even though he is a sinner, and self sacrifice by taking all the punishment that man deserves upon Himself. The ability to do wrong, therefore, is another way for us to glorify God (which was why He made us).

Of course, these lines of reasoning are based on an assumption of free will before the fall. There are plenty of people out there (including Christians) who think there is no such thing as free will. If that is true, then we actually ARE automatons who have no choice in the matter. Thus, the fact that there is suffering is not a “flaw,” everything is going exactly to plan. We have the illusion of “liking” or “disliking” certain things, but these emotions are just a demonstration of God’s creative ability. Pain is not a flaw… it’s a feature.

Thus, we have no real “right” to complain about the way things are any more than characters in a novel can complain about what the author has written. When we do complain, we only complain because God has made us do so.

If you believe that there is no free will, there’s no problem at all. If you believe in free will, the only question is whether free will is actually a defect.

If you decide to declare free will to be a defect, this is in effect a pronouncement of judgment on God’s design, which implies that you are more knowledgeable than Him as to how things “ought to be.” Essentially, the claim would be that “I am flawed, but I am also superior at knowing how to create things than God is.” This would mean that God was able to create something better than Himself, but to prove this claim you would actually have to be able to create something that is also a better creator than yourself, that will not have free will. This is a difficult task, since if it does not have free will it can only do what you make it do, and it will be hard to actually assign credit to the creation.

If free will is not a defect, then God did not make a mistake, and there is again no problem.

does having a child that grows to be a better person than you count?

surprise! I was believing that one of the first things would be the comment that god has no gender... well, you proved me wrong... or stop! no! actually worms don't have a gender, right?

But any than that I do not get the meaning of the picture... ??? but as I'd have to look for Sym hiding out somewhere in a far away place to get a comment - maybe in the meantime and his absence someone who understood it may explain it to me?

why haven't I threaded in "Chat"?

In response to patriarch and sethis (all IMO's):

1st of all: I find it a little strange that you involve us into your debate (carried on from other threads) without giving an explanation according to the title of this thread. Every other is. How can I argue with you (if I'd want this) if I dunno whether you refer to a can with worms or the flying spaghetti monster, Alannis Morisette, or the green buck?

Patriarch: The conception of the "fall" could have been created in order to explain why god makes mankind suffer. Hebrews have the general conception of an angry, retaliate god, much more than Christians and much like Muslims. If you compare old and new testament you will certainly understand the difference. You may also take into account, that the Bible is a compilation of many books, that the old testament was initially written in order to display the history of the hebrews and was compiled between 800-1400.

Maybe it also holds a psychological momentum: If men are humble because they are in debt, they more likely will comply to what is asked from them.

So your answer is offering ONE possible approach to the reasoning of pain and suffering.

If good and bad are merely human preferences with no basis in an external "morality" then the entire conception of "sin" might just be manmade, by limited understanding of existence, much like the conception of "Satan" and "Hell".

Your examples all have as a foundation that one must accept the conception of "god" and that we are created by "him". As I said, I find no information that offers me your perception.

Do you want to tell me, that god's just a lab-assistant/ researcher on a higher dimension, that he's something like the programmer in "13th floor" or like the figure in "Matrix", or is it a different concept that you hold?

Sethis (same information missing): I referred you to "Bruce Almighty" before, I guess this should explain something? "One has to use some dark colours in order to make the light stand out"... maybe sometimes suffering is needed to bring out the best in people? And maybe it's just a matter of perception about the world and mankind "being so flawed and full of suffering and stupidity". If I look around I see a world of abundance and joy - just experiencing some hickups in distributing the pleasure, I can see very intelligent beings who seek and find their niche and quickly adapt to a changing environment - and if there is anything not going according to will, then willpower should be exercised and clarity established. Look at the difference of suffering between you and a 2 year old child... how do you deal with pain and how does the child? What do you experience as painful and what the child?

More questions:

- Is "good and bad" a valid concept, or is it based on personal opinion and experience?
- Is some rain necessary in order to appreciate sunshine?
- Is it necessary to believe in a higher force in order to survive/ get/ be happy?
- Is belief/ religion just a psychological trick to control each other or is it the very own mind that tries to put pieces/ evidence together and complete the missing links by it's own imagination?
- Why do have different cultures a different concept of what, or who "god" is?
- Would it be logical to assume, that "there is one force governing the universe"?
- Is "god" the (only) neverchanging element in the universe?
- Is it the desire of men, to create something that prevails? Or the desire of women to lean on something?
- IF there is a superior/ perfect being - why would it have to generate/ create anything in the first place? IF the higher being is to be considered perfect, then is there need for reflection in the first place? Why would it demand "worship" and "obedience"?

God doesnt want us to worship Her/Him. We're here, IMO, to experience. Think about it, if you're God, all you've got is you. "BORING!" so you split yourself up into little bits and have all the experience from that. IMO we are "God". God is energy/love/everything. The good and the bad. The up and the down. EVERYTHING. We're just here to BE, not to DO. We can't lose in life. That's what is so great about it.

that sounds a bit like "meet joe black" where death wants to experience life. I love that concept. Joe, I like the way you see it.

Patriarch, I was more referring to the point that if God is benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient, then he KNOWS what every result of his actions in creating us will be. He KNEW that Adam and Eve would eat the apple. He KNEW Jesus' "sacrifice" would be ignored by a large proportion of the world. He KNEW that Satan would fall from heaven and be cast down.

What you seem to be saying is that we're either puppets, or we do evil. I reject that. I believe that we could have been created by God (hypothetically, because I don't believe in him/her) in a manner which would have made us more inclined to do good than to do evil, which is what the problem is. It is much easier to be evil than good.

You can have free will and still be consistently good.

Oh, and about the concept of Justice, then it's hardly justice if you're the one who made the person commit the crime in the first place. You made him/her like that, and you have a plan for their life. You know exactly what is going to happen to them, but you let them commit the crime and get locked up anyway. Would it be so hard to just say "Hey, don't do that man; you'll get arrested"?

Written by: Patriarch

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God allowed man the ability to become a sinner

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Written by: Patriarch

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accepting man even though he is a sinner

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God MADE us that way. How is it then any kind of achievement to say "Hey, I still love you... because you're functioning in exactly the way I designed you!" ?? That's like me beating a lion and starving it every day, then after walking into it's cage and getting my arm torn off saying "I still love you". It's your own damned fault the lion bit your arm off!!

FireTom: You look around and see a world of abundance and joy? Are you living on the same planet?? Just look at how consistently we are up this planet. Just look at how much evil outweighs good on a daily basis. Not a day goes by without me reading about another murder, another lewd affair, another bombing, another child abuse case. The world is up, and you need to be a to get anywhere in it. In my opinion.

To me 'God' is whatever or whoever you want it to be. To take the Christian example 'God' could be some all powerful being that sees all and is everywhere but then it could be the sub-atomic particle that started the creation of the universe. They could also be one and the same thing or anything else for that matter. We don't know who or what 'God' is and probably will never know.

Sethis: I agree when you say that the world is messed up but in my view the small acts of kindness that never get talked about are just as important as the evil acts. In my view 'good' and 'evil' are linked in a circle where neither is more important or less active than the other. Besides, the media thrives on negativity, the reason why we see and hear about so much evil is that the media deliberatly put it there. And yes, I am a conspiricy theorist. The media now controls more of the world than the politicians do.

Sethis, your post blends free will and predestination too much for me to give a real reply. You seem to suggest that God could have made us free to choose, but made us always choose to do good. While it may be true that God can do something such as create a triangle that is also not a triangle, I think this is beyond our ability to comprehend and discuss.

However, an issue we can adress is by what standard you are judging things to be "good" and "evil." By what standard are you deciding that suffering is "evil?" Is it not possible to see this world as being all "good?" If you've read much C.S. Lewis, you might have an idea where I'm going with this.

@ Loki: no, never heard that saying, but get the idea of what it means...

@ Spork: Hmmm, I kinda was asking what you perceive "god" to be... But I follow up on what you said to Sethis. Just because "bad" is all over the papers, doesn't mean that "good" is on holiday...

@ Sethis: Unless this connection ends in a parallel - universe, we sure share the same planet. Just you are in the UK right now and I am in India... I think that good and evil pretty much balance each other, but also follow up on what you said to Patriarch. If one is omnipotent AND perfect, one KNOWS what is going to happen when putting a tree somewhere in the garden and say "you can do whatever you like but keep away from these fruits." I am sure that every parent (no matter how nice the childrens are) is asking for trouble by just making this statement.

@ jeff: well, but how do you actually measure "bad" if there is nothing to compare it with? i.e. how can a shadow be casted, if there's no light? And if it's the same god everybody is talking about (and I reckon they do) - how comes they see him very different? Is the result of observation depending on the observer? But certainly I oppose your statement that "desires are not linked by their genders"... generally they are...

@ jo: I like what you're saying. Basically even if I'd loose everything I'd gain the experience how that feels like... Hence one has to DO something in order to sustain oneself... (nobody is bringing the groceries for free - unfortunately). I've heard that concept (of god wanting to experience himself) before - not sure about boredom as a motif though, but curiosity would be fair enough for me... "Ultimate love" - I perceive LOVE to be one of the greatest misunderstandings of wo/mankind and consisting of as many definitions like, for say the word "set" (464 that is)... WHICH love are YOU referring to?

and Mr Majestik: do you want to imply that the FSM created mankind, taking into account, or even hoping that we (one day) will be "better" FSM's than he is?

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you're fast guys.... are you ignoring me, patriarch?
@jeff: well your question is completely hypothetical and fictuous... but maybe at least ONE of those two will be surprised that the universe decided to take the highest possible conscious force (after OWD maybe) and to smite it with an ordinary truck... and question himself for a split second whether it was conscious to cross that road without looking right and left...

yeah I know jo.....FireTom didnt get it and asked for an explanation thats why I quoted him ....you know.....its kinda right above what I said

Oh god....

Well I'm not a free-will person... I think it follows from Aristotle's Prime Mover argument if you accept that sort of thing, maybe with a little Leibniz PSR thrown in: namely "Everything has a cause, and this can't go on ad finitum so there had to be a first cause that is itself uncaused". Which seems to completely negate itself by saying everything has a cause... EXCEPT for this thing, which is just passing the buck to God as I call it. On top of that, if you have God as a necessary being, and everything else as contingent beings, you have the whole issue of whether or not a necessary being CAN make a contingent being as logically he could only make more necessary beings, himself being necessary and thus everything he does being necessary because of its parent element's necessariness (I just made a new word!).

Then there's the argument from Myth: that being that every myth mirrors every other one, ie we usually have the sky father in a sacred marriage with the earth mother (or the two combined into one monotheistic creator God) who have a divine child who then goes on to overthrow the father (IE Christianity to Judaism, Zeus to Chronos, Odin to... well you get the picture). Theres the similarity between linguistic elements that point to similar origins (for instance, in the Flood story of Greek Mythology the father of the lone surviving human was named Iebetros, and Noah's pops name was Jebeth I believe... which translated are the same name)... There's just too much overlap between Myth and religion for me to believe any of it objectively.

Any the tri-omni definition... well that's just self-negating too. Like the "Can God make a stone so heavy he can't lift it" question, or "Can God be Evil", etc. etc. So I throw that idea out categorically. And then theres the whole "If God is unchanging then how did he create, as this seems to imply changing from one state to another (not creating to creating)". Unless he is continuously creating, creating being his only REAL function and thus lowering your God to a point of "being" and ONLY "being", which in turn again makes everything necessary and fixed.

I think God is a nice etymology (simple explanation, like Santa Clause). Science is a nicer etymology now a days and explains more, though it is still based on reasoning backwards from what we can measure now.

So for me, I don't think the anthropomorphic God makes sense. I've heard lots of theories and definitions and still havn't found one a think makes sense. Which is why I'm agnostic. Because an atheist position is only just as plausable. One thing I am sure about IMO is that God ain't anything like me. Im more inclined to think of him as a "force" just like gravity, etc. at the moment.

If he was like me, I'd kick him in the nads for the problem of evil. Just my 2 cents. I'd rather be free of him completely (a dead God as Nietzche would have it) than be religious and devoted and thankful to him. That's part of a parent's obligation to the next generation: to eventually step aside and die so that they might live.

Wahay! I second more or less everything i8beefy2 just said!

Well done that man. Have a piece of cheese.

@ majestic: it might have been coming across sarcastic, but "the flying spagetti monster" to me is as valid as the "ultimate love"...

@ beefy: the religious definition of "god" requires you to be thankful and worship - this is temple-dogma... who, besides them tell you that you have to go to church/ worship him/ be thankful of anything? I follow your generation-argument... would just not be so easy if you're immortal...

Old Jewish proverb:

"If God lived on Earth, people would break his windows"

written by Jeff(fake)

Written by:

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As to the subject of Badness, I think that it is always going to suck to bang your toe. The strange thing about human existance is that we can all agree largely on what is good and bad. It's hardwired into us. It could have been completely different, but it wasn't.

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Its a question of subjectivity, and a massive part of it is cultural conditioning, which itself is constantly changing.

A few hundred years ago it was considered morally acceptable to have slaves, and summarily shoot them - blacks were considered subhuman savages. In todays society this view is no longer considered to be morally reasonable (though traces of old views still filter through - we aren't at a stage of racial tolerance in the West - but things have gotten a lot better)

oops, Sorry Loki!

I really do reccommend reading Conversations with God, its fantastic

I cannot possibly read this all right now. Will later. I loved the can of worms tho...

My own opinion: God is simply any being who exists naturally with four spatial dimensions or higher. As such there could be many gods, or one, or none. Why would any being existing in four spatial dimensions be god? Because our time (The 4th dimension) would be perceived by them as solid, and, as such, they would know everything that happens in our lives in one of their instants. Feel free to pick it apart I like refining it.

Another totally different take worth looking at if no one has brought it up...

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" She remembered WIggan telling her what gods would be like. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them. Why would he say such a thing? How could he know what a god would be?

Somebody who wants to teach you how to know everything that they do and do everything that they know- what he was really describing was parents, not gods.

Only there were plenty of parents who didn't do that.....

So what Wiggan was describing wasn't parents, really. He was describing good parents. He wasn't telling her what gods were, he was telling her what goodness was. To want other people to grow. To want other people to have all the good things that you have. And to spare them the bad things if you can. That was goodness.

What were gods. then? They would want everyone else to know and have and be all good things. They would teach and share and train, but never force."

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-Xenocide, 432-433.

There's a lot to consider there... and a lot of implicit assumptions, but also a lot that rings true in terms of society and how we see things at least in the western world....

nice one Kyrian - I like it... conversations with god I haven't read - heard the background came across like very christian...

Small interview with god...

Different people have different perceprions or ideas about what god is and what god means to them - not only by culture and religious background - I am certain that within any society, every individual has it's own understanding and picture of who or what god actually is.

This is one step from "what it actually means"...

@jeff:

Written by: jeff(fake)

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As to the subject of Badness, I think that it is always going to suck to bang your toe. The strange thing about human existance is that we can all agree largely on what is good and bad. It's hardwired into us. It could have been completely different, but it wasn't.

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And this I really do want to oppose... It's not hardwired in(to) us... I see pictures of children-soldiers, I hear stories about the holocaust, about atrocities in Australia, Africa, Asia, the Americas and all over Europe. Good and Bad is nothing that is hardwired anywhere in the human soul... it's the reality that makes the morality... eventually

Key word: Spatial.

Reread. Sorry, quoting takes me awhile....

I think EXISTING in higher than four planes is redundent. Assuming that the matrice-style of explanation of forces as different dimensions is accurate (field theory), then everything in existence exists on every plane. It is simply a matter of what dimensions the being functions on at that point, ie we function on the spatial / time planes, however we are still affected by the electro-magnetic, gravitational, weak and strong nuclear forces, etc. etc.

That seems to be the line of thinking Kryian is using... There was a book a while ago that tried to debunk this idea that there can BE conscious beings such as these (ie, when this theory came out, eveyone started saying ghosts just existed on a different plane, thus could walk through walls, fly, etc. but were doing nothing wierd on their own plane). For instance, if someone could rotate along one of these other planes, it would appear that you suddenly blinked out of existence (like taking a sheet of paper that is strictly 2-dimensional and turning it sideways through the 3rd dimension). I havn't read it. But supposedly it is good...

But technically speaking, we ALL exist on all possible planes. To even begin to try and talk about something that DOESN'T is meaningless because you have the entire issue of interaction (if they don't share a plane / existential being, then there can be no interaction thus to speak of them as "gods" to us is pointless since they can't, necessarily, interact or do anything on our planes). Strictly speaking, any extra-dimensional beings then are simply other beings, not "gods".

But you can call em that I guess.

Are you talking about planes, or dimensions. There is a difference.

Imagine two sheets of paper stacked, one on top of another. These are different planes of existence. A square drawn on one of them does not exist on the other. However, a cube can intersect both pieces of paper and thus "exist" on both at the same time. Or it can move up and down and exist on only one or the other.

Extradimensional beings (aliens, angels, God, whatever else you can think of) would perhaps have the ability to move in and out of our dimensional "plane" in order to interact with us. We don't all have to constantly exist on all planes.

Im talking dimensions. Planear geometry (if thats a word) was just convenient to express myself.

Dimensions are more a way of expressing distortion of space-time. ie. any particle can be fully expressed through (something like) 10 or 12 dimensions. Think of it like a big ten x ten chart (ten dimensions). We can express spacial dimensions in a three x three chart. Add time and you have a four x four chart. Add in gravity, weak and strong nuclear forces, electro-magnetic forces, etc. and you come up with somewhere around 10 I believe. I read about it in a string theory book a few years ago... not sure where the field has developed since then, but as I said, this was all the rage for explaining ghosts, angels, etc. back in the day.

Essentially, any physical FORCE is caused by a warping of space-time: another dimension. As an example take a two dimensional world. Now fold it in half. Any being moving about in this two dimensional world would experience a wierd field / force at the presence of the fold in his world. Then it got real complicated and I got real confused... something about all these dimensions rolling up into balls and stuff and thus being too small for us to measure (so far).

Of course string theory is neither here nor there... strictly speaking its a HYPOTHESIS and not a theory... which lands it solidly in metaphysics and easy conjecture. Besides theres like ten different "string theories" predicting 10, 11, or 26 dimensions, so take your pick.

I really think theres a book out there that explains why "extradimensional beings" wouldn't work this way, but I'm havin a tough time finding it... Anyway, I read "The Elegant Universe" back in the day which is where Im pulling most of this from.

==

Umm... ok you can return to your thread now... I forget what my point was.

thanks..

Sorry I changed the title - me... but this is what this thread is about... and this is not my native language...

forgive me...

I don't understand why everyone takes Genesis so literally. It has been scientifically proven that the world was not created in six days.

Also, the Old Testament, comprising of the Torah & the Tanakh was originally written in Hebrew, the language of G-d. Even Xtians accept this.
The literal translation from Hebrew to English is impossible to write down - the language is very complicated compared to English, but the best approximation is 'and He called them Eve and He called them Adam', so they were not neccesarily singular, but its more of a blanket statement as in, and G-d made Man and G-d made Woman.

Also, the tree wasn't a tree, it was the two main parts of Kabbalah...I don't know how to post pictures, so my explanation isn't going to be great. The tree of Life is the whole thing, the tree of Knowledge is the bit that runs up the middle. At the root of the tree is G-d, and the branches lead down to us. Anywho, not important. To get to G-d, you have to go up through the branches, through the tree of life, through all lifes little tests etc until you can eventually reach G-d, but its just like a computer game. You have to go throuh the levels to be good enough to reach the big boss at the end. Or you could type in a password that takes you the last bit, but you won't be good enough to face the boss.

The path up the middle is Kabbalah, the tree of Knowledge, and it was this that the 'serpant' taught the first civilisation. So they thought they could get to G-d, but they would never be worthy, so they got stuck.

Now, Xtian scholars say Jesus was sent to save us from that first sin, so by opening the gate, he got us past where we were stuck on the tree of knowledge - showed us the way along the branches so to speak, so we could get into heaven.

I however am not a Xtian and don't believe this.

But, most people can't get their heads round this, so the church publically sticks to the Apple and Serpent theory.

And somehow, thats where good and bad come from or something or other...

Now, its the theory on Noahs Ark and genetical engineering thats the best, but we'll save that for another time.....

Lou x

Not to mention "adam" vs "a man" when translating..... etc, etc.

still have to catch, up, sorry guys, will do so soon!

@ Gremlin: Read the "Evolution vs Intelligent Design thread"

Thanks for that input LouLou... right now there are a number of threads interacting so it seems... this one, "free willy" and the one Sethis mentioned...

It's getting interesting in here keep coming...

- Is "good and bad" a valid concept, or is it based on personal opinion and experience?
Both. It means differnet things to different people and different societies at different times. Nonetheless, it is a valid concept, with different meanings, I think, if that makes sense?

- Is some rain necessary in order to appreciate sunshine?
Yes. yes yes yes yes yes.

- Is it necessary to believe in a higher force in order to survive/ get/ be happy?
Thats a neat question, actually. Because one odd fallback is I'm convinced everything that happens is the right thing to have happened for no particular reason. This goes a long way towards helping me be happy in the face of unhappy circumstances, in a way that people who truly belive in randomness and chance seem, well, less content with. But my gut reaction is no, and I think the answer is no- you just need to be at peace with what it is you do belive about life, and etc.

- Is belief/ religion just a psychological trick to control each other or is it the very own mind that tries to put pieces/ evidence together and complete the missing links by it's own imagination?
belief is the second, religion can be either.

- Why do have different cultures a different concept of what, or who "god" is?
Because differnet cultures have a different understanding of a lot of things! (And, one would expect to draw, because there is no right answer to what god is, perhaps?)

- Would it be logical to assume, that "there is one force governing the universe"?
Depends on your definition of one, I think.

- Is "god" the (only) neverchanging element in the universe?
No... physics seem to be going pretty well, even if our understanding changes sometimes. And who says "god" doesn't change?

- Is it the desire of men, to create something that prevails? Or the desire of women to lean on something?
Why the sexist attitudes? I think some people do desire to lean on things, and they get trapped in the trappings of religion. Some people desire to make things prevail, and some of them get involved in the high-ups of religions, or start new ones. Some have these things and go on without religion. And some people have neither, and yet are still religious, or not...

- IF there is a superior/ perfect being - why would it have to generate/ create anything in the first place?
Who says creation is not superior?

IF the higher being is to be considered perfect, then is there need for reflection in the first place?
What is perfectionism, anyway?

Why would it demand "worship" and "obedience"?
I cannot possibly consider a perfect being doing this, I'm afraid. As for superior, well, clearly it has self esteem issues...

Now I'll try and summarize where I am at the moment for a brief overview. Maybe you check if you want and add what you think is missing/ correct what you think doesn't apply...

- OK - so far I understand that "good and bad" IS a valid concept. It greatly depends on the level of perception and the time.

As it's "bad" to hit my toe and break it, but it's been pretty damn "good" that it happened to me, as I therefore missed my train, got to work 1,5 hours late and find the entire building has been destroyed by a 747 crashing into it, but it didn't get me...

"Good and bad" is a momentary perception of events happening. Put into different contexts, viewed from another than the personal present angle, it might turn into something other. It's momentary.

- Also it's necessary to experience the "downs" in life in order to appreciate the "ups" even more. Some of us are generating the "downs" much by themselves. We're learning how to handle life as the perception of "the big picture" grows further.

- It's not necessary to believe in a higher source of consciousness/ something "godlike"/ some "masterplan" or similar in order to get/ be happy and sometimes it can even be in the way as much as it can help.

It's a personal preference - therefore I plea to give every human being the opportunity to render for himself what "god" means to her/ himself - freedom of religion as a birthright against state, society and parents.

- Different cultures have a different perception of "good and evil" as much as they have a different perception of "god" and even the elements. For instance: if the sun is nurturing and bringing life (to a colder climate) - it gender would more likely be female, if the sun is piercing and even destructive (to a hotter climate) it more likely will be perceived male. Same as in religion: if the environment is hostile and the people have to engage/ fight for survival (due to (social) environment) the perception will more likely be one of a angry and moody "god"...

- "God" may/ have change/d... one position is that anything is perfect anyways and therefore there is no need for change, the other concept is that things may change and still be perfect... evolution means that something perfect transforms into something as perfect on a different stage/ level. It might be "more perfect" or perfect in a different sense.

- There might be an underlying, governing force in the universe. What it looks like or means is due to definition. Everyone has a slightly different conception of it, as everyone is looking at the same thing from a different angle. To fuzz about it is as helpful "as chewing bubble gum in order to solve an algebra equasion" (which might actually work...)

To me it's just very interesting what different people feel and think about different (elementary) subjects...

Written by: FireTom

---

Is it the desire of men, to create something that prevails? Or the desire of women to lean on something?

---

How could one choose a methaphore and NOT being called a sexist? I am riding stereotypes here, yes, but maybe the dear reader at least tries to get beyond the obvious... Of course desires are not perfectly bound to gender and hormones...

The idea was whether the attributes of god, proclaimed from temples and churches might be very well chosen in order to give people a canvas they can project upon. Like smart advertising...

- "Worship" and "obedience" (to me) is a concept of control. It's basically demanded so the subject recognises that there is something superior, something higher than her/ himself - so in this way necessary to be reminded to stay humble. Also it's very helpful to those "linking" between "the higher" and "the ordinary" - the clerics to get their share.

IMU there is no need for a temple (hence certain ambience is helpful to get calm) as there's no need for a community (but it's nurishing to have people around who are in a similar mood).

Eh hem... He is the Alpha and the Omega (beginning / end). Now I take that to mean he encompasses all dualities, so it's pointless to say anything on the subject if that's true... Definition requires saying what something is and is not. How do you do that when this thing is and is not everything. Simply put, it is beyond definition. You can't even say it exists because it doesn't exist either.

So until we work out some new way of perceiving the world, we're a bit up shite creek...

The humbleness argument for the necessity of worship is compelling... but I don't buy it. To stake one's SALVATION on the NECESSITY of it oversteps the bounds of acceptable benevolent goverance. Of course you can side-step that by going Universalist... at which point practice of religion becomes completely optional and any real compelling reason to practice is negated and "religious" and "atheist" become practically interchangable in terms of ends. They just become different opinions with no real purported meaning. Yes, yes, maybe there is psychological advantage to one over the other, but nothing permanent hangs in the balance.

As He is omnipotent, and beyond our scope of understanding, it is only possible to say what He is not, as to say what He is, as He is statements would impose limits on a limitless being and therefore make G-d less Holy.

Or something.

Its what I was always taught anywho.

But "is not" statements automatically define something that he is. Ie he IS NOT BAD = HE IS GOOD.

This simple logic: P = ~~P. This is assuming that all knowledge falls into a dualistic forumla of course, but they are equivelant. Thus you ARE limiting him.

In plain english: God is not evil LIMITS him to being good, unless you say that he transcends all dualities, and thus is good AND evil, or Not Good AND Not Evil. But semantically, all language deals with "talking about things" as definitions saying what something is and/or is not. If what you are trying to talk about transcends this, then there is no way to possibly talk about it...

That doesn't mean it can't be experienced, just that we don't have the necessary explanatory methods due to the ways in which we define our world when talking about it. To quote Wittgenstein: "We must be silent about those things we can not speak". Or Tao Te Ching: "The Tao that can be named, is not the true Tao", or Zen Buddhist teachings.

This is specifically why a lot of religions take issue with "idolatry". Idolatry in essence is taking something as a symbol for something else that can not be symbolized or spoken of, etc. ie an infinite higher being (we can get into what a "true infinite" is and the consequences of it, ie all probability=1 in a true infinite situation, etc. thus the infinite is the source of all possibility, kinda a reverse cosmological argument). This is why we fall into discussing God, etc. as our experience of them... which is necessarily limiting. So while we can say nothing about God, we can say plenty of our experience of them. And then we can argue about the plausability and reliability of truthful experience, etc. etc.

Where people keep reading "Truth" into all that experience is beyond me... or maybe just predated analytical philosophy by too many centuries.

¬bad != good
much as ¬black != white

apologies for symbol mixing.

Personally I would agree, Beefy: by limiting an otherwise unlimited "being", it's us who put the duality on the said phenomenon - not the other way.

As to take this further: anything that one could call "god" would be neutral, neither good nor bad... it just is (as it is)... all valuation is sense- and useless, even in the way to fully understand the essence of "god". It would incorporate all aspects of existance - beyond human minds limitation. As "G-d" is in everything and everything is within...

Lou - does the prohibition to speak the name also include the therm "god", or are jews only prohibited to spell out the tetragrammaton "JHVH"? I understand it's due to respect.

When it comes to worship I would think that this also is a practice that has been put into a rite. It is meant as to keep the connection to the universal creation alive and to always remember that everything around us is (as) sacred (as we are).

Over time people have lost their understanding for rites and so they tend to become meaningless and hollow. Also rites have been changed by the priest cast until they got very complicated, so only priests can celebrate them. 500BC there was a grand uprising against the priest cast in India and later also in the Middle East I guess to end the priests influence.

In X-tianity the holy text has been only for the intellectuals until Luther translated the Bible into German...

The prohibition of writing/typing G-d is so that we don't throw away His name. Some people type, some people don't, some people believe it only counts in Hebrew. I however, like to play it safe.

YHVH is G-ds name. Well, its the the Tetragrammaton. G-ds name is YHVH with two vowels in the middle somewhere that I can't type. You don't say G-ds name. Ever. Unless your an Uber-Rabbi and creating a man from clay!

Yahveh or Yahweh is thought to have been known originally as the god Yah, one of a panthion of gods known as the Elohim. Some time afterwards the ancient Hebrews or their ancestors abandoned their other gods in favour of a singular one.

However I had always thought that the tetragrammaton was meant to be the true name of god and the insertion of the vowels was artificial to make it look more pronoucable.

Yeh, you don't type it either.

I guess we abandoned all other G-ds because they didn't rescue us from Eygpt and do loads of stuff for us. Some Jews do accept the possible existence of other G-ds. I do - I think theres far more out there than we know about, and the evidence for other G-ds is there...'I am a jealos G-d', 'Thou shalt not have any other G-ds but Me' and the incident of Pharohs magicians matching my G-d with magic from their own deities etc.

The Hebrews (and other cultures) have indeed been called to abandon their pantheon of gods in order to worship the Creator. The Bible confirms that there are many other "gods"... spiritual beings that were created by God, then chose to rebel against Him. The most famous of these would be Satan. The Hebrews (and other cultures) have struggled with idolotry throughout history. God has called all of us to worship the Creator rather than creation, however.

Jeff(fake) is both correct and incorrect regarding the tetragrammaton. It is indeed meant to have no vowels, but this is because the Hebrew alphabet does not contain any vowels at all. None of their written words have vowels. The "vowel markings" that are inserted between the letters in modern Hebrew are a recent invention. Ancient Hebrew did not use such markings.

God created other Gods? I thought he created Angels, which then rebelled when led by Satan?

Last I checked, Angels were not deities, but then, if they aren't, then why doesn't God just wipe them out? If they *are* then why isn't it equally valid to worship them instead of God? They must surely be equal in power...

The word "god" can be used to refer to something powerful other than the true Creator. In John 10 the messiah uses it to refer to men, and in other places it is used to refer to angels (and other false gods).

You are correct about the angels (at least in english.) However, these fallen angels have been worshiped by humans, and when that happens it is correct to call them "gods." One can make a god of anything by worshiping it... money, yourself, or a fallen angel. "Angels" are not truly divine. They were created by God like you and me, and they are not equal to God in their power. It is wrong to worship them.

Why is it wrong? Good and evil are properly understood as obedience and disobedience to God. Thus, since God has said to worship only Him and not things that He has created, it is "wrong" to worship angels (whether fallen or not).

(btw, If anyone wants to get technical about it... I am in fact aware of what the word angel really means. I'm just using it as a generic word since that is the way most people use it).

Simply a term/name for a "greater being", a belief with no physical form.

Written Hebrew had no vowels, but the words were still prounced using vowels if you get me?

So, the word Rabbits would have been prounounced rabbits, but spelt, rbbts. So, written YHVH (Yud Hay Vav Hay) is correct, but if it were spoken, there would be vowel sounds. But its never spoken, so its not a problem...

Just so you know, there are supposedly two kinds of Angels (malakh). Those created by G-d do not have free will as they are always in His divine presence, and those who were humans who ascended to become Angels, who still have the human capacity of free will, and can choose and can be punished (Elijah, Matat).

OK - so I understand that the Hebrews fell from all other gods in the time they have been in Egypt... Lou: There is a theory (I stated it somewhere earlier) that Hebrews in fact have been ONE tribe OF/ IN Egypt, who were falling from the polytheistic to the monotheistic belief and therefore they "left" the ancient Egypt. That Mose in fact was a Pharao who led the people of Israel out of the duality, out of the polytheism and therefore (ideologically) out of Egypt... how does that sound to you?

I mean not many would disagree that todays "Palestinians" and Israelis share common heritage (are cousins so to speak) which makes the entire conflict so absurd...

Back to topic. Also in Christianity some worship rather to Mary than to Jesus, as he is "too perfect"... whatever that means. In this we have to differ between the creatures and people who are also created by "the one" (force)... In Hinduism every god is an emanation of the creator, if you worship Hanuman you will also get to the creator through him, as well as if you worship Shiva... God incarnates to earth (some believe) to teach and to help mankind to evolve. IMO this is a projection upon exceptional people with great skills and this can be observed throughout all the cultures.

But to understand the true nature of god (after Hebrew) you have to go through all stages, as shown in the tree of life... To experience all qualities that he/ it consists of...

As we had this in another thread: if we limit the nature of god to something that suits our projection (the ultimate good, the perfect...) are we not falling in the trap of duality? Therefore blindfolded to understand the true nature of god?

Yeh I saw that theory. Perhaps its true, but there isn't too much evidence to support it, and when you look into it a whole lot doesn't make sense..

Anywho, work now!

*necrobump*

just stumbled across this one

Is god willing to prevent evil but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent

Is he able but not willing?
Then he is malevolent

Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil

Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him god

-Epicurus

maybe "he" has no understanding of what it is that 'you' call evil ?

in which case "he" is ignorant,
Then he is not omnicogniscent,

i heard he was dead....


/shrug

well I do not know what "god" means to you... I can only go for what "he" means to me. and in this realm "good/evil" are simply limited angles of perception in time and space.

for me it's not about ignorance as much as it is about encompassing all that life holds and having the patience to wait for the final chapter.

the above interviews do reflect quite a lot of what I came to - after a life-long struggle with conditioned definitions and thus confusion over what that term actually means (to me). neither Christianity nor Buddhism came up with sufficient answers, except for

"don't rely on hearsay..."

I think there's an argument to be made that if you're not talking about an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly benevolent (and metaphysically necessary and personal, I would argue) being, then whatever you're talking about isn't God.

How many of "God's" supposed properties can you tweak before you're talking about something else entirely? Surely if I said that "to me, God was an American president assassinated by John Wilkes Booth and not, as many people conceive, a supreme being at all" you would think there was something wrong with what I'm saying.

But whatevs. I personally think the entire complex of theological questions is tiresome and some of the least important questions one can ask (certainly less important than "did I remember to brush my teeth this morning").

I find it interesting that there is a fair amount of discussion on this topic that covers the 'christian' concept of God.

Intersting because I love it when people who dont believe in God, try to define Him; and tell me what He is or isnt. but if your not a religious person, where do you get the knowledge to define God from?

Surely if you dont believe in God; then you have no basis to describe His personality types....

(not a dig at anyone, or any particular post - just a universal and generalised thought)

As for my definition of God. read the bible

Or Aslan from the lion the witch and the wardrobe, that comes close

I think the references to the Christian God come mostly from the fact that it is one of the more popular cults with the largest and most organised churches. Also if your arguing religion it's easier to say god than name one in particular as it works as both a concept and gets automatically associated with the christian jehova or Jewish yahweh -

To be fair it doesn't really matter which godling is being discussed they all have equal merit (Zero IMO), either gods can or can't exist and specifying can become complicated and I suppose people are still a bit touchy about blasting religions they aren't too knowledgable on - christianity is fairly well documented in the western world so everyone can join the discussion - whereas other religions may not be fully understood by everyone.

I just view religions as slightly larger cults as I haven't really seen a good distinction between the 2 apart from Cults are supposed to have charasmatic leaders which is something the pope has never struck me as, both have fanatics, both believe in some unprovable faith structure designed to lead you to spread their beliefs for some moral reward, I just think Cults have more fun... until the inevitable gun battle and burning down of the compound.

It's why I find people laughing at scientology so funny it has exactly the same plausibility as catholiscism except it's clandestine and secretive about it's beliefs rather than trying to ram it down everyones throat - they just seem a little more selective about the people who join.

^^^Your right. I also have many bones to pick with religion. The trouble is when "you" define your version of God from the christian God for simplicity reasons, familiarity reasons etc; you are misrepresenting the Christian God.

After seening many discusssions on this topic I would say that most westerners do not have a good understanding of the christian God, they have assumptions based on a lot of misinformation.


Epicurus had a warped sense of who God is. By using this as an example of who God is is you are misrepresenting who God is; not only that you are now furthering the spread of misinformation.

and I know I am being picky, I could easily argue against what I just wrote myself - I just wanted to highlight a point of view that people might not actually be thinking about in discussions about God. When most people talk about God, they have a barrow to push, and the talk more revolves around their own agenda; not the actual topic at hand. Therefore the definition of God gets formed around peoples gripes.

Also, using the correct interpretation of the word 'cult' and its origins - Christianity is not a cult. Catholicism, Anglican, baptist etc. are all technically denominations. Scientology, Mormonism, and things like the solar temple are Cults.

the only thing i really have to say is perfect and he created us in his image why are we not pefect so what does that make him?

if he is perfect*

if he is perfect

Midkiff, dont fall into the logic trap. You have defined a "logic" problem and seek for the answer outside of the constraints of that way of thinking.

An example of what I am talking about is:

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

this is an old logic problem that has no adequate logical answer, just like the one you posted. Yet because there is no logic answer doesnt mean that therefore there is no chickens or eggs. WHich is essentially the type of answer you are trying to place on your perfect God question.

The egg, the chicken is subject to evolution, the chicken we know today was born of another slightly different creature (very slight), which would've come from an egg, from a slightly different creature and so on...


on the God thing, [i can't believe this statement]

as an atheist the best summary of the existence of God i have heard is from southpark

"Maybe beliveing in God makes him exist"

everyone has some concept of God, if your thoughts have some form of existence then so must God

Thats not a 'logic' answer

it is a practical answer from a Darwinist evolutionary viewpoint. which further proves my point. Dont try to use logic word arguments to prove a point. The real life answer is not to be found in the same context

Logic is only useful when you lack a realistic practical answer.

For me God exists only in the mind of believers

there is no evidence to prove an existence, therefore there is no existance

Prove you love your mum.

Prove fire isn't alive.

Prove that a supreme being isn't real...

well, technically in logic you cant prove a double negative, so its impossible to prove there is no God using logic.

So Pommy bubbles, getting back to the topic, if you dont believe in a God, how can you have a definition of Him?

Woodland apple that's a terrible argument,

If you don't believe in a god you can have exactly the same definition of him as someone who does believe - because it is a definition not an experience. A definition is a formal passage describing the meaing of a term, in this case that term is "god"

A non-believer can use the same definition but cannot share the same experience OR they can share the same experience but nominate it to a different cause based upon either reason or belief. The essence of the difference is these 2 terms, Faith is essentially a belief without proof (by definition) If proof existed it wouldn't be faith - essentially religion boils down to putting your trust in faith, a cleverly designed paradigm designed to put value to blind obedience. It's no different to the story of the emperors new clothes, the emperor is the "faithful" the weavers are the "clergy" the courtiers are the "congregation" and the "naive" child raises the cry of the atheist. The Emporer is at first dubious then convinced, with that belief reinforced by everyone else saying how fine the clothing is, the more people who agree the stronger the reinforcement until the child is stoned for heresy.

Refuge crew - you can prove you love your mum, you can have a polygraph or a brain scan (using a control to show association)these are accepted systems for testing truth (as believed by the person being tested)
Fire isn't alive - it's a physical process throughly documented as a simple chemical reaction between individual atoms and molecules which obey the laws of brownian motion if it IS alive it has no feelings or sentience as it doesn't have the chemistry associated with either

I would be very interested in putting the pope and a number of religious and non religious people (of different faiths) on a polygraph including questions on the existance of god, if only to see how faith can effect the outcome and how responses will vary to people with the same evidence on a question regarding their belief. Would you have a clear split, would everyone have an inconclusive result... *is off to look to see if it's been done* I know polygraphs are controversial but with a large enough group testing it may yeild interesting results.

Mynci, we are after (At least what I interpreted from the topic) is what God means to us - which is experience far more than clinical. all Im saying is that how can God be cruel, imperfect or for that matter kind and perfect etc - if you dont beleive in Him? Surly you would think He is nothing; as you believe He doesnt exist. I thought we werent after dictionary definitions, but what God means to us. If you dont believe God exists how can you give Him attributes?

That may be what faith means to you, but I can assure you that it is not what most people who actually have faith see it. And I would also add that faith is different from religion.



I would disagree with this hugely. our experiences are what defines things for us.

A man who climbs a mountain will see it differently than a man who drives up it. Their definition of that mountain will be different.

A climber will look at a knot in a far different way than a sailor - despite the knot actually being the same. A dictionary might give us a definition, but experience puts it into context, and it is what we relate to far more than the dictionary definition.

I have to say I don't agree with that, the climber and the driver will both have the same definition of the mountain however they will have a different experience of it which is my point, the definition of a mountain would be the same, a large mass of rock formed by massive techtonic pressures, the experience of conquering it would vary greatly. they still climbed the same mountain, their experiences didn't change the vast immutable rock enough to consider it a different mountain

the sailor and climber on the other hand would probably look at different knots in reality however they would both look at them as knots an organised tangle of rope used to secure something, they would both still call it a knot, this would be an example of looking at different reasons for the knots purpose, unless you are saying gods purpose is based upon the person beholding him then this would be a poor example also.

A definition is described thus:
def·i·ni·tion   /ˌdɛfəˈnɪʃən/ Show Spelled[def-uh-nish-uhn] Show IPA
–noun
1.the act of defining or making definite, distinct, or clear.
2.the formal statement of the meaning or significance of a word, phrase, etc.
3.the condition of being definite, distinct, or clearly outlined.
4.Optics. sharpness of the image formed by an optical system.
5.Radio and Television. the accuracy of sound or picture reproduction.

the overlying concept here is to make clear, if definitions were soley of matter of perspective then they wouldn't be clear and would therefore remain undefined. What you are expressing as definition is in fact a perspective, a variable viewpoint based upon personal experience.

I agree faith and religion are different however all religion is based on faith, not all faith is based upon religion, if religion weren't based upon faith then there would be evidence to support the existence of god(s) whereas there isn't, there is however the BELIEF in the existence of god(s) which makes it a faith.

Experience does not create definition, What you suggest means that If I have never flown I cannot define flight, whereas I can. I can also define a dog having never been one. I have no perspective of flight or dogs, but I can clearly define them.

it may just sound like semantics, but what I think you are really trying to say is how can a non-believer have a perspective of god(s) having never experienced them, to which I would say because we have a perspective of religions, churches and those who follow them and draw conclusions from those. That is where I drew my perspective (of religious faith) and compared it to the story of the emporers new clothes. god is not apparent in the story the evidence comes from those who perceive to see the clothes (god(s)) and their actions. indirect evidence if you will, the way you can spot a planet lightyears way by the wobble of it's star without actually seeing the planet, we know it's there, we can't see it, but we still have evidence to support it's existence. there is unfortunately at this point no god wobble.

God is a concept, that in times gone by has been a stopgap for science

and why do you keep saying 'him'?

lots of people have been using this term

if god is a formless entity throughout the universe how can it have a gender

and people asking how to disprove god???

i have 7 arms.

seeing as you don't know my how would you disprove me? through experience? that is a form of evidence. whre is the evidence for God?

and don't try to cite the 'design' of the world and all those other theological ideas i'm talking about hard evidence

Mynci, I dont disagree with your last point at all. I guess Im looking at it from a what do things mean to us, not just from a what they are. Identities and our relationship with things are defined by our experiences, and tend to shape our way of thinking.

I believe that there is evidence for God outside of blind faith. And my point at trying to get people to think more about their own definition of God is in a way trying to make people realise that you cant use your definition of God to undermine someone else's.

Pommy Bubbles;
I refer to God as Him because Im christian, and the bible refers to God as "He"; so I do also. I also capitalise the first letter to show it as a noun.

I wouldnt be able to disprove your having 7 arms using logic. which was my point, you cant prove a negetive using logic. I could use logic to prove you only have two arms, or less.

I refuse to get drawm into a proof thing with you particulary as you have made it clear you are going to refute anything I might say if you personally dont agree with it. Its a pretty handy way of always being right.

I could easily throw it the other way, where is the hard evidence for the evolution origins of life? Or if thats too hard just enough hard evidence to prove evolution, it is harder than you think.

You cannot prove, nor disprove a being whose very nature is beyond our understanding.
Neither can you prove or disprove the nature of such a being.

On this topic there is only belief based on faith, or a lack of belief.

Even the belief that there is no god is a belief based on faith.

The lack of belief is to believe neither option, not to believe there is a god and not to believe there is not one, knowing only that we do not know.

.... whereas "knowing that we don't know something" would already indicate that we at least know that bit. ...

And personally I'm not certain of even this anymore...

Hence we might all be much closer to the answer than we are ready to admit to ourselves and others.
Maybe ALL that what we project and imagine - each of it - is a bit of 'that' what really is.

Maybe that what we want God to be doesn't need any proof, because all IS proof of it. Maybe we're getting caught up in semantics, comfuzzling/struggling to put in words something that in reality needs to be experienced (thanks Mynci ). Maybe the idea of the flying spaghetti monster is as valid as that of any other cult or religion... ?

If God is omnipotent and omnipresent, then all of that what is t/here has a right to exist and to be expressed.

If I would have a distinct experience of that what God is then all that what is around me is beyond any judgment because it simply is an expression of the divine, an expression of beauty.

Beyond my own cheekiness and attempt to prove everybody else wrong and my own ass to be the only right(eous) one: I just came back to the state of simply being interested in how that divine manifests within someone I call 'you'... and how this 'you' looks at the exact same as 'me', seeing it (completely) different...

When you say you believe there is evidence do you believe evidence will be found or do you just believe we already have the evidence? or is this another example of religion relyinig on belief / faith

Proof of evolution:

1 - every living organism has to come from a live parent - true
2 - Not all creatures are the same some are simple some are comples (vertebrates and invertebrates for example) - true
3 - There is fossil evidence of both complex and simple creatures layered through the strata - depest rock layers = no life, middle layers simple life, upper layers many types of life and the earliest fossils are all simple the more recent layers more complex - in every excavation there has not been 1 example of this trend breaking (and it would take only 1)

if every living creature had to have at least 1 parent and fossils from before do not match any creatures living today it means what was around before was our ancestry if it was different to us now we must have gone through speciation (evolution) this is evidentary fact, once we find a break in the trend then darwinism will have had it's day. Those who cannot see this as evidence need to go back and spend a little more time in the classroom and stop repeating tired arguments that are now outdated.

Also dogs are on the verge of speciation we have selectively bred them for so long that there are several breeds which are already unable to reproduce togther (although for purely physiological reasons however this is the first step to speciation.

finally - whales have vestigial hip bones meaning they had an evolutionary past on land as this does not occur in any other marine creature.
Giraffes have a nerve (vagus nerve) that runs from the throat to the brain which loops down round the aorta and then up the neck to the brain, this has been proven as occuring due to evoultion because fish have the same nerve, however in fish it runs straight from the throat to the brain, however as the neck extends and the head angles down the distance between the brain and throat increases and the most direct route is no longer the route the nerve can take because in fish it passed behind the aorta straight up, in mammals it now has to go down, round the aorta and back up.

True most of the evidence is indirect but the volume of evidence the frequency and the fact that even humans have used selective breeding to prove the process works builds a clear picture - (like the wobble of a star showing a planet in orbit)

Also there is the clear and total lack of ANY evidence of any other method for the diversity of life, god(s) would have had to create large populations of each creature otherwise they would never have survived, there is a genetic diversity of only about 800 bengali tigers (many more individuals, and may be a different species of tiger I can't recall exactly) and even this is seen as too small a population to save the species.

Oh and the Miller-Urey Experiment also shows how bio-molecules can be formed using earths early atmosphere from inert chemical compunds also present in earths early past for a start of biology from chemistry

No you will not SEE evolution occuring as it takes thousands of years in most cases, but now we understand the process it will be possible to keep track of species to see if they do change it may only take 60,000 years but time is on darwins side (if we can only survive that long)



I'm very disappointed you brought up the "prove evolution" card, it's a little depressing when those with faith try and batter down probably the most tried and tested scientific biological principle, for no other reason than because it has been tried before, only those with no capacity for reason would even suggest it wasn't a real and valid process, or doubt it as a mechanism cfor change.

I'd prove he didn't have 7 arms and legs using logic by asking where they shopped for clothes

one other thing
Quote woodland apple:

"I believe that there is evidence for God outside of blind faith. And my point at trying to get people to think more about their own definition of God is in a way trying to make people realise that you cant use your definition of God to undermine someone else's."

What like trying to convert non-believers, or the crusades I think that's the pot calling the kettle black, I'm sure the bible says to go and spread the word of god - without spreading it and convincing people there WAS a god in the first place no one would believe becausae you would be unaware of god(s) existance as there is no evidence. without using your own view to undermine someone elses you wouldn't have religion, we aren't born believing in god someone has to tell us they believe he exists and use their definition of god to undermine the individual they are trying to convert - just like your parents did to you when you were so young you can't even really remember - it's called indoctrination of the young, commonly called grooming tactics it's what cults and paedophiles use to gain the confidence of children. I'm sorry for putting it like that but it's the unfortunate truth and the core behind my dislike for the church.

sorry but that's cobblers the belief there is no god is a belief based upon lack of evidence not faith.

You CAN prove a beings existance by communication in corporeal form - a form of address which apparently occurred quite a lot 2000 years ago, maybe this god fella died? the pictures all have him as looking pretty old and no-one has seen it for quite a long time. also if we don't know if it exists how can you know it's nature is beyond our understanding without having first communicated? this comment is pure sophistry.
Good try though

You can prove some types of beings existance, Mynci... but only if it interacts in ways we can are familiar with.



Why force the ideas solidified by the laws of this realm onto other forms of existance that is potentially unlike anything ever encountered?

There is no limit to possibility. The flying spaghetti monster is as valid a concept as anything else, even the infinite number of things nobody has ever dreamed about.

By founding your ideas based off our historical "interactions" with God you limit your concept of what "god" is. This makes your arguments deceptive by not specifying that it refers to a limited subset of the concept of a higher being. Does that mean your mention of "this comment is pure sophistry" hints at your own comment rather than mine?





Do you not put faith in the lack of evidence to indicate that there is no god?

And do you not put faith in the logical process that brought you to that conclusion?

Sorry to jump to the discussion uninvited, but that seems to be the trend anyway, and this is a topic of interest to me. If you feel it too inappropriate for me to cut in the middle of your dialog, you're free to ask me to leave.

When someone claims that something "exists" outside this realm, they are already attributing it to something that as far as we know happens only inside of this realm. It's perfectly fine to say that it is a possibility, or a possible concept. But to claim that it actually manifests is another thing, and needs grounding upon to be a reasonable statement. And the only convinving grounding one could possibly have would be based on the laws of this realm, because those are the only ones we know of. But then again, if one is saying that it isn't in our realm, this leads us to conclusion that there can't be a coherent statement made to support the existence or non-existence or said thing.

So yes, the possibilities are endless. But just because there can't neccesarily be positive evidence either way, that doesn't mean the probability of it actually existing is 50/50. The probability of a flying spaghetti monster actually existing is almost infinitely minute when compared to the probability or it being made up. That's because we know things are very easy to make up, and it happens all the time, we have evidence and past experience of it. There's no such evidence for a creature that defies the laws of physics. (Actually the FSM was started by a satired letter to a school council to protest the teaching of ID, saying that by those standards the concept of FSM should be tought aswell.. :p)
So as close as we can get to absolute certainty without actually getting there, we can say that the FSM doesn't exist. The concept of absolute certainty is useless anyway, because no one can have absolute certainty about anything. That would lead to nothing that anyone ever says having any bearing, if one only relied on absolute certainty.

The word "God" has to have some meaning of it's own, otherwise it's useless. If God is synonymous with "higher being", the term becomes vague beyond practical use. What does "higher being" even mean? I admit that there are more powerful and bigger beings than I am (aka other humans and animals). But in no way are they supernatural, which is what most people refer to when they say God. But the supernatural in your standards would be "a limited subset"? Then I totally agree that higher beings do exist, but we have other names for them and there's no need to call them God.

If one has a different view of what God is, they are welcome to define it. Either way, the concept of God has to be defined, in order for anyone to know what you are talking about.

Here too you redefine faith to be a word that holds no meaning to it. Belief is an assumption made about something based on the knowledge one has. Faith is belief without evidence. But in your terms anything that can't be known with absolute certainty, must be relied on with faith. Again, going with that definition, nobody could ever say anything definitive without having it be on faith. And that would leave the word "faith" without any true meaning, because there would be nothing to compare it to.

But even after redefining the word, a person who believes in the supernatural isn't left on the same grounding as someone who doesn't. Going with what seems to be your definition of faith, one could say that they have faith that things that are empirically verifiable, are so. The believer has faith in not only that, but in that things that aren't empirically verifiable, are so aswell. So the believer is still left with more faith, which I think was the issue here in the first place.

But to go to the actual definition of the word faith: belief without evidence. Belief in a lack of God is still more reasonable than a belief in one. Because absence of evidence is evidence of absence. So the non-believer still has more evidence on his side.
And there are of course mountains of empirical evidence that the logical process is a working process, which produces accurate results and lets us make observations and conclusions about the world. Therefore it doesn't take faith to believe that logical processes work.

I believe there is evidence now, or quite frankly I wouldnt be christian.

This is not direct evidence. These three points are so general and can be used to support any number of claims. There is no proof in these, proof would actually be the thousands of little details that link these three points.


Again you are using reasoning to make one link from an evolutionary belief to another, and have again not offered any FACTS. Also just to let you know, speciation is not evolution. Speciation is the removal of genes from a species. Evolution is the adding of them. Before you argue this then please go and actually read Darwins books. Because he himself makes the distinction. Darwin made three theories. Variation (Speciation), natural selection (survival of the fittest) and evolution. Creationism only argues against evolution. In fact speciation is how creationists defend the spread of animals after the flood.


Finally getting to actual proof. Though again your defending speciation which is what I agree with. I would also add that these new dog breeds are more prone to disease, have a shorter life span and seem to contradict the idea that we ‘evolve’ into something better.


Nice, some actually proof. Allow me to retort.
On of the problems with whale land to water evolution is that a ‘land whale’ (for want of a better term) would have had to get rid of its pelvis. As this would crush the reproductive orifice with its tail movements through water. But a shrinking pelvis would not be able to support limbs for walking. So the transitional animals wouldn’t be suitable for land or sea. This would fly against the theory of natural selection (unless the whale knew that it would eventually swim in future generations. Hmmmmm) Also the hind part of the body must twist on the fore part, so the tail’s sideways movement can be converted to a vertical movement. Now given a 5 million year timeline, with a generation time of say 10 years, popular genetic calculations say that no more than 1700 mutations could occur. Not enough for a land to sea evolution to have occurred.

As you can see, it is not as simple as, a whale shares something in common with land animals, it must have been one. This evidence could just as easily describe a common maker.



First of, scientists were able to produce only small amounts of less than half of the 20 amino acids required for life. The rest require much more complex synthesis conditions. This can prove that this experiment that it is not enough to create life.
Maybe a quote from a biology professor at oxford is in order:
‘Soon after the Miller–Urey experiment, many scientists entertained the belief that the main obstacles in the problem of the origin of life would be overcome within the foreseeable future. But as the search in this young scientific field went on and diversified, it became more and more evident that the problem of the origin of life is far from trivial. Various fundamental problems facing workers in this search gradually emerged, and new questions came into focus … . Despite intensive research, most of these problems have remained unsolved.
‘Indeed, during the long history of the search into the origin of life, controversy is probably the most characteristic attribute of this interdisciplinary field. There is hardly a model or scenario or fashion in this discipline that is not controversial (Lahav, N., Biogenesis: Theories of Life’s Origin, Oxford University)


well actually, current theories show that in order for the transition from ape to man, roughly 130 mutations needed to occur every generation, which I think it is perfectly reasonable to have noticed SOME sort of intermediates, the lack of any cannot be so easily dismissed. Evolutionists want to jump in a straight line from A to Z while completely ignoring the rest of the alphabet.

Hold on, its OK for people to challenge and demand from Christians, but not OK for it to be reversed, why are you not disappointed in pommy bubbles? VERY hypocritical.
Are you kidding me? Biogenesis is one of the most CONTRAVERSIAL of all sciences. Im starting to think your faith is blinder than mine

I apologies if I came across that way, I have the same arguments against people pushing their faith of God, as I have for those that push their disbelief in God. If anyone came on this site scream hellfire and brimstone I would be first on the flame wagon. You would also notice that I only revealed my personal beliefs when directly asked. I was not groomed from birth to believe in God, I was raised Athiest, I also have mixed feeling about the church which is why I raised the distinction earlier about religion and faith. Im not going to argue against your point of view yet I was saddened when you related my faith with paedophilia, and while I am trying to respect your stance It hurts that you would put me in that category.
Honestly a lot of churches are not like that (at least the ones I go to) and by putting us all in the one basket and then making hurtful generalised claims are only dividing the community more. The attitide you bring to the table is why I get discriminated against every time I walk around wearing a cross.

oh, and to clear the air, I wasnt actually trying to get anyone to prove anything, I was showing that trying to prove anything to a hostile judge that gets to define what to reject and hat to keep is really hard.
you can throw evolutionary claims at me all day and I can find problems and dissect them all day, as you could if I go around trying to prove creation.

Trying to 'prove' anything is hard.

The only religous teaching i follow is treat others how you would like to be treated(in my limited understanding of religions this is taught in just about evry religion in some way shape or form). Therefore the big man(if He truly exists) is only treating us how we are treating Him.

Just my theory on Why Bad Sh*t Happens

ReVo, welcome to the discussion... I'm going to keep this pretty short for reasons that may or may not become apparent.


I wasn't really saying that the probability of anything was 50/50. I was saying the the probability is by its very nature incalculable.

On the definition of 'god' I threw in the term "higher being" quite simply because in discussions on this forum I have had certain things assumed about my beliefs that drew the discussion into petty semantics.

I referred to a creator being or a being with some sort of limited or unlimited power to manifest itself in ways that are considered beyond the scope of humans.

"Supernatural" is an interesting word to use... why could it not be natural to this being?

On the topic of faith I totally disagree that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, this assumes that this being is measurable by our own standards, which theres no reason to assume.

The only thing to deny faith is proof, so if something is empirically verifiable then theres no real reason to bring faith into it, unless of course, you wanted to put faith into your sensory perceptions accurately conveying information, which isn't at all helpful to our discussion.


You say it doesnt take faith to believe in logical processes?

Logical processes are carried out by people. People are not perfect. Logical processes are often carried out by people holding contrary positions... Have both sides produced accurate results? Are they both true?

Or is it possible to have flawed logic? In which case you would have to have faith in your own reasoning skills.




I find the instant aversion that people have to certain words based on their connotations to be pretty funny.

In this case, I hope you don't mind if I give it a shot, since I don't think Mynci's points were particularly poignant, even if they were correct or not. Fossils aren't really what makes evolution a valid theory, they are just bonus stuff that fits into, and seem to be abiding within the constraits of the theory. There are much straighter ways to get to the bottom of what evolution is about without getting into the nitty-gritty about specific transitional forms. Because those are usually where people get confused, and it's easy to spread misinformation once you have gotten people confused.

And I would agree, there is no such thing as "proof" in science, it is a mathematical term. But I would argue that there is an extremely convincing case to be made for the Theory of Evolution, as is it as widely accepted in academia as the Theory of Gravity.


I think there is a misunderstanding here of what the Theory of Evolution, as it is understood now, is actually about. Variation and Natural selection are parts of the Theory of Evolution, not theories in and of themselves. The theory has evolved (sorry for the pun) a lot since Darwin, but here's how it basically goes in its most simplest logical form:

Premise 1: Everything that lives, dies.
Premise 2: Life produces with slight variation, with true inherency. AKA genes and attributes are passed on from one generation to another, with small random changes (this is the Variation you mentioned earlier)
Premise 3: Lifeforms that are better suited to their environment are more likely to pass on their genes than ones that aren't (Natural Selection)
Premise 4: The environment changes depending on time and place
Conclusion: As the environment changes, the portion of a given species(which has random variation in its gene pool due to Premise 2) that has the attributes to most aptly survive and reproduce in the new environment will become the prominent form of that species, because they will be producing more offspring(which shares the attributes of its predecessors due to true inherency) than their less adapted counterparts.

This is evolution, which leads to speciation. To correct you, evolution is not specificly about increasing the amount of genes, neither is speciation specificly about reducing unwanted genes. The fact that Darwin believed so doesn't make a difference, because he didn't have the understanding of genes and DNA that we do now. Evolution and speciation are both just about change in the genes, not specifically adding or substracting. Within Premise 2 of Variation is included all kinds of variation. This includes genes multiplying, genes dissappearing, altering, creating new genes, cutting a gene in half etc.. The point is that all of the variation is random and produces all kinds of results with equal probability. And from that matte of all different kinds of variation, Natural Selection picks out the ones that stand the test of being able to pass themselves on to another generation. Speciation is basically a result of evolutionary processes over enough time, and it isn't really sensical to approve the first but deny the latter.



Theory of Evolution doesn't say that we evolve into anything "better", it doesn't have a specific direction to go towards. It simply states that those more adapted to the current environment will more likely pass on their genes than those that are not well adapted. This just leads to change, as the environment changes.
For example, in one environment it might be an advantage for a species to have dark fur instead of a light one so as to not get caught by predators. This doesn't change the fact that some individuals will be more lightly colored than others, and there might even be small amounts that are very light. Now, if the environment changes so that it's actually more beneficial to have light fur for hiding, then those light ones will soon become the majority as the dark ones get killed by the predators.

The only differences between dog breeding and natural evolution are the forces being applied upon the gene pool. In the case of dogs, the agent causing the selection is humans. In the case of evolution it is the environment. And unlike the environment, which breeds the animals to survive and reproduce better, we breed dogs to have whatever attribute we want. Therefore it shouldn't be expected that more breeded dogs should have longer lifespans, because that's not what they are being bred for.
For example when breeding to get a small breed (like was done with chihuahua), the breeder takes the smallest pups from a given litter of some dog breed and mates it with other small pups in order to bring together all the genes that cause small size in said dogs.(In nature, if smallness were an advantage to survival, this would happen naturally as the smallest pups of the litter would be more likely to survive until mating age.) Mixing together multiple small breeds of dogs will concentrate the smallness-genes even further. Many of the health issues that you mentioned stem from the process on inbreeding, which is widely used to isolate certain gene-related attributes.


I wont go into the topic of abiogenesis (you said biogenesis but I think you meant Abiogenesis - as in life coming from non-life), because it really is a separate issue from evolution. Abiogenesis is admittedly a relatively new branch of science, but new discoveries are made all the time. But in any case, Theory of Evolution doesn't have anything to say about the origin of life. It just deals with the diversity and progression of life.



No one knowledgable about evolution would have actually said that man evolved from apes. What evolution says is that apes and humans share a common ancestor, which ended up branching into 4 different lineages of population in several different stages. 3 of them evolved into the great apes (more specifically the modern gorilla, chimps and orangutan), and the one branch led to us. So we did not evolve from apes, they are more like cousins to us.

And just to clarify, every species and fossil that ever existed is a transitional or an intermidiary form of some kind. Evolution is a gradual path, it doesn't jump from one species to another, like you said. Every species is in process of transitioning from something it was before into something that it will become in the future. So to say that we don't have intermidiary or transitional forms identified is misinformed. And since the time scale of these changes are within millions of years, and the differences within the primate genome are considerably less than 1%, I'm very sceptical about the figure of 130 mutations per generation (as if mutations even happened evenly per generation) despite of the fact that it falsely treated apes as the ancestors of humans.
But fossils and time effiency issues are exactly the kind of detail that I don't really want to get into, because they are hardly relevant and unnessecarily tedious.


Again, I'm pretty sure you mean Abiogenesis, because the subject of biogenesis (= the idea of life generating more life) is certainly not debated, not even among creationists. More often than not they actually falsely try to use it to prove that life can't come from non-life (which is ofcourse under the realm of abiogenesis, not biogenesis, thus making that argument a non sequitur).

It's obvious that you've done some research on the subject, I'm not questioning that. I'm just getting the idea that your sources aren't the most reliable ones, if they are ones stating things such as "humans supposedly evolved from apes" (which understandably is a common strawman argument against evolution for someone not properly informed on the subject)
As for the subject of faith and religion, I don't personally mind what someone believes as far as they aren't harming anyone else. Besides, evolution doesn't inherently have any stance on theism/atheism. I do however consider spreading misinformation to be harmful, and I would suggest researching more about the current understanding of evolution to avoid stating such strawman-arguments as "evolution is the adding of genes". Most reliable sources for this would for example be various big, widely recognized scientific organizations, because they will more likely have better data than small individual scientists. Plus smaller communities are more prone to bias, unlike huge prestigious communities that entail thousands of scientists.

If you are going to debate against evolution, atleast debate against what it actually says, not what creationist websites claim it says.

Edit: @ Mother_Natures_Son, I'll reply to you later in a separate post, as it is now 5:04 AM and I wanna go to sleep . But I'm glad you responded, I'll definitely get back to you.

that's a whole LOT to catch up with...

Rather than saying: "wow, how amazing, I've never seen it that way and though it actually doesn't make any sense to me, because of ... ! and have you ever considered ... ?" we claim to know because of this or that scientific proof...

It seems to be part of human nature (being a 6 billionth part of mankind) to sit on a microscopic spec in a huge solar system, itself being a microscopic spec in a galaxy that itself is not even a billionth fraction of the entire universe and claiming to have solid evidence of all that which is existing in the entire Cosmos...

sorry if that came across as condescending but "science" has always pretended to have the ultimate answer... until more recent studies have proven otherwise.

Not THAT long ago we were still sitting on a discworld, with ALL stars circling around it...

on a sidenote: has any of you ever taken into consideration that it might only be the physical body that has evolved from a common ape/human ancestor? But that this consciousness/ awareness has always been around? And further that the same consciousness/awareness is present in all beings alike, only bound individually to physical limitations and a genetic memory? (*)

To me that entire ID-topic is like saying that water has been designed by mankind, just because someone found a bottle.

Welcome to the discussion, ReVo

(*) btw this is not a thread about "ID vs. evolution" - there is already another thread on this topic in existence (which I can't find at this point) - I feel it would be sad to have this thread drifting "off" in this direction, because neither evolution nor ID dis/proves the existence of God.

This would more be an open exchange about "what that term "God" means to you"....

Revo, your absoulutly correct, I was dumbing down what I was saying so that it fits into context of my arguement, that people will be able to find flaws in anything you say if they are so inclined.

Yes the definition of evolution has evolved, yet when in a creation vrs evolution context I feel it is important to distinguish the things that both have in common and those that seperate it.The newer terminology is based on the presumption that the older models were correct. IT is easy for people who believe in the whole to merge its theories, the differences of opinions still revolve around the original principles. It seems that science (and a lot of creationism for that matter) runs with the dangerous assumption that it is pursued without presuppositions.

I dont agree with the idea you propose that every fossil is transitionary. I mean I understand your premise. But for want of a better term there is no missing link. Just A and Z. To suggest that there is absolute proof of a theory that has many inherant problems is silly.

Also, guilty I based the figure of mutations that on the estimate of a 6 million year guess as to common ancestry vrs the roughly 45 milliion changes that have to be made, as well as a few chromosonal fusions; and changed sequence of proteins. essentially it was an educated pull out of my arse to emphasis the fact that with soo much change occuring very little of it is documented.

oh and I used terms like ape and land whale because these creatures that the evolution came from havnt been found yet; have no names and cant yet be identified. They are common terms that people can relate to. I assumed that the semantics of a name wouldnt change its context as I was more about pointing out my argument against argument, Im sorry if I confused.

Your right I do study this stuff, and I make no claims to be an expert so I speak very much in the laymans terms. I read from every source I lay my grubby little hands on because these things are central issues to my core faith and I want to be as informed as possible.

NPR Radio had this interesting discussion a few months back where the guest speaker was talking about this theory that the capacity for faith to be influenced by genetics. That certain gene sets made a difference in whether people had the capacity for faith, or if people basically only believed in what they had experienced in life. How these differences helped early man to survive by having some with the capacity to keep going in dire or hopeless situations because they had those ideas and inclinations to hold on to when other people would say " it" and give up. It was a very interesting show and maybe in my free time I'll see if I can find a linkie to the archived episode. I don't know if I believed everything he said, but it was good food for thought nonetheless.

@ WoodlandApple, I'll try to find the thread that FireTom mentioned and continue the evolution-discussion there, as it is a bit offtopic here. But rest assured I'll get back to it.


Agreed, the probability can't be numerically calculated, but that doesn't mean we can't know whether the probability is closer to 0 than it is to 1, or the other way around. In a sentence: The claim that something exists outside our universe is unfalsifiable (meaning just what we've been talking about, that positive evidence for it or against it could never be obtained as far as we know), and therefore not a claim to be taken scientifically seriously.

Besides, the burden of evidence is always on the one making the positive claim. Just like in good justice systems a defendant is innocent until shown otherwise, a thing is considered non-existant until there is reason to believe otherwise. If this was not the case, then every single concept ever concieved by anyone could be considered existant, which would render the word "existance" completely meaningless. Because there wouldn't be anything that didn't exist. And "things that exist" only mean something in comparison to "things that don't exist".

I don't quite understand the question, and I think we're using the word "natural" in a different sense. "Natural" in "supernatural" to me means somethings that is a part our known reality.. and in that sense the question "Couldn't supernaturality be natural to this being?" is nonsensical. But if with "natural" you mean "a common characteristic feature", then you're back in a claim that is unfalsifiable and can't be intelligently discussed, other than in a hypothetical sense.


If a being isn't causing anything to happen or occur in the realm that we perceive, then it is doing the exact same thing that a non-existant thing would be doing. So it's not proof of it's non-existance, but it is evidence for it (to specify, negative evidence).

I think it's important to remember the distinct difference between evidence and proof, and to think which is a more useful term to use. I know you know the difference, because you pointed it out yourself in the "Atheist&Agnostic" thread a while back (yes, I dug it from the grave and read through it ). You're saying that the only thing to deny faith is proof. I assume you mean absolute proof,(because that's what the word basically means). But absolute proof is another concept that can't be intelligently discussed, because there is no such thing aside from the world of mathematics, from which the term originates. By setting "proof" as the only bar that a thing has to succeed in order to be knowable, your render both the words "knowledge" and "faith" totally meaningless. Because "things that are known" only mean something in comparison to "unknown things", much in the same way as "things you have faith in" only mean something in comparison to "things you don't have faith in". You are thrown into the pit of nihilism where no one can ever know anything. If you only went by proof, you would have to admit that you can't know if your sensory abilities are accurate, which is the exact thing you admit not to be productive at all.

This is why I say the use of the word "proof" is in the same way not productive at all, and I use evidence instead. The only productive way of defining "faith" is "belief without evidence", because "belief without proof" as a definition gets us nowhere.


According to my definition of faith (which as I explained earlier, is a sensically usable definition unlike the one you seem to have), it is not needed to put trust in logic. I don't claim people or their reasoning skills to be perfect, but we have evidence for what works and what doesn't work. Logical processes work. If you have a problem with my definition of faith, you're more than welcome to object.

I came to this same realization when reading your posts in the "Atheist&Agnostic"-thread. People who quite obviously are atheists refuse to call themselves that because they think it's some sort of a leap to use the term. Atheist and Agnostic are not mutually exclusive terms. Here's why:

Gnosticism and Theism are two different sets of subjects. One deals with belief (=an assumption made about reality based on the information we have), one deals with knowledge. They can be mixed in various sorts of ways. These definitions simply come from the root word and the "a-"prefix, which means "without":
Theism = belief in a god
Atheism = lack of belief in a god
Gnosticism = certain knowledge
Agnosticism = lack of certain knowledge

From these 4 different categories we can get 4 different kinds of combinations:
Gnostic theist = Someone who believes and knows there is a god
Agnostic theist = Someone who believes in a god but does not claim to know for certain.
Agnostic atheist = Someone who doesn't believe in a god but doesn't claim to know for certain.
Gnostic atheist = Someone who doesn't believe in a god and knows that there isn't one.

The only one of those positions that doesn't hold the burden of evidence is Agnostic Atheist, which is what I think most atheists would identify as (I can't of course speak for everyone, but that assumption comes from past experience and talking to atheists). And a lot of people who identify themselves as agnostic are also atheists, but for some reason just are too afraid of the label. Admittedly, a lot of agnostic atheists, if the notion of absolute proof were to be removed from discussion, would consider themselves gnostic atheists. I would consider myself in this group aswell.

I'm sorry if it seems like petty semantics to you, but to have an intelligent discussion we need to be straight about what words mean and what they don't mean. Otherwise misconceptions are not only unavoidable, but also magnified.

I think you are using the words intelligent and really meaning scientific. correct me if Im wrong but there are other accepted ways of thinking than just the scientific one. And to be honest scientific reasoning is not much use in this type of topic.

Revo, what sort of credance do you give to intuition, 6th sense, womans intution etc?

Also on a side note I am heading off climbing (yay!) for 3 or four days so will be unable to respond until I get back.

How can you attempt to make any judgement on somethings possibility when we don't understand the parameters by which it operates?


This in some ways relates to what you addressed next regarding the "supernatural".

My aim in suggesting the supernatural was natural was simply to highlight that that which is supernatural to us isn't necessarily supernatural in another realm (A realm which could potentially house millions of 'gods', each complete with their own hobby universes to entertain themselves as they go about their normal lives)




To me, this doesn't provide any evidence save that it is evidence for the concept that if there IS indeed something, then it operates under a different set of rules to ourselves... or that it no longer cares, not that it does not exist.



Knowing that someone doesn't know for certain is more liberating and meaningful than knowing in the first place. Implying its nihilistic assumes that only knowledge is meaningful and the search for knowledge means nothing.



How about if I put it a different way? You seem to be using "Logical processes" as a process by which things can be ascertained. My original usage of it was somewhat different and probably incorrect.

What if I said that you need to put faith into your usage of logical processes?

Just as mathematical processes can be trusted, but not always can you trust someones usage of a mathematical process, so it would take faith in ones own knowledge of the mathematical process to trust that the numbers are all in the right places and as such the conclusion is the right one.

You have no idea how funny it is to myself when it applies directly to me!

My aversion is based on speaking to people that don't understand the definitions you've put forward there. I've come across them before and still choose not to use them, despite having the same 4 sets, yet naming them differently in order to make it simpler for those not used to using the complete terminology.
I choose to use Atheist and Theist as the absolutes, this is the gnostics.

Then Agnosticism I break into absolute agnosticism or soft agnosticism...

There is another reason for this, because I don't even feel I fit into the other system.

I would be classified an Agnostic Atheist.... but I also have some form of theistic beliefs that are based on "ifs" as well as probabilities.

I believe IF there is a god, then it does indeed love me. (IF there isnt, then I am probably the luckiest guy on the face of the earth, or I'm the subject of a truman showesque situation)

Even you yourself have wanted to put more variation into the term, which is why I use only the three terms with a note added to "agnostic"



Edit: I'd also like to add that as far as the practical usage of the word "knowledge" goes there are varying degrees to what we know... I know with a large amount of certainty that I am wearing clothes... I know with a much smaller amount of certainty what actually goes into a Dim Sim.

Science admits this in that there are "theorys" and "laws"

But using scientific approaches to something that most likely exists outside our own frame of existance is illogical, science covers what we can discover, not what it is impossible for us to discover.

Sorry but you seem to completely misunderstand the process of evolution creatures do not evolve into something "better" they evolve into something more specialised, or more focused to a particular niche or to a specific role, which generally leads to extinction when the niche no longer exists or the adaptions become extreme,




Actually again wrong, the whale has an up and down movement to it's tail because it used to have legs, the forward motion of running animals gives whales and dolphins the up and down tail motion not evident in any fish with no land history, watch footage of a 4 legged animal running like a dog or a tiger, whales had no "twisting" movement. As to the pelvis, it would not get crushed, the bouyancy of water is easily enouogh to support the weight of a creature which spends all of it's life in water, the legs only shrank because the land animal having moved back to water (much like a hippo) no longer required legs due to the bouyancy of water, as such they where able to shrink at a similar rate as the tail developed, there waas no "transitional animal" a creature with legs moved into the water and adapted to fit there, it never came out and as it's tail grew the reproductive orifice would move down and away as the legs shrank over generations

check out this link showing images of probable whale lineage and you will see that your explaination here is slightly flawed anatomically

http://www.squidoo.com/whale-evolution

it's fine to question but the fact remains that the questions that are asked change every generation as the creations arguments against evolution are tried tested and found wanting or proved incorrect, due to empirical evidence and data. Religion is yet to offer 1 single peice of solid evidence to the contrary for their beliefs they use soley the argument that the proof against is insufficient and fail to offer evidence to the contrary that stands up to any form of testing.




You have me misquoted there - I wasn't saying this about Biogenesis I was saying this about evolution. yes I agree that biogenesis is still to be proved, however, although the Miller-Urey experiment does not have ALL the answers it DOES prove that biochemical agents can be formed from inert chemical compounds, it is the first step, religion has had 2000 years to bolster it's defences and science has had but a fraction of that time to come up with the answers, however they are coming albeit slowly

I don't mean to be contrary but religious arguments today seem to be more arguments against discoveries of science than offering up their own proofs, it is this factor which saddens me most because it seems Religion is arguing for ignorance rather than answers, the faithful believe they have the answers and no longer need to look for them science is by definition trying to prove everything wrong trying to find answers.
I agree I dislike the Church more than religious people in general it smacks of hipocrasy. I'm very surprised to hear you were brought up atheist, that is unfortunate as I don't believe any child has the right to be brought up to believe either way, they should be allowed to examine the evidence for themselves when they are ready. I didn't want to link the church with paedophilia I was suggesting that the church developed a tactic which has been taken by those reprehensibles and hasn't been used for anything good.

Why is it always evolution vs christianity... I understand its because in the bible it said god created all the plants animals of the earth "as they are today"... but why does that discount Evolution?

If all the plants and animals of the world were in a state of constant evolutionary shift, then why is it held to be that God did not do this?

If he were my God, I'd claim it and say it was a pretty clever idea of His.

Didn't the bible say in the beginning he made all things perfect? also it says god made man in HIS image when there appears to be proof that man has descended from Apes therefore is the christian god an ape?

I admit I'm not 100% on the above so it's more a question. It's also the way that when things in the bible are proved false the church defends it as being allogorical, whereas before it was believed fact, like the adam and eve story has been distanced by the church as not actual because it is laughably unlikely.

The reason it is always Christians versus evolution is because they started it as soon as the theory was published it was the christians who jumped to try and prove it wrong, who push the creationist argument. Very few taoists, budhists, muslims or Jews tend to pick at this argument, possibly because they can see the errors with the backlash against christianity from scientific atheists. Those that do don't seem to join in here, most of those on here arguing for religion tend towards the christian view and it's not a discussion if I lay into Muslim beliefs on evolution here without a muslim to discuss with as Muslim beliefs are not represented I don't attempt to flatten them, it's one sided and no fun at all playing alone it's nothing personal, just you christians can put up a fight the others hide or roll over (see I CAN complement christians on something at least you stand up for yourselves)

Yah, we can't make any judgements about it really. I'll give you that, there's no disagreement. But the burden of evidence still stands. Until there is reason to think otherwise, it should for all means and purposes be considered non-existant. And that isn't me trying to make any logical judgement about the nature of the thing itself, that is me reasoning how claims of this kind should be dealt with in order to have the most correct possible view of reality.
And that ofcourse only applies if one cares whether or not one's beliefs match reality or not.


I agree that the acceptance of the irrelevance of absolute knowledge is profitable. But in addition, I am in fact implying that yes, the search for absolute knowledge is also irrelevant, because it's something we can never achieve. But that doesn't discount the relevance of knowledge based on evidence, or the search for it. In other words: Knowledge based on evidence is the best we have and is the best we ever will have, so the best option is to follow it, instead of sticking around waiting for absolute knowledge to come by before making decisions or judgements about reality.

I'm still of the opinion that faith is a completely wrong word to use for this, so instead I'll use "admittance of uncertainty". And in that regard I completely agree with you. There is no denying the uncertainty in our usage of logical processes. There are ways of improving them, aka studying. But one can never be absolutely certain, I agree. I would still argue though that since logical processes are the best we will ever have as far as understanding the world around us (as far as the track record shows anyway), questioning them is nothing short of unproductive and trivial.


Alright, I find your position understandable, though not one that I would ever hold myself. I think standing up for what I actually believe to be true and justified instead of "stooping down" due to the ignorance of others is the more moral thing to do. Furthermore, I think that if one doesn't use the specific definition of the word "atheist" or "theist" etc. which applies to all (or atleast as many as possible) of those who use that term of themselves, it is unfair towards those people. I think the definitions I use sufficiently cover that standard, but I might be wrong.


Why would you assume that though (this is a genuinely curious question)? How do you respond to a sort of deist who thinks that god is probably true but that it doesn't interact with the physical world, even less that it has feelings towards human life?


Yes, it's impossible for science to give a definitive statement on anything like that. That isn't an excuse to postulate the existance of anything and everything that isn't within our reach of study, though..


I would agree that there are different degrees of the certainty of knowledge. I wouldn't say they are different degrees of knowledge, though. If there is evidence, there can be knowledge. Certainty is really the only variable after that.
As for "theories vs laws", the term "theory" can be used in various different definitions. For example in String Theory or M Theory or the Metaverse Theory, the word implies (as I think you were suggesting) that they are mostly speculation and not at odds with facts in certainty. However, "theory" as is Theory of Gravity or Theory of Evolution simply means a compilation of certain facts and laws. And those kinds of theories are at odds in certainty with the facts and laws that they include. But I digress.

PS:

Maybe it's because it doesn't exactly go well with literal interpretation of the bible (according to which the Earth is only 6000 years old), which I think a lot of fundies want to latch on to .. However, I don't really know myself either..

Why? It hurts my brain how any assumption can be made about something of which we have no knowledge.

What about schrodingers cat?

Whats the reason for not throwing the burden of proof back onto the atheist assumption? Because lets face it... its an assumption based on nothing, its not based on any real evidence to suggest there isn't a god, only that there isn't significant evidence to suggest there is one.

If I was to lock a warehouse and fill it with something... you can't tell me whats in there, you can't tell me whats not in there. Whatever IS in there isn't giving away what it is... does it mean you don't believe theres anything inside?

I don't see any reason you've given me that 'faith' is the wrong term to use unless of course its supposed to be self evident... in which case it sounds a tad like a theistic mindset... but thats not really important(or is it?), I'll tell you why I brought faith into the discussion in the first place.

The basic idea is that to even lean in either direction from the dead centre involves precisely the same processes. You still need to have faith in whatever has lead you toward what you believe.


On certainty of knowledge you essentially reiterate what I say but avoid actually connecting it with its initial introduction into this conversation... you didn't even include it in your quote. I made it standalone so you couldn't miss it.

"...questioning them is nothing short of unproductive and trivial."

"...then you're back in a claim that is unfalsifiable and can't be intelligently discussed"

"...which as I explained earlier, is a sensically usable definition unlike the one you seem to have"

Subtly attempting to sabotage my point of view isn't really going to get you anywhere except buried in a soft peat of self-gratifying ignorance.

Isn't this the very piety that gives religious zealots their own closed minded bad name?

In the same way we do not have any knowledge about unicorns, the default position is to not have any beliefs on whether or not they exist, (which would be the agnostic atheist position [according to the definitions I explained to be using]), but it is a much less of a leap to say that unicorns don't exist, than it is to say that they do. Burden of proof is not symmetrical between positive and negative claims. For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophic_burden_of_proof

As for Shcrödinger's cat, despite independantly researching the subject, I'm not knowleadgable enough on quantum physics to really discuss the subject while saying that I know what I'm talking about. Are you? Even scientists admit Quantum physics to be confusing for a reason. It takes a lot of study to understand them.
All I know is that a popular opinion among physicists about Schrödinger's cat is that it's a meaningless thought experiment until the box is opened. And the whole scenario was originally satirical proposition made towards the paradoxical results of the unfalsibiability of the Copenhagen Consensus about consciousness affecting reality. Which I don't really see how it relates to our subject. So in any case, I'm not making a specific statement about it due to my ignorance.
IF HOWEVER I'm going off on a huge tangent and you were just pointing it out to illustrate that because we can't know something we aren't justified in taking any position about it's actual state, I refer to my first paragraph.

In response to your analogy, I would have to suspend belief either way before seeing any evidence that there is anything in the warehouse. But due to burden of proof being asymmetrical between claims of existance vs. claims of nonexistance (plus the effect of Occam's Razor, which I'll refer to again more profoundly in this post), I can with much better certainty make the assumption that there is nothing in the warehouse, than that there is something in there.


I explained to you before already why I think faith is the wrong word to use:

So far you haven't addressed my definition of the word faith, so I assumed you didn't have a problem with it.
But no, it's not of great importance, if you allow me to interpret your use of faith as admittance of uncertainty (which is, again, not how I would define the word but how I think you are using it). Is that not what you mean by the word?

Agnostic atheism is exactly the dead center to which you refer to, which is the position I hold. But as the asymmetricality of the burden of evidence shows, it does not take precisely the same faith to lean in either direction. The wikipedia article has a very explicit example of this with fairies.


Anything I don't quote or respond to is for one reason or another. Either I don't have any objections to it, or I don't think pressing on that particular point is going to take the conversation further. In this case it was the latter. I'm sorry if that bothered you. If you insist that I respond to a point, I'm happy to.
I assume you're meaning this part here?:

To that point I would raise the viewpoint of Occam's Razor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor ). Occam's Razor is not a philosphical law, but it is a well working rule of thumb. Basically, your explanation to the absence of the evidence of god requires much more complex assertions than the explanation of non-existance, thus it is not on equal ground in credibility.


If you see those quotes as poisoning the well, I'm honestly sorry for my ignorance. In my view I was making a valid point of argument rather than trying to sabotage yours. If you'd like, you can consider them as saying "..unfalsifiable things can't be critically discussed". Which is exactly what unfalsifiable things are, by extension of the definition. Also, I gave concrete reasons why your definition of "faith" isn't a good one, I didn't just blatantly declare it bad. And I really fail to see how "unproductive and trivial" are illigitimate term to use. Perhaps it was too subtle for me to notice. In any case, I'm sorry. But I still agree with what I said.

Unicorns are something said to exist within this realm of existance, which goes against all knowledge we have of this realm, making that claim somewhat ludicrous.

How can the burden of proof be asymmetrical if we already established that theres no way of placing any probability on a being who operates in a way that is not observable?



By telling me of any burden of proof, then you do not lie dead centre, you're telling me its more likely there is NOT a god, meaning you're not in the dead centre. Fairies are something said to exist within this realm and as such are subject to very different rules than god. They are also said to manifest themselves frequently, whereas in the infinite nature of god, (not the christian god, the infinite god of possibility) means that theres no reason we will ever see any telltale signs of the creator. If something has the power to create everything, its possible they'd have the power to influence without our realisation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance#Argument_from_ignorance
This covers even likelihoods, which you say that in order to create the 'most accurate' picture of reality you tell me that god is less likely to be true.

I indeed was not referring to quantum physics, because it doesnt relate to our subject, I was quite simply referring to the fact that if we have no idea what lies inside the box, we can't make any judgement on whats inside the box.

I've addressed your use of the word faith several times and I'm not going to end up in one of these discussions where I end up endlessly repeating myself.



I apologise, using the word "initial" was absolutely an oversight, I meant its initial reason for introduction, which came after the fact.




In regards to Occams razor, if you have a look at the religion section of that article, you may note that its covered in red flags. "May contain original research" "the neutrility has been disputed"

Essentially... this is because it says "disbelief is preferred"

My knowledge of occams razor might be a little hazy, but I thought it was about making the LEAST assumptions and creates the least entities.

Neither believing or disbelieving creates 0 assumptions and creates 0 entities, whereas even leaning to one side will create assumptions.


You poison nothing but the well of your own mind. You seem to be confusing "can't be critically discussed" and "can't be empirically ratified" You can't discuss them as a concrete idea, only as an abstract concept.

You did give reasons as to why my definition of faith didn't fit in with your own... but you didn't actually state why they are unproductive and trivial.

If you say anything can't be discussed for any reason for any reason you're limiting yourself in the amount of inbound information. A theist will do this by simply ignoring anything that doesn't fit in with their scripture. A gnostic atheist(even one who has removed the burden of absolute proof, like yourself) will do this by ignoring everything that doesn't fit in with their view of the material world... but we aren't talking about the material world... we're talking about spiritual matters of which we can make no judgement because theres no way we'll ever have the ability to test our assertions.

My entire point is that it IS unfalsifiable. This entire subject is unfalsifiable, in which case I would like to refer back to the topic of the thread in the first place... "God and what it means to you"

well god to me is lies and trickery to control the lesser people who will hold onto anything that makes the possibilty better

Theres an interesting line of conversation, Midkiff.

God as a control mechanism.

God as a means of inspiration, of oppression, of violent acts, acts of kindness, expressive thought.

By expressive thought, often enough I'll "converse" with god as a means of talking to myself while not... talking to myself. Its essentially a means of conferring with my own intuition and if another being decides to take a hand in that... so be it.

The "INTELLIGENT DESIGN VS. EVOLUTION" thread at your service ...

i must say i am truly sorry if i offend anyone but to each his own and i am no part of that i have christians in my family even my brother is christian

If your god can be "the god of infinite possibilies" and his definition or attributes shouldn't be restricted, I should be able to do the same with fairies.
How is that different from saying that "Ok, fairies and unicorns maybe don't exist here, but they do exist in a magical fairyland somewhere beyond our existance, where our laws don't apply. And even if they ever did cross into our realm, they and any signs of them would vanish at the second someone tries to detect them."? Does that mere extension to the analogy make the belief that fairies don't exist unjustifiable?
You hold that the existance of this analogous fairyland is a reasonable assumption, but there's no reason to assert that. There's no reason to assume that there's anything beyond our universe, or that there is another level of existance from where an entity can interact with this world while completely avoiding being percieved.
Therefore asymmetricality of the burden of proof certainly applies to that assumption (if not, why not?), and by extension it also applies to any claims you make about the nature of that sort of existance, including god and its possible attributes. To put in the words of the wikipedia article: The claim "God is separate from our reality and wouldn't be applicable to ways of studying our reality." is inextricably dependent upon the controversial claim "There is a reality beyond ours.".

Yeah, but it doesn't discard the burden of proof, the purpose of which is to determine what positions are more justified than others in a given situation, especially if it's a stalemate like this one. And that is all I'm arguing, I'm not arguing what the actual state of reality is, but what constitutes as a reasonable belief about the subject. And above I've tried to explain why even your specific example of god doesn't escape the asymmetricality of burden of proof. Even the wikipedia page which you cited states that "An important aspect of the ad ignorantiam argument is establishing the Burden of proof."

I admit that the belief that "there probably is not god" is not the dead center. But I still argue that it is a much more justifiable position than the belief that god possibly exists. Again, via asymmetricality of the burden of proof illustrated by the page on wikipedia (or any philosophy books on the subject, incase you doubt wikipedia).
Incase your response is, that "total agnosticism is an even more justified position" (total agnosticism in this case being a state where one will not say anything beyond "I don't know"), to that I would respond that total agnosticism is not a position at all. It's a non-position, the total lack and refusal of taking one. And it suggests that knowledge is needed to absolutely hold any belief, which I disagree with. Further knowledge may change my belief, but the lack of knowledge doesn't prevent me from having a negative belief about a claim. Just like with the issue of fairies in a magical fairyland outside the universe. I have no knowledge for or against the existence of them, but I can still be fairly confident in believing there aren't any. AKA I can take the best position with the limited and possibly insufficient knowledge that I already have. And if further knowledge comes along, I'll intergrate that accordingly and maybe change my beliefs. Would you not agree?

In my opinion if a specific definition of the word renders it meaningless, that definition is unproductive. But then again that's just my opinion which anybody is free to object.

And in any case I'm fine with the situation, as I said I don't find it of great importance to go further on this specific route of the discussion either. But just for future reference, the fact that you feel like you have to repeat yourself over and over again isn't necessarily the opponent's fault. I've been on both sides of that coin and been proven wrong, and many others have aswell.

This is a point I didn't feel like pressing before, but I decided I'll throw it out there after all.
Isn't "most likely" a positive assertion on your part? On what basis are you making that if you are trying to make the least assumptions possible?
The possible biases of the writer or that specific part of the article are completely irrelevant to what Occam's razor means and how it relates to our subject. Look up a philosophical dictionary if you don't like wikipedia.

Occam's razor addresses both the amount and complexity of any assumptions made or entities created.
I agree that my position "god probably doesn't exist" does create some assumptions. However they are assumptions I'm comfortable in making due to practicality reasons. As I described earlier, I'm taking the position that I hold most reasonable according to my current state of knowledge.That is because then it has the potential to become more accurate. If I insist on staying in the absolute middle ground with 0 assumptions and accepting no beliefs, I'm stuck in the "I don't know" faze (because in the face of the lack of absolute certainty on anything, saying anything else would be making assumptions regardless of the subject matter), which isn't a position at all. Only when I take an initial position on the subject does it become possible to improve that position (to one way or another), which will result in me having as many correct beliefs and as few false beliefs as possible. Which for me is a goal more worth pursuing than making absolutely 0 assumptions about anything.

Abstract concepts don't create matter or have any other direct effect on the physical reality, but you are suggesting that a god would be able to do this. You are clearly not treating him just as an abstract concept, which is the only reason I give statements like the ones you quoted. I have no problem with the unfalsifiability of abstract concepts. I completely 100% agree with the statement "God is a concept", as in "of the mind". But if your posts hadn't implied anything outside of that, I would've left you alone in the first place. Truly abstract concepts don't even have the ability to have any direct implications on the physical world.

When I say something can't be discussed, I'm not saying that it's forbidden or impossible to discuss. I'm saying there's very little point in discussing the issue, atleast from that perspective. I'm not dogmatically refusing to discuss it like you seem to be implying. I'm saying it's a waste of time.

I don't have sufficient reason to even believe there is a "spritual world" of spiritual matters. It's existance is subject to burden of proof just like anything else, and once again the burden lies heavily on the one making the claim that such things exist. The effort to try and escape this by saying "If it existed, we wouldn't be able to make any judgement about it" is useless when you start with an already controversial premise: "If it existed".

from my point of view, I have no idea how the world started, I dont know if there was evolution or something different.

I get annoyed, however with the notion that evolution is tried true and tested, when it isnt. There are huge gaps left fill.

people make huge assumptions based on very little fact when it comes to mainstream religious beliefs. Did you know that more people get executed today in America than during the inquisition? Yet somehow the inquisition is used time and time again to prove that religion creates war and death. More people have died for non religious reasons in the history of man than religious reasons.

People tell me to read more scientif readings, to look outside my faith (which is something I do) well, everyone else can come understand my faith before labelling and criticsing me for it.

Why are you so eagerly asking for (scientific) proof to someone's definition of God?

Can you see air? Can you for that matter (and without technical assistance) prove that air exists and break down its components? Still you breathe it. To me, ID and evolution do not contradict but even compliment each other and neither does dis/prove the existence of God.

Assuming for a moment that some alien race spotted this planet and sent a spacecraft, containing all necessary elements to "seed" life on this planet. Would that alone make them "God" to you? Only because they were able to start life on this planet and (un/intelligently) designed it?

Just for a second let us say that there is an individual alien out there who seeded earth.... does that make 'him' God? If "yes" and if that alien would worship some entity, who would then be that entity? "God of God(s)"???

IMHO you can take all the detours and go babysteps in all directions, argue and debate - but you could also take the shortcut and realize God in all there is around and within you.

btdt Discussions about something that can't be properly explained and that has emotional ties often lead to misunderstandings and (unintended) offense. Thanks for contributing Midkiff

Having faith is a good thing - why not. Only if you find yourself with the back to the wall, trying to argue about something that in reality needs to be experienced, you notice that something somewhere along the line went the funny way.



I hope that this post is not a full stop to the entire thread and wished for more elaborations on "what God means to you"...

I'm going to have to bow out of this discussion at this point, due to university work piling up around me.

I did enjoy the discussion and I think we both understand one anothers opinions at this point anyway.

I do however find it intriguing that you seem to spend a large amount of time discussing something that is a waste of time... I think you do see that its an interesting topic, even if nobody can in the end be proven correct or incorrect.

Happy travels to all those in this thread. ^_^


Also, this. http://www.vimeo.com/264972

Guilty as charged but completely freak assumption I don't regard it a waste of time to exchange opinions about the nature of god - ever ... but I do regard it a waste of time to argue about the same topic - always.

Thanks for your input enjoy the Uni-work - see you back at some stage

lol the discussion of religion and god is always a long one and it can get ugly real fast but still fun to do

a few quotes I found lately:

In Faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't - Blaise Pascal

There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking - Alfred Korzybski

Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of faith is to see what we believe. - Augustine

And a couple of quotes from my perspective to round things off

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." — Friedrich Nietzsche

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." — George Bernard Shaw

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen Roberts

now... who wants to discuss why war is good?

one good thing that religion has done though is morals they have given people morals and codes of conduct