Yes, you're absolutely right. Somebody WROTE that.Originally Posted by geoff
That's the proof, isn't it?...that somebody wrote it.
Well fuck, in that case I'm not doubting it one bit!
Yes, you're absolutely right. Somebody WROTE that.
That's the proof, isn't it?...that somebody wrote it.
Well fuck, in that case I'm not doubting it one bit!
well i respect you for that man. we are each entitled to believe what we want with the evidence provided. i have alot of claims to back me up. studies from all kinds of scientists, natural laws, ect...if your looking to use your 5 senses to believe in God then your in for dissapointment. you cant touch, feel, taste, smell, or hear the laws of causation or thermodynamcs yet you know that they are real cuz of the natural world around you.
and just curious QD, you dont have to go into detail if you dont want, but you said that you believe some of my beliefs are way off base...what would those be?
riding for God crew member #1
IA Domestic Alliance
d993s...if you look at all scientific evidence the way your interpreting it then that means we cant trully believe in anything. How do you know that gravity is real if you cant feel it or touch it or hear or smell or taste it? because in some point in time a man did a study and WROTE down his findings to explain it and you believe that man yes? i have said it once and i will say it again, for you there is no such thing as enough evidence. when you die, as we all do, and stand before your maker then you will believe.
riding for God crew member #1
IA Domestic Alliance
Simple: THERE IS UNDENIABLE EVIDENCE TO BACK IT UP
My makers were my mother and father. Again, EVIDENCE.
All the scientific studies conducted show there is something around us alright. But it doesn't point to anything in particular.
One of them being the other discussion...about animals. Later, QD.
FOR MORE INFO, CLICK THE PIC!!!
to your first comment: yes all evidence points to there being something else...in the end its your faith to believe that that something/someone else is God. just the same as you have faith to believe that the law of thermodynamics or gravity is real.
second comment: about the animals. i could be wrong...i honestly dont know.
riding for God crew member #1
IA Domestic Alliance
Kudos to your entire post, man.
I do hope everything you believe is what it is. And in a way, I believe the same. Just too many questions make me seem to be a total non-believer. Later, QD.
FOR MORE INFO, CLICK THE PIC!!!
i have plenty of questions too man. i wonder alot of things and it seems that no one or nothing can answer them. we just all have to have some faith in something at one point or another in our lives. my faith is in the bible and in God. for others its in themselves. the point is that to every question there is but one absolute answer.
riding for God crew member #1
IA Domestic Alliance
Do you ever wonder if you would ride a horsecock if god asked you to???
I asked you this earlier. (are you considering it???)
the 5 sense are what culminate to what we call perception. In order for humanity to even come up with laws of thermodynamics and causation the effects of such laws need to be perceived. So your argument right there is thrown out the window.
God, Heaven, Hell, The Holy Spirit, cannot be perceived at all, not even indirectly, so the only proof that god exists, exists in faith.
Tell me thats not true, that faith is really the only driving force behind all theological movements.
That is NOT true.
You are trying to walk the middle while playing for one side. But you still are ignoring that there is reason for faith. Based on your logic, faith is the driving force behind ALL things as all things in and of themselves require us to have faith in. But if people of faith are able to see reason and logic as demonstrated in their very universe then we can draw a reasonable conclusion that the universe itself is giving off evidence to drive the theological debate.
Just like in science. there are reasons to believe in some theories that have not been tested or demonstrated, and there are reasons to not believe in some. And usually when science finds evidence that something is going on, a process is discovered, or better understood. So based on your definition science is just as much about faith as anything else.
So if the 5 senses lead to perception then when does perception ever become reality. Because beyond those senses we have nothing left to understand our universe with. Are you suggesting that our entire universe is all perception. If that is the case then you have no reason to ever ask for proof because ALL things are interpreted by men using the same five senses which (according to you) only give us perception but never any truth.
What is real, because now we are hitting on the philosophical arguments that tell us that we can only have faith in our senses to define reality, if we understand our universe to be submissive to an external laws and forces, which logically have to have existed before our universe started (as demonstrated by the expansion of our universe). This law tells us that it is safe to say that we know something is going to happen because our universe behaves with a specific set of guidelines and does not act outside of those rules. So our observations can logically be turned into knowledge. If you reduce human understanding down to the five senses then you close the door to understanding the part where those senses have to come together and generate some sort of response.
Hey there man, dont go drawing conclusions on my behalf. You turned a simple comment into something unnecessarily deeper. We can have a discussion on reality, but this is not the thread for it.
I simply stated, that scientific discoveries, theorems, hypotheses, ect ect are initially derived from the perception of an occurrence. IE: Rain, a shooting star, an earthquake, a flood, birth, ect ect. So in order to logically draw a conclusion said occurrence must be observed and studied. Nothing in religion can be observed and studied, other than its detrimental effect on society and the world.
Religion, and I say this with emphasis, MODERN ORGANIZED RELIGION. Serves you a cold plate of "their truth." This is whats right, you will believe this, if not well then you burn in hell."
I say this now, and I will say it again. Christianity, Islam, and Judiasim, to a lesser extent because they are not as evangelical as the other two, are a blight to the world and are inhibiting the progress of humanity. The very nature of man, the most significant thing that separates us from animals is our thirst for knowledge, the drive to question is put in jeopardy because of religion. When we ignore the fact that we do not have the answer to where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. We stop looking, because the teachings of philosophers of the past were bastardized and manipulated into a societal tool to maintain social cohesion, that is what we know as religion. Its a processes thousands of years old, and humanity has reached an age where the slow yet sure demise of religion is at hand. It will not happen in our life time but centuries from now religion will see its darkest days.
"Faith: not wanting to know what is true." Friedrich Nietzsche
the man has a point
sport122 is taking the discussion on a deeper level - it does boil down to the philosophical debate between materialism and idealism as far as describing our reality. i'm an idealist, by the way. but profiteer is right, that's a discussion for a different thread.
the problem i have with 'religions' is that they are too static. as we gain a better understanding of the universe around us, it's natural that our views on the supernatural/spiritual are going to change too. I believe that God is dynamic and rational, and we have the drive to discover the secrets of our universe because we were created as rational beings. But while science will give us the "how", it will never answer the question of "why". this is what spirituality is for.
i see what you're getting at, profiteer, but to say that religions are a blight to the world and inhibit progress is taking it a bit too far. religion plays a key role in stressing the importance of morality in a society - i would argue that this too is needed to create the right environment for intellectual progress, although the merits of it might not be as tangible. remember too that religion is a social construct created by the same humans who you say are thirsting for knowledge and striving for progress. it may be flawed (which one of our social constructs aren't?) but it serves its purpose.
no, I dont think so. You see religion drives morality through fear. "be good or, or what we define as good, or you will burn in hell"the man has a point
sport122 is taking the discussion on a deeper level - it does boil down to the philosophical debate between materialism and idealism as far as describing our reality. i'm an idealist, by the way. but profiteer is right, that's a discussion for a different thread.
the problem i have with 'religions' is that they are too static. as we gain a better understanding of the universe around us, it's natural that our views on the supernatural/spiritual are going to change too. I believe that God is dynamic and rational, and we have the drive to discover the secrets of our universe because we were created as rational beings. But while science will give us the "how", it will never answer the question of "why". this is what spirituality is for.
i see what you're getting at, profiteer, but to say that religions are a blight to the world and inhibit progress is taking it a bit too far. religion plays a key role in stressing the importance of morality in a society - i would argue that this too is needed to create the right environment for intellectual progress, although the merits of it might not be as tangible. remember too that religion is a social construct created by the same humans who you say are thirsting for knowledge and striving for progress
Instead morality should be taught from a human perspective, a respect for human life as well as all the life around it. The moral teachings of religion are only enforced by the threat of hell. While societies intrepertation of morality is enforced by a set of laws and consequences, which is how it should be.
how is this different from the government saying "follow these laws and pay your taxes...or else you're going to JAIL"??? are they not driving obedience (aka "enforcing") through fear too?
most religions do exactly what you've mentioned...teach respect for human life and all of God's creation. and not all of them teach that there is punishment (hell) after death. not even all CHRISTIAN denominations believe in hell/torment.
It is very difficult to even start to talk about morality from the religion (or for me, the christian) perspective without talking about justice.
Morality from the human perspective does not work. This is demonstrated by justice systems all over the world. As the climate of society changes in a culture then so does the quality of its justice system along with this change is a shift in morality (look at Nazi Germany, or Stalin's Russia, southern states of America with regards to blacks and slavery, or Rome etc). So what happens when you want to base morality on the human perspective is that you get an ever changing system of rules. This eliminates the certainty aspect of law and leaves it open to corrupt interpretation. This is a part of the humanistic approach and has lead to some of the most horrible times in our recent history. This mentality has infiltrated the faith systems of our world and is what is usually the first thing that comes to mind when people discuss the legalistic nature of the Christian faith.
And all systems drive morality the same way. But what you call fear can be attributed to the idea of some of our hedonistic traits and the idea of a deterrent. This is not a manmade construct. We learned to do this because it is what God does with us. To demonstrate to us that He is Just and just as his law has not changed neither will his character. In fact, this is the very reason that we believe death comes to all men, because all men have broken the laws of an eternal God. Basically, both the hedonistic and deterrent principles tell us that people will seek out the road of less pain in order to achieve their goals of having more pleasure in life. These concepts guide justice systems around the entire world and they drive ALL concepts of morality. I believe this is for the reason I just stated, that we are acting not out of our development, but we are acting out of the fabric of our existence.
Even the very concept of justice is based off of these principles. Justice encompasses rule of law, punishment for breaking the law. Without the punishment for breaking any law, that law becomes void and is ignored. There is no punishment, there is no pain or nothing bad that will happen if you break the law, so you just do what you want to do. At that point there is NO justice and NO law. The opposite is what you see heavily demonstrated in religions, not because its about fear but because the laws are not subject to change as the ones made by humans. This is one of the reasons why I would argue that God is not dynamic, but he is very static. I would also argue that this is the problem that many in our society have with him, that his law is not subject to the same types of free passes as our court systems. And as we change, we really want our decline in morality to be supported by all, but the people who subscribe to a spiritual, eternal law cannot rightly make these changes. We cannot rightly say that we agree with homosexuality, we cannot say we agree with abortion, we cannot say we agree with many things because we believe the moral code of our universe is violated by these things.
true, but I am mostly referring to the evangelical zealots, and there is a high number of them too.
Government exists out of necessity, religion also sprang up out of necessity, but the need for our static religions like you said is dying.
Now that we have religious freedom in our age, new beliefs and faiths are springing up, some crazy and loony creations of centuries ago like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, to some more modern religions like Scientology.
There are other religions that put an emphasis on the faith of self discovery, such as Buddhism, and have never waged war on behalf of their religious figure head.
Christianity's and Islam's history are riddled with crusades and Jihads and just nonsense blood shed and genocide. Along with events such as the Spanish inquisition. With this history in mind every time a holy rolling jesus freak ever preaches the power of his all powerful and benevolent god, all I hear are words of hypocrisy.
Christianity and Islam really are bad religions, maybe not because of their teachings, but definitely because of their history.
Remember at one point Hitler claimed his conquest was for god.
you see the problem with your logic is this
to you the hierarchy of the universe follows like this.
God----->Man-------->Everything else.
You are putting your self and humanity so close to god, when in reality you have no idea what God is.
If you start with the assumption (like I do) that God is a rational being, then it follows that we as humans and any other beings out there with cognition "think" in the same rational manner that he does. When you look at it, humans can do everything (miracles aside) that the Bible says God can do - from the range of emotions, to creating and destroying. it's really just a matter of what scale we're talking about. hence why it is said that God made us in his image.
as far as sport's comment on God being static. i disagree. God is perfect so his RULES are static, just like the natural laws that govern the universe are static and unchanging. But the universe is changing every single moment. Change is one of the few constants in the universe, it permeates down to our everyday lives. So to say that God is static when the universe he created and everything in it is dynamic doesn't make sense to me. God has to be dynamic because his creation is dynamic. Even the very act of God creating a universe to begin with implies change (from God existing as a singular unity -> God+universe+everything in it).
The very nature of God in his transcendent state would have to be such that it is not that HE is changing as much as our understanding of who He is changes as he is revealed to us. This is also demonstrated in the part of God's character that is able to function outside of time.
It is a very far stretch to say that because the universe is changing or is in motion that God has to also be dynamic in the same sense. This is a false correlation. Also, to say that God is dynamic that would also mean the he is subject to change based on responses and a developing understanding of our universe as these are the things that develop change in all things that we know of now. So basically how could you explain that view of God, where he is changing and responsive to the universe, even though his character is timeless, all knowing and all powerful. I just can't see where there is room for a "developing" God.
As a matter of fact I believe this characteristic of God also lends validity to his existence. We cannot argue a transcendent God as the originator of all things if we also believe that he is constantly learning, changing, and that he may be different tomorrow. If this is the character of God then we would have problems because even the very Bible or our very world that we use to define him would be subject to being outdated and unreliable.
However, with my world view, I do see how God who is beyond our understanding is not changing and has always been the same, is revealing himself to us and as we learn about him we are having to alter our perspective and way of thinking to reflect that understanding. I cannot find an instance in my life, in the Bible, in other pieces of writings about God, that would make me think that God is ever changing and developing. Our understanding of him does not define him. Our understanding of him tells us how we interact with him, but it does not tell us exactly who he is.
Philosophically these cannot be characteristics of a transcendent God who is omniscient, omnipresent, and sovereign in the universe. Could you tell me what about Gods character is different now than it was 2000 years ago, or at the point of creation, or what we expect to be different about him 100 years from now? Maybe that would help me understand your view.
Lastly, I think the reason many people would say that God is changing is because somehow we hope to be able to put him in our personal bubbles. In our attempts to know him, we must be careful about limiting him to our own understanding, which we already know is limited to say the least.
Well even in your statement you put Everything else close to man. As if we have a clue what everything else is, but we don't. In fact, which of any of these three topics do you think we really understand? We don't understand God, ourselves, or anything else. We can only use our logic so far as God has revealed himself to us.you see the problem with your logic is this
to you the hierarchy of the universe follows like this.
God----->Man-------->Everything else.
You are putting your self and humanity so close to god, when in reality you have no idea what God is.
and speaking of logic, if we don't put a transcendent mind first then I am still puzzled how we could assume that anything is logical. At that point what defines logic? Without a grounded worldview, logic is no more valuable to man than the rocks in the dirt because it would only be about the individual otherwise and there would be no grounds for anyone to test and affirm their logic.
Last edited by sport_122; 08-14-2009 at 04:32 PM.
duplicate...
Last edited by trini_gsr; 08-14-2009 at 06:15 PM.
i agree that our understanding of God changes as we grow as a species. i'm with you here...
now you're putting words in my mouthi never said God was constantly learning or even that he might be 'different'. and i certainly don't think that God changes as our understanding of him evolves. i think you're misunderstanding what i mean when i say God is dynamic.
consider this. even though our universe is constantly changing, the laws that govern it remain the same. we can reliably predict the behavior of bodies in motion, know how fast light travels, etc. as we discover more about our universe, we might revise our understanding, but those laws remain timeless. you could say the CHARACTER of the universe remains the same despite the constant changes.
i look at God in the same manner. His CHARACTER remains the same, even as more and more of it is revealed to us as we continue to grow and learn as a species. So in that sense God is static and the rules He has put forth to define morality, etc are timeless. His character is definitely unchanging.
but that doesn't preclude God from being dynamic, because the universe and everything in it is an expression of, a part of who and what God is. the divine (but finite) "breath of life" that exists in all of us and connects us to God changes and grows as we trod through the journey we call life. so as we experience, in a sense, God "experiences" too. it doesn't change WHO God is at all, but i believe He finds joy in this. much like we find joy in watching our children grow into adults, but that doesn't mean it has to change the nature of who WE are individually.
this explains (to me at least) why the Bible says God finds joy in faithful beings, and why sin makes God sad, etc. it may even give us insight into one of the grand purposes of creation in general. i have more opinions on this but i don't want to go off too far on a tangent.
i appreciate that everyone might not see it the way i do, so we'll may have to agree to disagree on this one
Okay, I can see your perspective now. I just didnt understand it before because I view the term dynamic in a much different way. Thanks for elaborating. I don't think we are that different, maybe just the way we understand the words.i agree that our understanding of God changes as we grow as a species. i'm with you here...
now you're putting words in my mouth
consider this. even though our universe is constantly changing, the laws that govern it remain the same. we can reliably predict the behavior of bodies in motion, know how fast light travels, etc. as we discover more about our universe, we might revise our understanding, but those laws remain timeless. you could say the CHARACTER of the universe remains the same despite the constant changes.
i look at God in the same manner. His CHARACTER remains the same, even as more and more of it is revealed to us as we continue to grow and learn as a species. So in that sense God is static and the rules He has put forth to define morality, etc are timeless. His character is definitely unchanging.
but that doesn't preclude God from being dynamic, because the universe and everything in it is an expression of, a part of who and what God is. the divine (but finite) "breath of life" that exists in all of us and connects us to God changes and grows as we trod through the journey we call life. so as we experience, in a sense, God "experiences" too. it doesn't change WHO God is at all, but i believe He finds joy in this. much like we find joy in watching our children grow into adults, but that doesn't mean it has to change the nature of who WE are individually.
this explains (to me at least) why the Bible says God finds joy in faithful beings, and why sin makes God sad, etc. it may even give us insight into one of the grand purposes of creation in general. i have more opinions on this but i don't want to go off too far on a tangent.
i appreciate that everyone might not see it the way i do, so we'll may have to agree to disagree on this one
I guess for me I would describe it more as the side of God that is intimate with us on our level with the understanding of where we are as we go through our own growth in developing our understanding of who He is as it has been revealed. For instance, God knows that we don't know everything about Him and everything about our universe which is why he does not always command us to respond to those things that are beyond what he has given us the ability to understand.
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