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I was only telling you how the holy spirit can change your life, and that your salvation is in Jesus. Sorry if I offended you.
Quote (katjo @ Sep. 17 2009,10:13) I was only telling you how the holy spirit can change your life, and that your salvation is in Jesus. Sorry if I offended you.
Sorry, but you are STILL doing it!Why do you assume I need my life to change?
Why do you appear to be insisting that I need 'salvation'? From what?
Have you thought about this with consideration for others, or have you just believed the Judeo-christian fantasy stories that others have told you?
There is NOTHING inherently wrong with people that means they need 'saving'. This is a nasty religious invention.
NO ONE needs a human sacrifice, for any reason.
Stuart
Salvation will let you live eternity with God. Do you believe in God?
so much bitterness!
For those who dont believe , you can find alot of info.on http://www.Gotquestions.org please read; Is God imaginary?”
Answer: Godisimaginary.com is not the first to claim that God is imaginary. In an article entitled “Theology and Falsification” written many years ago, Anthony Flew, one of the twentieth century’s most outspoken atheists wrote,
Two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, “Some gardener must tend this plot.” The other disagrees, “There is no gardener.” So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. . . . Yet still the believer is not convinced. “But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, who comes secretly to look after the garden he loves.” At last the Skeptic despairs. “But what remains of the original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?”
Following Flew’s thoughts from decades ago, the web site godisimaginary.com provides what it believes are 50 “proofs” that God does not exist – that He is nothing more than an imaginary gardener, a superstition, a myth. The site claims, “Let's agree that there is no empirical evidence showing that God exists. If you think about it as a rational person, this lack of evidence is startling. There is not one bit of empirical evidence indicating that today's 'God,' nor any other contemporary god, nor any god of the past, exists.”
Actually, when a person thinks as a rational person and tosses away any preconceived bias and baggage that’s held, one must disagree with the site’s assertions and instead reach the conclusion that God does indeed exist.
Addressing each of the 50 points is unnecessary as it doesn’t matter if the site had 50,000 “proof” points against God; all one needs to do is use a logical, rational, and reasonable argument to show that God does indeed exist and every point becomes irrelevant. It is telling and interesting that godisimaginary.com focuses so much of its time on red herrings of issues with prayer and why God won’t do tricks upon request, and ignores the primary question of philosophy and religion: “Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?” In other words, like Flew, the site concentrates on issues with a gardener they believe to be imaginary and ignores the question of why a garden exists in the first place.
The only place on the site where a possible answer to this question is offered is “proof” point 47. Complexity, says the site, could only arise from either Nature itself or a Creator. “Proof” point 47 then states, “The advantage of the first option is that it is self-contained. The complexity arose spontaneously. No other explanation is required.”
This assertion and conclusion is flawed as they have proposed two explanations and then bundle a third option into the solution they like – spontaneous generation with an eternal universe. An eternal universe is, initially, a logical option but not spontaneous generation, which is a scientific term for something coming from nothing or self-creation, which is an analytically false statement – that is, a statement that shows itself to be false by definition. A fundamental law of science is ex nihilo nihil fit – out of nothing, nothing comes. And as Aristotle said, “Nothing is what rocks dream about.” The web site derides Christians for believing in magic, yet it embraces greater magic than anything found in the Bible – life just appearing out of nothing from non-life with no cause.
Next, their argument ignores the basic laws of causality – an effect must resemble its cause. How can an impersonal, meaningless, purposeless, amoral universe accidentally create beings who are full of personality and obsessed with meaning, purpose, and morality? It can’t. Further, intelligence doesn’t arise from non-intelligence, which is why even Richard Dawkins (noted atheist) and Francis Crick (co-discoverer of DNA) admit that intelligence had to engineer DNA and life on earth – they just say it was a superior alien race who seeded the earth, which of course, begs the question of who engineered that superior alien race. Godisimaginary.com claims, “No intelligence is required to encode DNA,” but refuting this statement is the very co-discoverer of DNA himself – Francis Crick – who admits there is no way for DNA to have arisen apart from intelligence.
But what of evolution? Doesn’t evolution explain life and intelligence? Not at all. Evolution is a biological process that attempts to describe change in already existing life forms – it has no way to answer the question of existence. This one piece of evidence alone began to turn Anthony Flew away from atheism.
These facts being evident, it then becomes quite easy to offer a simple, reasonable, logical proof for God in the following way:
1. Something exists
2. You don’t get something from nothing
3. Therefore, something necessary and eternal exists
4. The only two options are an eternal universe or an eternal Creator
5. Science has disproved the concept of an eternal universe
6. Therefore, an eternal Creator existsThe only premise that can be attacked is premise five, but the fact is every drop of evidence in the possession of science points to the fact that the universe is not eternal and had a beginning. And everything that has a beginning has a cause; therefore, the universe had a cause and is not eternal. Any fanciful assertions of collapsing universes, imaginary time, and the like are just that – fanciful – and require more faith to than to believe in God. The two choices are simple – matter before mind or mind before matter – and it is interesting that this web site claims it is their intelligence that causes them to choose the former over the latter.
“But who created God?” the site asks. Why not ask, “Where is the bachelor’s wife?” or “What does the color blue taste like?” It’s a category mistake – you don’t make the unmade. Further, why sit back comfortably and believe in an unmade universe and yet angrily bristle at the notion of an unmade Creator? Could it be because mindless matter cannot call human beings into moral account whereas a personal God can? Finally, is it more reasonable to embrace a cause that contains none of the characteristics of its effect (personality, love, meaning, purpose, etc.) or a cause that embodies them all (a personal God)? The site claims, “In other words, by applying logic, we can prove that God is imaginary,” but in reality, logic, reason, and evidence disprove their position and point in the absolute other direction.
The conclusion is that a personal Creator exists. Moreover, this Being who created everything mirrors the God described in the Bible quite well as evidenced by what one can infer just from the fact of creation alone:
• He must be supernatural in nature (as He created time and space).
• He must be powerful (incredibly).
• He must be eternal (self-existent, because there is no infinite regress of causes).
• He must be omnipresent (He created space and is not limited by it).
• He must be timeless and changeless (He created time).
• He must be immaterial because He transcends space/physical.
• He must be personal (the impersonal can’t create personality).
• He must be necessary as everything else depends on Him.
• He must be infinite and singular as you cannot have two infinites.
• He must be diverse yet have unity as unity and diversity exist in nature.
• He must be intelligent (supremely). Only cognitive being can produce cognitive being.
• He must be purposeful as He deliberately created everything.
• He must be moral (no moral law can be had without a giver).
• He must be caring
(or no moral laws would have been given).The Judeo-Christian God perfectly fits this profile. At this point, all 50 “proofs” on the web site become irrelevant – God exists; therefore, all points offered on the site are incorrect in the final conclusion that they collectively try to reach. Wondering why God won’t cure all the cancer in the world because a group of Christians prayed for it, pointing out the divorce rate among Christians, scoffing because God doesn’t create money for churches out of thin air, wondering why Jesus never moved a physical mountain, asserting a false dichotomy that says a person must be a person of facts or of faith (many brilliant scientists believe in God), making unprovable claims that Jesus never did a concrete miracle, and erroneously stating that the Bible “advocates” senseless murder, slavery, and oppression of women – all end up being impotent in light of the conclusion that a creator God exists.
Answering such objections – if they are genuine and not extended in a way that refuses to believe even if reasoned responses are given – requires only the disciplined study of Scripture alongside the Spirit of God who inspired it. Arguments with those who possess a hardened skeptical spirit are to be avoided as 1 Timothy 6:20 says, “O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called 'knowledge.'” But even still, God is fully capable of using His powerful general revelation (the creation) to witness to those who appear completely lost due to a skeptical and hardened heart.
In stark contrast to the article he'd written many years earlier, in 2007, Anthony Flew wrote a much different kind of book entitled There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. In it, he recounts his atheism and relays how he now, because of evidence and reason, believes that a creator God exists. The one who initially posited an “imaginary gardener” now says, “I think the origins of the laws of nature and of life and the Universe point clearly to an intelligent Source. The burden of proof is on those who argue to the contrary.” This being the case, one thing is certain – the 50 frail attempts on godisimaginary.com to prove that God is imaginary fall far short of even causing a nick on the armor of evidence that opposes them
While I agree that God makes sense I doubt that God, as presented in the OT of the Bible, fits the bill as therein he is overly anthropomorphic and exhibits character traits befiting pagan gods of old, ie. jealousy and regret then one would expect from such a trancendent, omnipotent being. In other words I find that God is logical, but his descriptions and traits laid out in the Old Testament not.
Quote (Jesus name follower of Christ @ Sep. 18 2009,08:14) Stu they were trying to help if they can
Is it 'helping' to tell someone who is completely unknown that there is something wrong with him to the extent that his life is in need of change, the kind of change that is allegedly available by accepting a human sacrifice?Stuart
katjo
Quote For those who dont believe , you can find alot of info.on http://www.Gotquestions.org please read; Is God imaginary?”
For those who do believe, you can go do http://www.richarddawkins.net.Quote the web site godisimaginary.com provides what it believes are 50 “proofs” that God does not exist – that He is nothing more than an imaginary gardener, a superstition, a myth. The site claims, “Let's agree that there is no empirical evidence showing that God exists. If you think about it as a rational person, this lack of evidence is startling. There is not one bit of empirical evidence indicating that today's 'God,' nor any other contemporary god, nor any god of the past, exists.”
That is not proof that gods do not exist though. It remains true that there is no empirical evidence for the Judeo-christian god.Quote Actually, when a person thinks as a rational person and tosses away any preconceived bias and baggage that’s held, one must disagree with the site’s assertions and instead reach the conclusion that God does indeed exist.
Why must one do that? Actually? Because you say so?Quote Addressing each of the 50 points is unnecessary as it doesn’t matter if the site had 50,000 “proof” points against God; all one needs to do is use a logical, rational, and reasonable argument to show that God does indeed exist and every point becomes irrelevant. It is telling and interesting that godisimaginary.com focuses so much of its time on red herrings of issues with prayer and why God won’t do tricks upon request,
God supposedly did tricks for Gideon on request.Quote and ignores the primary question of philosophy and religion: “Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?” In other words, like Flew, the site concentrates on issues with a gardener they believe to be imaginary and ignores the question of why a garden exists in the first place.
Why should there NOT be something?Quote The only place on the site where a possible answer to this question is offered is “proof” point 47. Complexity, says the site, could only arise from either Nature itself or a Creator. “Proof” point 47 then states, “The advantage of the first option is that it is self-contained. The complexity arose spontaneously. No other explanation is required.”
This assertion and conclusion is flawed as they have proposed two explanations and then bundle a third option into the solution they like – spontaneous generation with an eternal universe. An eternal universe is, initially, a logical option but not spontaneous generation, which is a scientific term for something coming from nothing or self-creation, which is an analytically false statement – that is, a statement that shows itself to be false by definition.
Where does it say eternal universe?Quote A fundamental law of science is ex nihilo nihil fit – out of nothing, nothing comes.
Now you are just making up nonsense. Or copying it. There is no such ‘fundamental law of science’.Quote And as Aristotle said, “Nothing is what rocks dream about.” The web site derides Christians for believing in magic, yet it embraces greater magic than anything found in the Bible – life just appearing out of nothing from non-life with no cause.
You have not established the need for any first cause at all. WHY must there be one? You are committing the fallacy of composition: just because you see what you think is cause and effect around you does not mean that it applies to the birth of the universe.Quote Next, their argument ignores the basic laws of causality – an effect must resemble its cause. How can an impersonal, meaningless, purposeless, amoral universe accidentally create beings who are full of personality and obsessed with meaning, purpose, and morality? It can’t.
It can’t WHY? Because you say so?Quote Further, intelligence doesn’t arise from non-intelligence, which is why even Richard Dawkins (noted atheist) and Francis Crick (co-discoverer of DNA) admit that intelligence had to engineer DNA and life on earth – they just say it was a superior alien race who seeded the earth, which of course, begs the question of who engineered that superior alien race. Godisimaginary.com claims, “No intelligence is required to encode DNA,” but refuting this statement is the very co-discoverer of DNA himself – Francis Crick – who admits there is no way for DNA to have arisen apart from intelligence.
You are lying about Dawkins. For a christian you do not seem too worried about the commandments. According to the Holy Wikipedia, “In a book entitled Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature (page 88), Crick wrote: “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.” which is not what you claim he said. Do you have an actual quote, or is it the usual creationist quote-mining?Quote But what of evolution? Doesn’t evolution explain life and intelligence? Not at all. Evolution is a biological process that attempts to describe change in already existing life forms – it has no way to answer the question of existence.
Yeah, so what? No one has an explanation for the origins of life. Unless you want to outline your theory, with all the mechanisms that are better than the already very good speculation that can be found on YouTube and elsewhere.Quote This one piece of evidence alone began to turn Anthony Flew away from atheism.
The appeal to authority. Would you like to hear about all the scientists who used to be theists but turned away from christiantity as they realised how absurd it is?Quote These facts being evident, it then becomes quite easy to offer a simple, reasonable, logical proof for God in the following way: 1. Something exists
True. Probably.Quote 2. You don’t get something from nothing
Actually you can.Quote 3. Therefore, something necessary and eternal exists
External to what?Quote 4. The only two options are an eternal universe or an eternal Creator
Only if you keep asserting the need for a first cause, which could easily be completely wrong.Quote 5. Science has disproved the concept of an eternal universe
No it hasn’t. It has provisionally concluded that big bang cosmology is the model that best fits the evidence. That is not a disproof of something else.Quote 6. Therefore, an eternal Creator exists
Non sequitur.Quote The only premise that can be attacked is premise five, but the fact is every drop of evidence in the possession of science points to the fact that the universe is not eternal and had a beginning. And everything that has a beginning has a cause; therefore, the universe had a cause and is not eternal.
As already stated, not necessarily.Quote Any fanciful assertions of collapsing universes, imaginary time, and the like are just that – fanciful – and require more faith to than to believe in God.
The amount of faith required for humans to believe something is irrelevant to whether it is factual or not. What is the unit of faith? The gullible (G)?Quote The two choices are simple – matter before mind or mind before matter – and it is interesting that this web site claims it is their intelligence that causes them to choose the former over the latter.
The two OPTIONS are simplistic.Quote “But who created God?” the site asks. Why not ask, “Where is the bachelor’s wife?” or “What does the color blue taste like?” It’s a category mistake – you don’t make the unmade.
So first you MUST have a first cause, and now you DON’T NEED a first cause. Why is it not a category error to speak of the cause of the universe?Quote Further, why sit back comfortably and believe in an unmade universe and yet angrily bristle at the notion of an unmade Creator? Could it be because mindless matter cannot call human beings into moral account whereas a personal God can?
No it is because of the asinine stupidity of the ‘arguments’ that go like these.Quote Finally, is it more reasonable to embrace a cause that contains none of the characteristics of its effect (personality, love, meaning, purpose, etc.) or a cause that embodies them all (a personal God)? The site claims, “In other words, by applying logic, we can prove that God is imaginary,” but in reality, logic, reason, and evidence disprove their position and point in the absolute other direction.
I suppose the Judeo-christian god IS as brutal towards humans as the vacuum of space is: an impersonal universe (which it is) has no ‘person’ behind its operation.Quote The conclusion is that a personal Creator exists.
No, the conclusion is that gods are human inventions. You would say that about 10,000s of gods. Why do you object when others say it of yours?Quote Moreover, this Being who created everything mirrors the God described in the Bible quite well as evidenced by what one can infer just from the fact of creation alone: • He must be supernatural in nature (as He created time and space).
If ‘he’ is supernatural, how can YOU or any human possibly know anything about ‘him’, by the definition of the word ‘supernatural’?Quote • He must be powerful (incredibly).
• He must be eternal (self-existent, because there is no infinite regress of causes).
…he can’t have a cause because he is causeless… more brilliant circular logic.Quote • He must be omnipresent (He created space and is not limited by it).
Well that rules out the Jewish god, who had to call out to find Adam in the garden of Eden.Quote • He must be timeless and changeless (He created time).
• He must be immaterial because He transcends space/physical.
What is space/physical?Quote • He must be personal (the impersonal can’t create personality).
And why not? Another baseless assertion.Quote • He must be necessary as everything else depends on Him.
That is the kind of circular logic of which Aquinas would have been proud. It is nonsense, of course.Quote • He must be infinite and singular as you cannot have two infinites.
• He must be diverse yet have unity as unity and diversity exist in nature.
Fallacy of composition.Quote • He must be intelligent (supremely). Only cognitive being can produce cognitive being.
Because you say so?Quote • He must be purposeful as He deliberately created everything.
Circular logic.Quote • He must be moral (no moral law can be had without a giver).
• He must be caring (or no moral laws would have been given).
What kind of a giver is it that gives a gift with strings attached? What kind of carer boasts about smiting up to 32,000,000 of those for whom he is supposed to care?
[quoteThe Judeo-Christian God perfectly fits this profile.
I think it is pretty clear that this is wrong!Quote At this point, all 50 “proofs” on the web site become irrelevant – God exists; therefore, all points offered on the site are incorrect in the final conclusion that they collectively try to reach.
Now try that with “god doesn’t exist, so therefore…”Quote Wondering why God won’t cure all the cancer in the world because a group of Christians prayed for it, pointing out the divorce rate among Christians, scoffing because God doesn’t create money for churches out of thin air, wondering why Jesus never moved a physical mountain, asserting a false dichotomy that says a person must be a person of facts or of faith (many brilliant scientists believe in God), making unprovable claims that Jesus never did a concrete miracle, and erroneously stating that the Bible “advocates” senseless murder, slavery, and oppression of women – all end up being impotent in light of the conclusion that a creator God exists.
Let’s see… the fallacy of lack of evidence as evidence, the appeal to authority and downright denial, followed by unsupported assertion. Very convincing.Quote Answering such objections – if they are genuine and not extended in a way that refuses to believe even if reasoned responses are given –
So you will entertain these objections as long as you think you will be able to explain them away.Stuart
you SOOO… need God in your life. One of these days you will know why. you cannot deny a book, that you can see everything falling into place, as it is written. And feel his presents in your heart. Look up the dead sea scrolls, investigate them! i really have no more to say to you.!
So many live in a black and white world full of discrete choices and outcomes. You believe or not, you are saved or not. I have a book and people have told me all truth is contained therein and it came from God himself. Well I believe in God, I feel him in my life and I am fairly content, happy and hopeful about my future and that includes post death, yet I can deny the loose collection of works passed off as Holy Truth as men's take on what they thought was such.
Quote (Jesus name follower of Christ @ Sep. 19 2009,00:23) we can see in the scriptures that satan came in the form of a serpent
Actually if you are talking about the Genesis story with Eve, Satan is never mentioned.Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?”
Gen 3:14-15 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”No I don't think Satan was a wild animal nor is he sentenced to crawling in the dust or having his head bashed by Eve's progeny. Now many read Satan into this but the passages themselves refer to your run of the mill talking snake. It also explains why snakes today crawl and why women have a tough time in childbirth (gee can anyone say fable here?).
Quote (katjo @ Sep. 19 2009,05:14) you SOOO… need God in your life. One of these days you will know why. you cannot deny a book, that you can see everything falling into place, as it is written. And feel his presents in your heart. Look up the dead sea scrolls, investigate them! i really have no more to say to you.!
Who are you addressing?If it is me, then you never had anything of value or consideration to say to me in the first place.
Stuart
Quote (Stu @ Sep. 19 2009,10:49) Quote (katjo @ Sep. 19 2009,05:14) you SOOO… need God in your life. One of these days you will know why. you cannot deny a book, that you can see everything falling into place, as it is written. And feel his presents in your heart. Look up the dead sea scrolls, investigate them! i really have no more to say to you.!
Who are you addressing?If it is me, then you never had anything of value or consideration to say to me in the first place.
Stuart
who is bring mean?why cant we have nice things to say?
let us try to get along.
back o the topic:
we see evil all around why
bad things hapen to good
people we may never knowI agree. Why do christians have to call names, like 'sinner'? It does not apply to me, but it is still not very kind. Or legal.
Stuart
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