- This topic is empty.
- Posts
Quote (t8 @ Aug. 02 2008,11:43) Quote (Stu @ Aug. 02 2008,11:31) Samuel I don't think your god is not real to you, I just think it is not real to anyone else. There are 2,100,000,000 different Judeo-christian gods, one inside each believer's head. Stuart
People describe God differently just as people would describe an elephant differently if they had only seen a part of it. No one can see all of God but we have insight in part. It is up to those with true faith to combine their vision and experience to get a bigger picture.If a man thinks an elephant is like a tail and another says it is like a trunk, then they are describing a different part of the same thing.
So there aren't 1000000 different elephants in this example, but one.
But it is true that there are people who have opinions about God and make God into their image or the image of something in their mind. Not all who believe in God are in the truth. But if you love the truth and seek it with all your heart it will be given.
Hi t8There are 6,000,000,000 possible human perceptions of an elephant. If we brought elephant perceptions together for discussion, perhaps the aesthetic ones would remain, but the factual ones would begin to coalesce very quickly as people sat watching an elephant and talking. With god, the more talking that happens, the more the scisms develop. The theory of what elephants are like factually is pretty clear-cut, the theory of factual god is as diffuse as anything could be.
Do you disagree with Nick that everything should go back to scripture? What of the question which I have posed all too often, getting no reply at all, about what it is that you know that I cannot possibly know as a non-believer?
Stuart
Quote (Irene @ Aug. 02 2008,05:53) Hi Samuel! Please consider not to go. I do not like it either when Stu makes fun of God. Therefore I do not answer him. I do mainly stay in the Believers section. Just consider that God in you is stronger then what Stu trows at you. Just ignore him.
Peace and Love Irene
Hi Irene!Stuart
Greetings Stu…..I must say that in closing your dialog with t8 your response to his closing statement with respect to who the world is being influenced by….you mentioned 4 individuals that I view in the same light that you do…..The Pope is a man to watch,he is the essense of politics and religion,Osama is a fundamentalist Muslim who is intent on changing the world to suit his beliefs by any means,John Hagee is a man who is convinced and judging from his appearence he would be wise to stay away from Mickey Ds.,In closing ..who in their right mind would buy food from a clown…
Quote (Stu @ Aug. 02 2008,02:06) What of the question which I have posed all too often, getting no reply at all, about what it is that you know that I cannot possibly know as a non-believer? Stuart
Hi StuartYou know eveything about everything
You write well, you think like a star
So no one can say how wrong you are.The only people
'I think—-I think' you respect
Are billionares, millionares
Self made people who need no one.
Or people who live off the land
On roots, berries and leaves.
Something that you cannot do.I do not know you so 'I think.'
The way you write is a little bit arrogant, you can see that yourself. Please don't jump on your high horse and attack everything in sight.You are sure to have a answer to this insight.
Lineon
Quote (lineon @ Aug. 04 2008,02:18) Quote (Stu @ Aug. 02 2008,02:06) What of the question which I have posed all too often, getting no reply at all, about what it is that you know that I cannot possibly know as a non-believer? Stuart
Hi StuartYou know eveything about everything
You write well, you think like a star
So no one can say how wrong you are.The only people
'I think—-I think' you respect
Are billionares, millionares
Self made people who need no one.
Or people who live off the land
On roots, berries and leaves.
Something that you cannot do.I do not know you so 'I think.'
The way you write is a little bit arrogant, you can see that yourself. Please don't jump on your high horse and attack everything in sight.You are sure to have a answer to this insight.
Lineon
There is plenty I don't know, but you know nothing special that I as an atheist cannot in principle know also. Do you have an answer to the question, or just more empty rhetoric?Stuart
Quote (Stu @ Aug. 02 2008,11:58) I’m sorry t8, but that is just so obviously not true. Not wanting to blow my own trumpet or anything but I think you would struggle to find someone here who has thought through the wider issues more than I have. There are a few, but I would guess many have left and gone the agnostic way of many christians who stop and think about it for ‘too long’. I do not have the knowledge of the scriptures that others have, but the wider issue is the probity of the scriptures in which case you don’t need to know much about the detailed contents of them. I do take what you write seriously, you just have to consider the quite detailed responses you have had on the issue of design in biology. The fact that you have responded in kind indicates that you also take what I write seriously. Either you are playing defensively to the crowd or you are genuine. I would not pretend to finally judge your motives. I would even suggest you may not realise yourself what they are. Whichever it is, not everyone’s castles in the air are as securely tethered to sky-hooks as yours are.
Stu because you believe that a singularity came from nothing and became billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars each containing probably many planets, and at least one with life and one species in particular who is very intelligent, not to mention all the atoms, and quarks, and all this without a creator or any assistance from any form of higher intelligence, shows me very clearly that you haven't thought it through at all.All you have done is start with your religion or belief and read heaps of stuff or watched heaps of videos in support of your belief.
Sounds to me like you haven't prayed seriously to God, and come to him on his terms. Sounds to me like you haven't scratched beyond the surface. Sounds to me like you just don't have any other explanation but that a singularity with less intelligence than a fly came came up with mega-trillions of technological components that make up the universe.
Sorry but it is just plain obvious that you haven't thought this through to the degree required for progress because if you had, you wouldn't be touting the Singularity Santa Claus theory.
In other words if you have really looked all over for the truth, then your journey is not over.
Quote (Stu @ Aug. 02 2008,12:06) Quote (t8 @ Aug. 02 2008,11:43) Quote (Stu @ Aug. 02 2008,11:31) Samuel I don't think your god is not real to you, I just think it is not real to anyone else. There are 2,100,000,000 different Judeo-christian gods, one inside each believer's head. Stuart
People describe God differently just as people would describe an elephant differently if they had only seen a part of it. No one can see all of God but we have insight in part. It is up to those with true faith to combine their vision and experience to get a bigger picture.If a man thinks an elephant is like a tail and another says it is like a trunk, then they are describing a different part of the same thing.
So there aren't 1000000 different elephants in this example, but one.
But it is true that there are people who have opinions about God and make God into their image or the image of something in their mind. Not all who believe in God are in the truth. But if you love the truth and seek it with all your heart it will be given.
Hi t8There are 6,000,000,000 possible human perceptions of an elephant. If we brought elephant perceptions together for discussion, perhaps the aesthetic ones would remain, but the factual ones would begin to coalesce very quickly as people sat watching an elephant and talking. With god, the more talking that happens, the more the scisms develop. The theory of what elephants are like factually is pretty clear-cut, the theory of factual god is as diffuse as anything could be.
Do you disagree with Nick that everything should go back to scripture? What of the question which I have posed all too often, getting no reply at all, about what it is that you know that I cannot possibly know as a non-believer?
Stuart
It should go back to scripture if we are discussing truth or the existence of God.Of course you can discuss things that are not written in scripture and they are not necessarily wrong either.
But contradicting scripture with some theory that is the flavour of the moment, well I just don't think it is very wise, especially when theories change all the time. Why be the one that promotes a theory when your children will be taught in the next generation as to why you are wrong.
Would you have believed in Lamark's theory of evolution had you been born in his time and read his books?
I prefer the truth as it is timeless. Mens theories are frail and change all the time. History demonstrate this.
I love science, but I do not wish to be gullible and believe everything that is taught as if it were fact and then read later why it has changed. In fact, I am very skeptical of the theories that men come up with. Men who are just like the kids I knew in science class at school. They are still the same people, albeit a bit older and hopefully wiser. They are not gods Stu, but people just like you and me who specialize in a subject.
Ask yourself how often you make mistakes in your job? Even one mistake in science can deceive many people into believing in error, history also demonstrates this aptly.
I like to have a balance. i.e., science, revelation, belief, faith, they all are important and some more important than others. You can't just write some off and hold to one of them. That is the definition or narrow mindedness, i.e., to discard all that you don't like and accept only that which you do like.
Hi Samuel:
Shake the dust off of your feet, and continue to live your life so that people may see that God is a reality and that His testimony regarding our Lord Jesus is true.
We know that this is true by the Spirit of God our Father dwelling within us, and so, if the whole world calls us liars, that does not change this reality.
Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God our Father.
God Bless
Hi t8
Quote Stu because you believe that a singularity came from nothing and became billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars each containing probably many planets, and at least one with life and one species in particular who is very intelligent, not to mention all the atoms, and quarks, and all this without a creator or any assistance from any form of higher intelligence, shows me very clearly that you haven't thought it through at all.
I don’t think you understand the nature of the singularity. To say the singularity came from somewhere is to make a statement of something we cannot know. That applies to your god doubly.Quote All you have done is start with your religion or belief and read heaps of stuff or watched heaps of videos in support of your belief.
I have no religion. You have no clue at all to comment on what I have read or not read. You really show the uselessness of making claims without evidence.Quote Sounds to me like you haven't prayed seriously to God, and come to him on his terms.
There is no such thing. Why would I pray to nothing?Quote Sounds to me like you haven't scratched beyond the surface. Sounds to me like you just don't have any other explanation but that a singularity with less intelligence than a fly came came up with mega-trillions of technological components that make up the universe.
You really don’t get the big bang. Rather than insist I pray, why not take your own advice and read outside your own comfort zone?Quote Sorry but it is just plain obvious that you haven't thought this through to the degree required for progress because if you had, you wouldn't be touting the Singularity Santa Claus theory.
You have not put up an alternative falsifiable predictive theory for the beginning of the universe. Who hasn’t thought it through?Quote In other words if you have really looked all over for the truth, then your journey is not over.
It should go back to scripture if we are discussing truth or the existence of God.
Why scripture? There are plenty of other ways of searching. I cut out the joke methods of finding truth (infallible books, spiritualists, conspiracy theories,…) and go for the one method that consistently works. What does it tell me about this god of yours? Exactly nothing. More than that, it tells me by omission that there is no need for the Judeo-christian imaginary friend in order to have excellent explanations for the observable universe (the non-observable universe is unknowable and there is no point wondering about its nature, much less trying to claim to know the mind of a being that lives there).Quote Of course you can discuss things that are not written in scripture and they are not necessarily wrong either.
Except if they contradict scripture?Quote But contradicting scripture with some theory that is the flavour of the moment, well I just don't think it is very wise, especially when theories change all the time. Why be the one that promotes a theory when your children will be taught in the next generation as to why you are wrong.
The generation after Darwin learned of his work, and the generation after that, then 4 more generations in turn and still counting. Unlike chemistry and physics, which have been revolutionised in the meantime, Darwin is still fundamentally right. Scripture can claim what it likes and use magic to wave away the anomalies. Darwin’s work has stood up to rigourous testing by scientists and religious zealots alike.Quote Would you have believed in Lamark's theory of evolution had you been born in his time and read his books?
One of Darwin’s minor mistakes was to accept Lamarck to a degree. He did not have the hindsight of Mendel’s work, the elucidation of the structure and coding mechanism of DNA or the nature of genetic mutation. He acknowledged that there were many discoveries still to be made and that the picture was far from complete in his day. That in itself is a truly, objectively fulfilled prophesy more remarkable than anything you read in Isaiah.Quote I prefer the truth as it is timeless. Mens theories are frail and change all the time. History demonstrate this.
Are you saying that biblical christianity has not changed? Heck it was not even half a century old before Paul got his hands on it. There were christians editing historical records in all directions. Translations of translations of copies of copies make it one big game of chinese whispers. Only empirical science can take you back to a source of truth.
Quote I love science, but I do not wish to be gullible and believe everything that is taught as if it were fact and then read later why it has changed. In fact, I am very skeptical of the theories that men come up with.
You are right to be skeptical; truth claims should stand or fall on evidence. Unfortunately you do not seem very skeptical of the conjectures of men written in your bible.Quote Men who are just like the kids I knew in science class at school. They are still the same people, albeit a bit older and hopefully wiser. They are not gods Stu, but people just like you and me who specialize in a subject.
You must seem like that to them too. Personality is irrelevant to a scientific understanding.Quote Ask yourself how often you make mistakes in your job? Even one mistake in science can deceive many people into believing in error, history als
o demonstrates this aptly.
Yes and history demonstrates how well science corrects itself. It is almost like faith has no compass by comparison…Quote I like to have a balance. i.e., science, revelation, belief, faith, they all are important and some more important than others. You can't just write some off and hold to one of them. That is the definition or narrow mindedness, i.e., to discard all that you don't like and accept only that which you do like.
You should discard that which can be shown to be wrong. That includes Piltdown man, the plum pudding model of the atom, phlogiston theory, the Noachian flood and the Genesis story of Adam and Eve.Tell me which of these are still held dear, and then write with a straight face that you like to have a balance.
Stuart
Quote (942767 @ Aug. 04 2008,23:51) Hi Samuel: Shake the dust off of your feet, and continue to live your life so that people may see that God is a reality and that His testimony regarding our Lord Jesus is true.
We know that this is true by the Spirit of God our Father dwelling within us, and so, if the whole world calls us liars, that does not change this reality.
Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God our Father.
God Bless
It is true that even if the whole world calls you liars it does not change reality. Nevertheless you could still be wrong.Stuart
Greetings Stu…..” Religion and God are the elixir of the masses” the words of a true communist,athiest and bolshivik….Mr Lenin and his rhetoric did great things for Russia as the world can planely see,his complete denial of the existance of God and his reliance on his own understanding created a miserable existence for millions….In light of you rehetoric that espouses how much better we would be without God,…could you imagine how much better we would have been without Lenin…
Quote (Stu @ Aug. 04 2008,10:57) Quote (lineon @ Aug. 04 2008,02:18) Quote (Stu @ Aug. 02 2008,02:06) What of the question which I have posed all too often, getting no reply at all, about what it is that you know that I cannot possibly know as a non-believer? Stuart
Hi StuartYou know eveything about everything
You write well, you think like a star
So no one can say how wrong you are.The only people
'I think—-I think' you respect
Are billionares, millionares
Self made people who need no one.
Or people who live off the land
On roots, berries and leaves.
Something that you cannot do.I do not know you so 'I think.'
The way you write is a little bit arrogant, you can see that yourself. Please don't jump on your high horse and attack everything in sight.You are sure to have a answer to this insight.
Lineon
There is plenty I don't know, but you know nothing special that I as an atheist cannot in principle know also. Do you have an answer to the question, or just more empty rhetoric?Stuart
Hi StuartEverything that I can know you can know
That is plain to see.
But the diffrence between me and you
Is that I stepped out in faith
And I know there is a God.
That is the diffrence
I know you don't know.Lineon
Quote (lineon @ Aug. 06 2008,15:57) Quote (Stu @ Aug. 04 2008,10:57) Quote (lineon @ Aug. 04 2008,02:18) Quote (Stu @ Aug. 02 2008,02:06) What of the question which I have posed all too often, getting no reply at all, about what it is that you know that I cannot possibly know as a non-believer? Stuart
Hi StuartYou know eveything about everything
You write well, you think like a star
So no one can say how wrong you are.The only people
'I think—-I think' you respect
Are billionares, millionares
Self made people who need no one.
Or people who live off the land
On roots, berries and leaves.
Something that you cannot do.I do not know you so 'I think.'
The way you write is a little bit arrogant, you can see that yourself. Please don't jump on your high horse and attack everything in sight.You are sure to have a answer to this insight.
Lineon
There is plenty I don't know, but you know nothing special that I as an atheist cannot in principle know also. Do you have an answer to the question, or just more empty rhetoric?Stuart
Hi StuartEverything that I can know you can know
That is plain to see.
But the diffrence between me and you
Is that I stepped out in faith
And I know there is a God.
That is the diffrence
I know you don't know.Lineon
Faith is belief without evidence. In what way do you 'know there is a god'? Is it in the way I know there is a wishful, lazy explanation for everything that promises more life after death? If you know there is a god then I know why there is an illusion of a god.Stuart
Quote (theodorej @ Aug. 06 2008,00:00) Greetings Stu…..” Religion and God are the elixir of the masses” the words of a true communist,athiest and bolshivik….Mr Lenin and his rhetoric did great things for Russia as the world can planely see,his complete denial of the existance of God and his reliance on his own understanding created a miserable existence for millions….In light of you rehetoric that espouses how much better we would be without God,…could you imagine how much better we would have been without Lenin…
Marx wrote religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.Do you have a reference for your quote of Lenin?
Communist regimes oppose religion because they seek to replace the distracting religious ideology with a communist ideology. How would you replace religion with atheism? Atheism actually is not anything of its own at all. It would be like removing a public sculpture and instead of lamenting its departure actively loathing the air present where the sculpture used to be.
I see relinquishing religious faith more like having a tumour removed. There is no great motivation to have the mass replaced with a more benign substitute. Atumourism is believing that you are better off without the tumour. Such is the nature of atheism too.
Would you honestly try to claim that the horrors of the Soviet system were done in the name of atheism? How would that work?
Stuart
Quote (theodorej @ Aug. 06 2008,00:00) Greetings Stu…..” Religion and God are the elixir of the masses” the words of a true communist,athiest and bolshivik….Mr Lenin and his rhetoric did great things for Russia as the world can planely see,his complete denial of the existance of God and his reliance on his own understanding created a miserable existence for millions….In light of you rehetoric that espouses how much better we would be without God,…could you imagine how much better we would have been without Lenin…
Not to mention Adolph Hitler the Evolutionist.He even tried to make the Aryan race the dominant race by exercising his so-called rights for survival of the fittest thinking.
Didn't end up succeeding in eliminating all the other races of course, but evolutional thinking did give him a license for his campaign of madness.
Quote (t8 @ Aug. 06 2008,21:41) Quote (theodorej @ Aug. 06 2008,00:00) Greetings Stu…..” Religion and God are the elixir of the masses” the words of a true communist,athiest and bolshivik….Mr Lenin and his rhetoric did great things for Russia as the world can planely see,his complete denial of the existance of God and his reliance on his own understanding created a miserable existence for millions….In light of you rehetoric that espouses how much better we would be without God,…could you imagine how much better we would have been without Lenin…
Not to mention Adolph Hitler the Evolutionist.He even tried to make the Aryan race the dominant race by exercising his so-called rights for survival of the fittest thinking.
Didn't end up succeeding in eliminating all the other races of course, but evolutional thinking did give him a license for his campaign of madness.
Wrong. Hitler did artificial selection, not natural selection. Kimba08's concept of god fits Hitler for methods pretty well.Stuart
Quote (kejonn @ Aug. 06 2008,06:25) TJ, what do you think of Vlad the Impaler?
Greeting KJ…..Vlad !! Now here is an example of how one man can make a difference…During his day he introduced a style of governing that assured his reighn….As we know he had a flare for brutality that ultimitely consumed him…This was truly an evil man…..Quote (Stu @ Aug. 06 2008,20:37) Quote (theodorej @ Aug. 06 2008,00:00) Greetings Stu…..” Religion and God are the elixir of the masses” the words of a true communist,athiest and bolshivik….Mr Lenin and his rhetoric did great things for Russia as the world can planely see,his complete denial of the existance of God and his reliance on his own understanding created a miserable existence for millions….In light of you rehetoric that espouses how much better we would be without God,…could you imagine how much better we would have been without Lenin…
Marx wrote religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.Do you have a reference for your quote of Lenin?
Communist regimes oppose religion because they seek to replace the distracting religious ideology with a communist ideology. How would you replace religion with atheism? Atheism actually is not anything of its own at all. It would be like removing a public sculpture and instead of lamenting its departure actively loathing the air present where the sculpture used to be.
I see relinquishing religious faith more like having a tumour removed. There is no great motivation to have the mass replaced with a more benign substitute. Atumourism is believing that you are better off without the tumour. Such is the nature of atheism too.
Would you honestly try to claim that the horrors of the Soviet system were done in the name of atheism? How would that work?
Stuart
Greetings Stu….I had no Idea that verbatum is one of the demanding requisites for our discourse….I think you did an excellent job of quoting the true author of my paraphase regarding the elixir/opium of the people….None the less I can see you grasped the spirit of my post…Stu…..Among the many communist regimes that litter this world…..would you be able to show a truly prosperous and happy citizentry….They know of no God or higher authority other than the ruling government….They are a citizentry of no hope and devoid of any liberty….only a dependance on government…Great System….
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
