Christianity
There are people who actually believe in that.
Posts  1 - 21  of  21
Greyson
The other day I was sitting and thinking when suddenly an Eureka-like brainwave flashed inside me. There are people who actually believe in souls, in devils, in heaven and hell, in a metaphysical intelligence.

This might seem banal, but in my short existence I have always lived with my mind empty of irrational beliefs such as religion. I've always thought "If it can't be proven, I might as well ignore it, the burden of proof lies on those making the positive claim". I know I'm far from being unique in this matter, but, unfortunately for a self proclaimed intelligent and rational species, this is not the case for everyone.

And this is what struck me. That some people give as much credit to metaphysical beings than to the physical world. They do!

I'll give you this funny story I told a religious friend of mine. One day I came to school, said hi and spent the whole maths class proving him that:

The roman Empire was technologically advanced and invented a time machine. They fared in the future faster than normal and found out their society would become decaying and moral-less, completely unacceptable to them. So they decided to end the roman Empire before it started gaining power by killing an emperor. This emperor does not exist in the Universe as we know it, instead there were other men called Caesar, Nero and so on. The romans now live two years after us. This doesn't need to be consistent, just has to sound right.

So after an hour of me trying to stuff his skull with this theory he told me I was crazy (he was a bit mad because he lost the maths demonstration too I guess). I answered him that was exactly what I thought of him when he said things like "Thank god" or "Jesus!". He did not become atheist, his parents shoved it down his throat when he was too young, it's carved in his brain now. But that might help him gain some objectivity.

All this to say, that when you believe in a Jesus Christ, in Allah, in angels and in a world of pleasure floating in the sky, you should also believe that romans live two years ahead of us and that they assassinated an early emperor of theirs. That's all. But it struck me.
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
Yoda55
Replied to:  The other day I was sitting and thinking when suddenly...
And, implementing your logically minded method, have you considered this idea...

There are three people, together - you, me, and a third. This other person, even though you may not know him personally, you have no reason to doubt... I show him an object, which you have not seen. I place it under a bowl, where it's out of your sight... He tells you what the object is... Do you believe what he tells you? [He is an eye witness to an event, and has knowledge of that which you do not]... Does the object fail to exist, just because you haven't seen it?... Now, I tell you what the object is - that's two witnesses who've seen the object... Do you believe two?... Does the object fail to exist, just because you haven't seen it yourself?... What would be required for you to believe? How many witnesses would it take?

Alternatively, is "wind" real?... You can't see it. Are you relying upon sight as the critical tip in your balance, to declare that you accept an unfamiliar idea?

Do you believe in Darwin's theory of evolution?... If so, why?... You haven't seen evolution. The length of time for evolution to occur exceeds mankind's ability to measure it, because in many cases man wasn't around when it occurred... "Scientists" look at isolated fossils and attempt to string them together - and the beginners didn't have genetic testing available. Theory = unproven hypothesis (i.e. a question not yet resolved).
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Yoda55
Greyson
Replied to:  And, implementing your logically minded method, have you considered this idea......
I didn't answer sooner because you got me thinking. I, as an individual, cannot observe every scientific discovery made so far. I cannot check if Einstein's equations are right because I'm not that far in studies. Same goes for many other things. Kinetic energy, it's Ec=(mv^2)/2 if I remember correctly. I'll just have to believe in them because they have studied, they have trained their brains. That's what they excel at, physics.

It is up to what means you have to find out the truth. It is also up to what means those who gave you their reality have. If a physician tells me that sin i * n1 = sin r * n2 (refraction) I'll believe. But if my Judo teacher were to tell me this, I'd probably go check before writing it in my notebook.
And this is where the problem comes with religion. I do not have the means to interact with a metaphysical world. Simply, I am physical and so are all my senses. If someone tells me in the street "God exists", I have no more reasons to believe since they are made of the same matter than me, they are no more metaphysical than I am. Nobody is competent to know if a deity exists.
This is what makes religion's power at the same time. Not everybody stops to think when they're four and their parents are already stuffing their head with religion. It's called indoctrinating. I'm pretty sure that if any religious person had had atheist parents who never talked about religion, to the point where you have no idea who Jesus is (I'm still unsure whether he is the son of god, or god himself, but since people always curse and hope in the name of Jesus I take it he's god himself?), and one day at adulthood were presented with the problem you just gave me to justify the existence of a deity, they would most likely stay atheist. I know about well known scientists who converted to religion (I don't know any names but I remember hearing about them, but scientists are still matter and cannot interact with metaphysical beings).

Sorry, little digression. Back to your example. If the person, who is not a liar or a con, and has no interest in lying, is not blind, tells me what is under the bowl I'll believe them. The person is competent to know what is there, and the odds of a lie are low.
The object does not fail to exist because I cannot see it. Look at it this way. It fails to exist, not if I cannot see it, but if nobody can. The person saw the object, it does not matter if the light-waves bounced on my eyes or on his, they did.
I believe two unless they have reasons to lie or are incompetent to know what object is under the bowl (blind, mental illness...). Just as I believe one. More is not better. In fact, a group can act differently, religious people might feel like they are aggressed by atheists telling them all they know does not exist and cannot be proven. Were I they, I would of course feel compelled to find proofs and shut them up. You know what people feel and do when they look for proofs.


Is wind real? Sight is just a sense among others. For some reason humans, as well as many other mammals evolved with sight as their spacial recognition sense. You know about the geometry of an area just by looking at it. Now try doing a short sound with your tongue and listen to it. Did you come up with a spacial simulation of the room? Dolphins do. We rely on vision the most. It's quite practical, light-wave hits object and then retina. But if my nerves sense the pressure on my skin, it's equally valable. I know the wind exists because I feel it on my skin. It interacts with me. That's all, interaction.

Do I believe in Darwin's theory of evolution? It's more of an axiom, really. All biologists take it for granted, only details are put in question, and infact, the original theory got put in question enough times to have evolved for so to speak.
I have not seen evolution. But scientists have. They have seen mutations take place. Genetics are another axiom on which this theory lies. What is the theory of evolution? Simply, a species disappears if it is maladapted to the environment, for an animal this can mean it's too slow to run away from predators, too weak, cannot reach leaves in trees, whatever. That's natural selection. It appeals to our intuition. It's logical. Weakness dies, strength lives. Then there is the next factor. That random mutations happen. I don't remember the figures, but a huge majority of those mutations lead to non-viable creatures who die on birth. And even if viable, it doesn't mean it's gonna grant an advantage. A third pair of legs might not be that good if you need to be fast. If a mutation leads to a viable animal, living being in general, and it also favours this species, or at least does not do the opposite, and the species becomes or stays adapted to the environment then it will flourish. Imagine this "Berg" creature. It is a prey that just arrived to an island where some kind of bird, let's call it a "Merg" catches little animals like bergs and then eats them. The problem of the berg is that the ground on this island is harder than the one where it came from, and it cannot easily dig to make a little nest. This species disapears. Now imagine that by "luck", a little berg is born that grows its arms faster and makes it stronger and able to dig in that ground. Then this one individual (because the mutation happens on one individual), if it manages to have sex with a berg and they have a viable child, then this species will live because it is adapted to the environment. The other bergs will, with time, all get killed by the Mergs. Only the mutated Bergs live. If the little berg had not mutated, they would be dead, and no more bergs to be eaten.

Mutations are observable, and so are animals getting killed. That's why it's taught in schools. It's verified.


Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
Yoda55
Replied to:  I didn't answer sooner because you got me thinking. I,...
This line of thought is premature for the other Christianity question discussion, which I posed: "What is the atheist's biggest objection to the concept of 'God'?" and to which you responded.

If you can hold onto this thought (perhaps transfer it to the other discussion), and concentrate on the other line... we can keep the discussion from becoming haphazard, and we'll eventually address this again over there... OK?
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Yoda55
alitude14a
Replied to:  And, implementing your logically minded method, have you considered this idea......
Exactly! Darwins theory of Evolution IS just a theory. NOT fact.
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
lucaspa
Replied to:  The other day I was sitting and thinking when suddenly...
"This might seem banal, but in my short existence I have always lived with my mind empty of irrational beliefs such as religion."

How do you KNOW it is "irrational"? Prove it.

"I've always thought "If it can't be proven, I might as well ignore it,"

Then you must ignore ALL scientific theories. Strictly speaking, NO scientific theory can be proved. That's one reason they are tentative. Somehow I doubt you ignore all scientific theories. I bet you fly on airplanes and use brakes for stopping your car. So what you have done is not set out a valid criteria, but rather set up a case of Special Pleading.

People give credence to metaphysical things because they have evidence of them. You also give credence to metaphysical concepts. Think about it for a while and see if you don't believe in honesty, honor, love, etc.
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  alitude14a
lucaspa
Replied to:  Exactly! Darwins theory of Evolution IS just a theory. NOT fact....
Well ... you have the misconception of what is a "theory" in science. Is the idea that the planets orbit the sun a theory or fact? How about that the earth is spherical?

Both of those are THEORIES. Very well supported theories. So well supported that we accept them as (provisionally) true and "fact". Evolution is in the same category. It is so well supported by so much data that we accept it as (provisionally) true and a fact. That you don't WANT to accept it that way has nothing to do with it. After all, up until a few years ago, there was a Flat Earth Society who refused to accept that the the theory that the earth is spherical was true.
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  lucaspa
Greyson
Replied to:  "This might seem banal, but in my short existence I have...
I know it is irrational because every mental path that could take me even near to proving the existence of many aspects of your mythology brought me to roadblocks. How do I prove the existence of a being that, by definition, I cannot interact with? It is META(beyond)physical after all.

I did try. I asked a religious friend of mine what his belief was based on and he said I couldn't understand until I "met" god. Well, it must be a very neglecting god if it didn't care to meet me. Somehow I think this is just a cliché phrase used to tell me "Look hard for a god and you'll find one, interpret every oddity of the mind as a presence of a god (Oh, it'll be the christian god and no other by the way!)". I did the exact same thing when I was a child. For Pokemon (which I didn't find).

All this concurs towards my vision of religion. It's based on emotion. Every religious person I have spoken or heard speak about religion mentioned feeling good at least once, or finding relief. Sometimes they even speak about morals (but that's bullshit, I am yet to see a vegan christian). Never do they say that Skydad helps them finding mathematical theorems. He isn't much into politics either, as it took earthy animals to unthrone dictators that oppressed their people. Be it Hitler, those guys in the middle-east and north of Africa, or even whoever is leading North Korea. There is only one place where Skydad does something: and that's in people's minds. And even there, it's limited to emotions. All a religion can do is make people feel better.

For it is solely based on emotion, and not intellect (as opposed to emotion and experience), religion is bound to be irrational. The day you prove the existence of Skydaddy with physics, tell me how souls work, how they interact with our bodies, why we're the only animals to have souls, why evolution is in such contradiction to the Bible (if you don't believe one part you might as well reject the whole hypothesis), then I will admit it is rational.




You are taking a too strict meaning of proving. When you establish a fact with a high enough degree of certainty, it is proven. You can never prove anything to 100%.

On the other hand, mathematics are a solid field and physics is basically applied maths. Planets were found, not through telescopes, but on sheets of paper. Subatomic particles are a construction of mathematics, and so is relativity. Your air-planes flying, aerodynamics. While mathematics are based on more or less arbitrary axioms, the result works. It can be applied to reality.

Those sciences are all that's left. They're the most solid. The science of jesus is nothing but wind. It's ear to ear, and it's imagination. It's building a convenient science that fits in your cosy little vision of the world.

People, these constructions of matter, cannot possibly have evidence of metaphysical things. It's like saying that the cat I live with knows what it's like to live outside the Universe. It's like I was telling people I evolved in the fourth dimension, not momentarily, but simultaneously, like for all three other dimensions.

Honesty, love, honour and so on, are not metaphysical things. They're processes inherent to a very physical thing, a brain. I don't know if you've seen a brain but it's a big blob of watery flesh. It is not metaphysical at all. If you consider love to be metaphysical, as it is a construction of the brain, then you must consider drawings and art to be metaphysical as well. They're constructions of the mind and hands. I don't believe in those things, they are axioms to me. I, as an animal, am defined by the type of actions I am able to do, what I look, sound, smell, feel like, among others. The type of actions I am able to do depends on my genome, and that's where love is. Love is inscribed in your genes, if you did not have love, you would not exist (love is a mating mechanism). If somehow you were the first individual without love, then you would not be entirely Homo Sapiens. You'd be something else. Same applies for every other feature you have.
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
lucaspa
Replied to:  I know it is irrational because every mental path that...
"I know it is irrational because every mental path that could take me even near to proving the existence of many aspects of your mythology brought me to roadblocks."

That's a comment on the failings of your mental processes, not on the rationality of religion.

" I asked a religious friend of mine what his belief was based on and he said I couldn't understand until I "met" god. Well, it must be a very neglecting god if it didn't care to meet me. "

Not necessarily. BTW, that's a very self-centered outlook. You are not considering alternative explanation for your inability to find God.
1. You didn't recognize when you heard that "small, still voice". You thought, like Ebeneezer Scrooge, that it was indigestion or something else.
2. You deliberately ignored the meeting because you already decided that God doesn't exist.
3. God, seeing your attitude, knows it is futile to contact you right now because it is apparent that He will only be rejected.
4. You may lack the "deity detecting module" in your brain. You simply did not inherit the brain circuits evolution came up with to communicate with God.

"All this concurs towards my vision of religion. It's based on emotion. Every religious person I have spoken or heard speak about religion mentioned feeling good at least once, or finding relief. Sometimes they even speak about morals (but that's bullshit, I am yet to see a vegan christian). Never do they say that Skydad helps them finding mathematical theorems."

Is being vegan being "moral"? BTW, I do know some vegan Christians.

God does provide comfort to those in emotional pain, very much like a friend does. Do you deny the reality of friends because friendship too is based to a great extent on emotion? Actually, if you read the writings of Newton and some of the 18th century mathematicians, they do say God helped them.

"He isn't much into politics either, as it took earthy animals to unthrone dictators that oppressed their people. Be it Hitler, those guys in the middle-east and north of Africa, or even whoever is leading North Korea. "

So you want the Control Freak god that steps in and makes everything nicey-nice for everyone. Have you ever thought what that does to your life having meaning? It's not certain that God does not intervene in human history still. It's just that the intervention would be more subtle. For instance, read about the Ultra secret during WWII and then we can discuss the odds that the Germans did not discover that the Allies were reading their codes.

"You are taking a too strict meaning of proving. When you establish a fact with a high enough degree of certainty, it is proven. You can never prove anything to 100%. "

I'm taking the meaning of logic and science. And yes, you can prove some things. It's proven that the earth is NOT flat, or that the earth is NOT the center of the solar system or that proteins are NOT the hereditary material of that species are NOT immutable.

"On the other hand, mathematics are a solid field and physics is basically applied maths. Planets were found, not through telescopes, but on sheets of paper. "

Planets were first found by naked eye observations of the night sky. Those points of light the moved between constellations were "planets". You are thinking of Neptune and Pluto. Neptune was discovered because the orbit of Uranus could not be accounted for by Newtonian gravity. In order to save that theory, the ad hoc hypothesis of an additional planet was proposed. Newtonian gravity was then used to calculate where to look.

"Subatomic particles are a construction of mathematics, and so is relativity. "

But they were TESTED by looking at the physical universe. There are lots of mathematics that don't work. Kepler created dozens of mathematical formulae to describe the orbits of planets, but only ONE of them was correct. Einstein did dozens of equations before he published on Relativity. Being "mathematical" doesn't automatically make it correct. To determine whether the math is correct you must compare it to the physical universe.

"The science of jesus is nothing but wind. "

Where did I mention a "science of Jesus"? There is no such thing to my knowledge. Religion is not part of science. But that doesn't have anything to do with whether there is evidence or whether the religion is correct. Not all evidence is scientific evidence. In fact, scientific evidence is a very small subset of evidence.

What I said was that theists have evidence of deity.

"The type of actions I am able to do depends on my genome, and that's where love is. Love is inscribed in your genes, if you did not have love, you would not exist (love is a mating mechanism). "

You are thinking of sexual love. What about "agape"? Love is putting the interests of someone else before your own. That has nothing to do with the genome. It's a choice. Our actions are not dictated by our genes.

"People, these constructions of matter, cannot possibly have evidence of metaphysical things. "

They COULD, but science isn't capable of detecing that evidence. Science is limited to looking only at "natural" causes because that is all we can do controls for. We can't make a "control" for God. Think of the Hubble telescope looking for evidence of mitochondria. It's simply the wrong tool. Science is the wrong tool for looking for evidence of the metaphysical things.

"Honesty, love, honour and so on, are not metaphysical things. They're processes inherent to a very physical thing, a brain. "

They can be conceived of by a physical brain, but that isn't the same as being "inherent" to a brain. What constitutes "honor" or "honorable behavior" is independent of the brain. Those concepts are out there separate from the brain.

The same goes for the concept of "art". What is art? Not a specific painting, symphony, or sculpture, but art itself. Is all music art? If so, why? Is every painting "art"? While art can be manifested as physical objects, the concept of art itself is metaphysical.
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  lucaspa
Greyson
Replied to:  "I know it is irrational because every mental path that could...
The difference between us is that you consider what happens inside your brain to be the acts of a soul. That's why you say that honour is outside the brain, and that art is metaphysical. I see it differently. Imagine a program that has a rand function and then filtrates the output (for example only takes prime numbers or multiples of 37). Then, it makes triplets, a variable for length, one for depth and one for colour. Out of those triplets it draws dots. You can call that art. Art is nothing but a very complex system that we can't understand ourselves. It is inherent to the brain's abilities.

"You are thinking of sexual love. What about "agape"? Love is putting the interests of someone else before your own. That has nothing to do with the genome. It's a choice. Our actions are not dictated by our genes."

If that is so, explain to me why everybody goes eat at fast food restaurants. It's quite obvious, they look for fatty and sweet food. That's instincts. Last time I ate, I didn't tell myself "Oh, my muscles might be needing some lipids by now, and I might be needing some sugar for my own mental processes to work properly" before taking an apple from the bowl. It's in our genes. If it was not in our genes most people would starve as infants, because after all, everything is choice, isn't it? An infant's choice must be very wise indeed.
You have a very romantic vision of love. Since when does mating limit itself to sex? There's the whole protect and fetch thing. You are talking from the point of view of a man.

"Not necessarily. BTW, that's a very self-centered outlook. You are not considering alternative explanation for your inability to find God.
1. You didn't recognize when you heard that "small, still voice". You thought, like Ebeneezer Scrooge, that it was indigestion or something else.
2. You deliberately ignored the meeting because you already decided that God doesn't exist.
3. God, seeing your attitude, knows it is futile to contact you right now because it is apparent that He will only be rejected.
4. You may lack the "deity detecting module" in your brain. You simply did not inherit the brain circuits evolution came up with to communicate with God."

You departed from the point of view that I actually got a message. I didn't. No indigestion, no thunderbolt. Of course, I know what you're thinking right now. That I was too blind to sense it. When I whisper to someone across the street, I don't blame them for not hearing what I have to say. Next time you pray, ask God to speak louder.
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
Yoda55
Replied to:  I know it is irrational because every mental path that...
Greyson,

Mathematics is a discipline of thought which provided a 'language' through which relational ideas could be expressed. Sciences are experimental disciplines which use mathematics (to some degree) as a method of describing the phenomenae of interest. Mathematics were invented/refined to assist in understanding physical sciences as they approached new and difficult problems.

If we wanted to look at whether or not the universe (we live in) was accidental can be examined through statistics... Assuming that:
(1) all basic components of matter existed, uncombined, at some point of existence
(2) all components were independent of one another
(3) all energy was potential (no kinetic, no matter in motion)

The probability that an 'accidental universe' would spring from this can be expressed in the relation:

P(A1 & A2 & ... & An), where n = a VERY, VERY LARGE integer; and
P(A)=0.5, probable interaction between any two

P(A-intersection) = P(A1)*P(A2)*...*P(An) = 0.5^n

This is a VERY, VERY SMALL number. If your hypothesis is that "accidental universe creation was how this universe came into existence", then I'd say "the probability for it to be anything other than accidental" (alternate hypothesis) is:

P(~ A-intersection) = 1 - P(A-intersection)

a VERY, VERY (astronomically) LARGE number. The odds are very much AGAINST an accidental universe.
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
ELPELIGROSO303
Replied to:  The other day I was sitting and thinking when suddenly...
According to the Urantia book

The Urantia Book


Paper 101

The Real Nature of Religion


(1104.1) 101:0.1 RELIGION, as a human experience, ranges from the primitive fear slavery of the evolving savage up to the sublime and magnificent faith liberty of those civilized mortals who are superbly conscious of sonship with the eternal God.

(1104.2) 101:0.2 Religion is the ancestor of the advanced ethics and morals of progressive social evolution. But religion, as such, is not merely a moral movement, albeit the outward and social manifestations of religion are mightily influenced by the ethical and moral momentum of human society. Always is religion the inspiration of man’s evolving nature, but it is not the secret of that evolution.

(1104.3) 101:0.3 Religion, the conviction-faith of the personality, can always triumph over the superficially contradictory logic of despair born in the unbelieving material mind. There really is a true and genuine inner voice, that “true light which lights every man who comes into the world.” And this spirit leading is distinct from the ethical prompting of human conscience. The feeling of religious assurance is more than an emotional feeling. The assurance of religion transcends the reason of the mind, even the logic of philosophy. Religion is faith, trust, and assurance.

Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
ELPELIGROSO303
Replied to:  The other day I was sitting and thinking when suddenly...
1. True Religion

(1104.4) 101:1.1 True religion is not a system of philosophic belief which can be reasoned out and substantiated by natural proofs, neither is it a fantastic and mystic experience of indescribable feelings of ecstasy which can be enjoyed only by the romantic devotees of mysticism. Religion is not the product of reason, but viewed from within, it is altogether reasonable. Religion is not derived from the logic of human philosophy, but as a mortal experience it is altogether logical. Religion is the experiencing of divinity in the consciousness of a moral being of evolutionary origin; it represents true experience with eternal realities in time, the realization of spiritual satisfactions while yet in the flesh.

(1104.5) 101:1.2 The Thought Adjuster has no special mechanism through which to gain self-expression; there is no mystic religious faculty for the reception or expression of religious emotions. These experiences are made available through the naturally ordained mechanism of mortal mind. And therein lies one explanation of the Adjuster’s difficulty in engaging in direct communication with the material mind of its constant indwelling.

(1104.6) 101:1.3 The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. It is your thoughts, not your feelings, that lead you Godward. The divine nature may be perceived only with the eyes of the mind. But the mind that really discerns God, hears the indwelling Adjuster, is the pure mind. “Without holiness no man may see the Lord.” All such inner and spiritual communion is termed spiritual insight. Such religious experiences result from the impress made upon the mind of man by the combined operations of the Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth as they function amid and upon the ideas, ideals, insights, and spirit strivings of the evolving sons of God.

Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
ELPELIGROSO303
Replied to:  The other day I was sitting and thinking when suddenly...
.4 Religion lives and prospers, then, not by sight and feeling, but rather by faith and insight. It consists not in the discovery of new facts or in the finding of a unique experience, but rather in the discovery of new and spiritual meanings in facts already well known to mankind. The highest religious experience is not dependent on prior acts of belief, tradition, and authority; neither is religion the offspring of sublime feelings and purely mystical emotions. It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the human mind, and as far as such an experience is definable in terms of psychology, it is simply the experience of experiencing the reality of believing in God as the reality of such a purely personal experience.

(1105.2) 101:1.5 While religion is not the product of the rationalistic speculations of a material cosmology, it is, nonetheless, the creation of a wholly rational insight which originates in man’s mind-experience. Religion is born neither of mystic meditations nor of isolated contemplations, albeit it is ever more or less mysterious and always indefinable and inexplicable in terms of purely intellectual reason and philosophic logic. The germs of true religion originate in the domain of man’s moral consciousness, and they are revealed in the growth of man’s spiritual insight, that faculty of human personality which accrues as a consequence of the presence of the God-revealing Thought Adjuster in the God-hungry mortal mind.

(1105.3) 101:1.6 Faith unites moral insight with conscientious discriminations of values, and the pre-existent evolutionary sense of duty completes the ancestry of true religion. The experience of religion eventually results in the certain consciousness of God and in the undoubted assurance of the survival of the believing personality.

(1105.4) 101:1.7 Thus it may be seen that religious longings and spiritual urges are not of such a nature as would merely lead men to want to believe in God, but rather are they of such nature and power that men are profoundly impressed with the conviction that they ought to believe in God. The sense of evolutionary duty and the obligations consequent upon the illumination of revelation make such a profound impression upon man’s moral nature that he finally reaches that position of mind and that attitude of soul where he concludes that he has no right not to believe in God. The higher and superphilosophic wisdom of such enlightened and disciplined individuals ultimately instructs them that to doubt God or distrust his goodness would be to prove untrue to the realest and deepest thing within the human mind and soul — the divine Adjuster
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
lucaspa
Replied to:  The difference between us is that you consider what happens...
"The difference between us is that you consider what happens inside your brain to be the acts of a soul."

Actually, that never entered my discussion. Nor do I believe it as you state it.

I still maintain that "art" is a concept independent of our individual brains. You can demonstrate that by the discussions we have on what constitutes "art". IF art was only in our brains, and our thinking was influenced by our genes and evolution, then we would have total agreement on what constitutes "art".

"If that is so, explain to me why everybody goes eat at fast food restaurants. It's quite obvious, they look for fatty and sweet food. That's instincts. "

Not everyone eats at fast food restaurants. I know several people who don't. Don't you? Yes, we have our genes to predispose us to some behaviors, but in the end those behaviors are our choice. We can choose not to eat at McDonald's but go buy some fruit instead.

"You have a very romantic vision of love. Since when does mating limit itself to sex? "

Again, agape.

"You departed from the point of view that I actually got a message. I didn't. No indigestion, no thunderbolt. Of course, I know what you're thinking right now. That I was too blind to sense it. "

LOL! Some of the hypotheses I gave account for no communication. Let me review these:
"3. God, seeing your attitude, knows it is futile to contact you right now because it is apparent that He will only be rejected.
4. You may lack the "deity detecting module" in your brain. You simply did not inherit the brain circuits evolution came up with to communicate with God."

And yes, your attitude may have been such that you don't WANT to sense communication from deity. You are so set, now, in your attitude that God does not exist that you are committed to that despite any new evidence.
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Yoda55
lucaspa
Replied to:  Greyson, Mathematics is a discipline of thought which provided a...
"If we wanted to look at whether or not the universe (we live in) was accidental can be examined through statistics"

The statistics are flawed. You are assuming that EVERYTHING that happened after the universe began was "accidental". That is not the case.

Remember, by the data we have now the universe started as an infinitely small, infinitely dense, and infinitely hot universe. There goes your "all energy was potential", since the photons are in motion to give the heat.

There was no matter, only energy. However, remember that matter and energy are two different forms of the same thing: E=mc^c.

Now, as the universe cooled there are NON-accidental interactions between photons such that matter will "condense" out in a "phase transition". Just as water going from steam to liquid is not accidental, so the phase transition is not accidental. So #1 and #2 result from non-accidental processes.

So, is the Big Bang itself "accidental". Maybe. The theory of quantum fluctuation as the cause of the universe says it is. Remember that the NET energy of the universe = 0.

There are other proposed non-accidental causes for the universe OTHER THAN GOD. So the choice is not "accidental" or God. That's a false dichotomy. It can be Logical and Mathematical Necessity. Instead of inventing math, humans discover it, and those mathematical equations have the power to bring a universe into existence for them to describe. Not accidental, but not God, either.

There are other possibilities that we can go into if you wish. But the bottom line is that this line of reasoning is not going to provide the proof you think it will to Greyson.
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  lucaspa
Yoda55
Replied to:  "If we wanted to look at whether or not the universe...
"The statistics are flawed. You are assuming that EVERYTHING that happened after the universe began was 'accidental'. That is not the case."

websters-online-dictionary(.org) defines 'atheist' as: (1) Someone who denies the existence of god; (2) One who disbelieves or denies the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being; (3) A godless person.

The atheist denies a source of the physical rules by which the elements of a universe must behave. The physical rules do not exist in isolation. They had to come from somewhere or something.

websters-online-dictionary(.org) defines 'agnostic' as: (1) One who professes ignorance, or denies that we have any knowledge, save of phenomena; neither affirming nor denying the existence of a personal Deity, a future life, etc.

I'm responding to Greyson's 16-MAR-2011 posting, in which the notion that there was no intelligent design to the universe ("How do I prove the existence of a being that, by definition, I cannot interact with? It is META(beyond)physical after all." ... "For it is solely based on emotion, and not intellect (as opposed to emotion and experience), religion is bound to be irrational.") Based on these statements, I presume Greyson to be agnostic, not atheistic, in viewpoint. The possibility is left open to recognize the existence of a deity IF one can obtain evidence from the metaphysical.

Based on the idea that a deity (responsible for creation of the universe) is only an emotional figment of a human imagination (AND the inability of proving the existence of something assumed intangible to proof), Greyson has stumbled upon the necessity to prove the inverse of the existence of a universe created by a God. One must demonstrate the unlikely condition of a universe by chance.

What science has POSTULATED (not proven) is a pattern, a trend leading back to a SUGGESTED 'big bang'. The universe under such a condition was a SINGULARITY. It had no dimensions of space and time. The rules (which are man deduced) by which this current universe is 'apparently' operating, had no universe in which to operate. No universe, no rules by which to operate. No system of kinetic and potential energies, with no symbiotic feeding from one state to the other state.

If this 'big bang' did release into a universe, bursting into existence, then what guarantee is there that an orderly set of rules accompanied it? Strictly by chance? The probabilities I mentioned in the earlier post work equally well when one tries to argue in favor of a ruleset from nothing (strictly by chance) - and the hypothesis of creation by chance fails.

"Instead of inventing math, humans discover it, and those mathematical equations have the power to bring a universe into existence for them to describe."

I think you have the system reversed. Arithmetic sprouted from the need to account for quantities, and to communicate that between people. Other mathematics were invented (augmenting arithmetic, and using its fundamental rules for relational operators) and combined to describe new concepts. Mathematics is a tool to quantify what is observed (imprecisely). It's but an ESTIMATE of real natural system behaviors, because we are uninformed of the ACTUAL relationships. There's no 'power' in the human idea bringing a universe into existence. It occurred without humans and mathematics on the scene.
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Yoda55
elijah333
Replied to:  And, implementing your logically minded method, have you considered this idea......
I am Elijah a prophet, a messenger, a man of God. God is not from this world therefor u cannot ever find all that u seek. U must believe in your heart and give like U do before U ever see GOD. My birthdays 3-22_67 a month after this imply, nothing happens by coincidence and all that U see is GOD. THERES YOUR SIGN IF YOU WANT MORE BELIEVE in ME ELIJAH+ 12-13 and the LORD said a tenth of the city shall fall. SAN JOSE CA. is the 10th largest city and my home.AMEN+ pray 4 me because its justice i seek and i will give all that i have.This is the first time ive made it clear without hesistation.Im a union carpeneter with no formal training and my mothers birthdays sept 11 and it goes on and on believe me.SOON and VERY SOON WE are going to see THE KING.IT took 46yrs to build the temple and 2012 indian prediction go hand in hand. BLESS 4 ALL the WORLD TO see if i never write again. BLESS U ELIJAH+12-13 I conquered all without nothing but faith and stood the many trials and test of time.Bringing me closer than ever even knowing my fate because im a believer. AMEN PEACE ELI+
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
fullyinformed
Replied to:  The other day I was sitting and thinking when suddenly...
I just wanted to say that, you do not have to believe in a god in order to believe in an afterlife,
there could be an afterlife without religion, it could just be biology, and physics, another 'plane', an energy transformation,
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
fullyinformed
Replied to:  The other day I was sitting and thinking when suddenly...
Another thing- I have studied biology, are you aware that
organ donors are not dead?
see facebook page/wall
organ donor s are not dead, and /or look it up on internet,
I know this is a bit off subject, but I believe that you have studied biology, and may be interested,
Save
Cancel
Reply
replied to:  Greyson
fullyinformed
Replied to:  The other day I was sitting and thinking when suddenly...
Another thing-
there are doctors attempting to tell the public this, because the medical profession have not, and I as do they, believe that people deserve the truth, the articles on my page are written by doctors, if you do not have access to facebook, just join up, or reply here and I will tell you some of the article titles,
Save
Cancel
Reply
 
x
OK