What is that evidence and how does it support a god?
Also, if you are speaking of another dimension ore something like that, I am sure their is an explanation, albeit an extremely complicated explanation, for that that fits it into the current set of scientific laws and theories.
You claim that god is beyond our existence, and beyond our understanding. That includes you, does it not?
I’m just trying to figure out what this evidence you speak of is.
Mark 11:13
“And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for fruit.”
There were leaves, but no fruit.
@Max: We don’t fully understand God’s motives or ways, but He does give us some of them. I don’t claim to fully understand God, but I do try to understand that which he has told us about Himself.
THAT’S ALL I CAN DO FOR NOW FOLKS. IM BEHIND ON WORK, THE ONLY REASON IM HOME IS BECAUSE I JUST HAD SURGERY. IF I FINISH WORK THEN I CAN TALK MORE, BUT I REALLY MUST GET TO WORK.
DONT EXPECT ANY RESPONSES UNTIL TOMORROW. And please don’t swarm me with objections. Please ask only a few questions at a time. This is too time-consuming guys.
How about forces on particles that only exist when not observed for starters? By our definition of existence things exist if we perceive them or not. This isn’t something CHANGING, this is something where it only EXISTS when it’s not observed.
If you can’t understand god then how do you even know he exists?
@ Max Ask a scientist not me. I’m sure they have some sort of idea why this might be, or they are working very hard to find out why.
No reply necessary, The_Assasin, but I have to point out:
Thats what Sassyrobot was saying.
Ah, I see. Yes I broke my rule I came back.
But this was a simple response.
There was nothing special about the tree, it was acting like all other fig trees, and not fruiting, even though there are leaves.
I usually defend religion (or in this case, Christianity) in arguments like this, mainly because I’ve seen incredible good come out of it but also because people’s understanding of it is often horribly skewed. However, I agree with Sassy on this particular point, and she also brings up a good point that the Bible is filled with lots of nonsense. How can you possibly defend God’s actions when he slaughtered 42 children? You can put it into context as much as you like but at the end of the day, as God himself stated, murder is a sin. In fact it is a mortal sin. He’s not exactly setting the best example for us is he? Even if these children were doubting, mocking and slandering God and his prophet, murder is a colossal punishment, even for those days. Jesus himself said that children are especially close to God, presumably because they lack the understanding to fully comprehend the consequences of their actions and therefore aren’t held entirely accountable. You have to admit though, that this is a huge discrepancy and loophole within the Bible.
This is part of the reason why I find it impossible to be a fully believing Christian. You have to learn, understand and believe everything the Bible says and I agree with this principle – you need fully formed rules. If you don’t, then you are simply picking and choosing the parts of the Bible that are easy to agree with and to believe and are therefore forming your own religion, and Jesus was always one for saying things that are hard to live by. However, the Bible is undeniably full of paradoxes, inconsistencies and contradictions. How can God murder freely in the Old Testament, and yet passionately teach with absolute conviction that murder is wrong and, in the New Testament, that we should forgive limitlessly, even our enemies? That is an incredibly alarming change from one extreme to the next. You can say that God’s ways are not our ways and I will agree, but for God to come to earth in human form and to actively go against his actions in the past, now that is quite a u-turn in thought.
I heard an interesting theory once, that as we as humans evolved, so did our understanding and our needs and requirements changed too. Therefore when God first appeared to humanity say, around 5,000 BC, he had to content with other powerful, equally as convincing and extremely violent gods. Therefore he had to be stricter in his punishments and more dramatic in his proof. When we get to the New Testament, our needs changed and we needed more direct teaching. I’m not saying I agree with this, but it’s interesting.
My own understanding is different, perhaps even blasphemy, but oh well. I personally never understood how God communicated to people. I never heard anything or witnessed anything that directly showed God to me – perhaps I wasn’t looking hard enough or in the right places but anyway. In the Old Testament, God seemed to be very vocal – he gave orders and taught his people and punished them, often in very explicit and detailed instructions. But perhaps their understanding of God was no different from ours, and that they were misinterpreting God’s actions or lack of them. Perhaps the bears attacking the children was no different from any natural disaster, fire or common household accident – it wasn’t God punishing those children – it was only people’s interpretation of that that made it so. Perhaps God, feeling frustrated that his voice was not being heard or understood correctly, felt it necessary to give Jesus to the world in order to lead by example and by voice, as well as correcting many aspects of the Law. This coincides with Jesus saying that he hadn’t come to write the law, but to complete it. He seems to imply that humanity had misinterpreted him, and that swift action was needed to correct this.
I’m afraid Sassy, that this is the best answer to your question that I can provide. I personally won’t try and defend the actions of God when I don’t understand them myself – I don’t agree with that particular story and I never will, and there are numerous other parts of the Bible that I entirely disagree with or that leave me utterly bewildered. However, I simplify things – the basic law that Jesus gave that sums up the Bible neatly is to love each other as you love yourself, which seems to make enough sense. I personally think that the Bible is seen far too often as the be all and end all, when really what the majority of it is is man’s interpretation of God’s voice. Aside from the New Testament, the historical legitimacy of which is another debate, the Bible is the remnants of the old Jewish laws and interpretation of what man thought of God at the time. To me, the New Testament makes more logical sense and its philosophy is far more applicable to today’s society than the Old. But then again that makes me guilty of picking and choosing parts of the Bible – so be it.
But really, you could write your replies a little more courteously. No one has yet attacked you personally and yet you act like they have. No one’s trying to make this an argument.
Absolutely agreed.
@Floyd: Everything you say seems hinged on a faulty assumption: that god exists. You aren’t pondering whether he exists but how he exists. The Bible is full of paradoxes because it’s a badly written fairy tail written by unknown people thousands of years ago.
A big hole in religion that I think you touched on is according to the Bible, God made his presence very very clear. He openly punished people and sent Jesus to Earth. He also caused miracles that can’t be interpreted as simple chance, like Jesus coming back to life. Now none of that happens, why? Because it never happened in the first place. When the Bible emerged it was far far easier to lie to people because we didn’t have video cameras or pictures or instant long distance communication or even the printing press so rumors and mythes such as resurrection and divine punishment easily ran rampant and unchecked. Now if such a rumor were start in modern times it would be seen as just that; a rumor. The people who believed in it would be seen for what they are; crazy.
If there truly were a god his actions probably wouldn’t fit so perfectly with such a simple explanation that doesn’t require his existence.
Not really. Floyd’s posts are generally well thought out (if overly long). His dedication to intelligent discussion is admirable.
Garth, he absolutely shredded your argument a few pages back. And I’m noticing that everything you say seems to be based on the faulty assumption that “religion” = “Christianity.”
In response to Floyd: This is one of the major problems I have with religion. I have no problem accepting that there may be forces beyond comprehension. Is it possible a god exists. Well, sorta ya. It’s not likely based on what we know about the world around us, but it is within the realm of possible.
When it comes to religious belief systems based on ancient texts, there is a lot of things in there that are dated and proven to be false, or out of touch with the current world. In some cases it is often out of step with what is actually even possible. The most annoying is inaccuracies and contradicting information.
If I’m going to accept a religion, I am going to need some sort of reason why I should accept one over any other.
The bible and the christian belief? Why? Why is it correct? Why aren’t the beliefs of Islam, Judaism, or Muslim correct? What is there to say either is more correct or accurate. For the most part you can interchange names and the fundamentals are the same. Many religions claim to be the true path, but none really give any CONCRETE reason why. Proof would be nice, but some sort of solid evidence that it’s not just ‘because our profits say so’.
And yet its teachings have touched and moved millions of followers over thousands of years. Teachers, doctors, scientists, all race creed and colors have found a truth in God’s teachings. Are we all suffering from the placebo effect?
For me, it isnt hogwash. For me and for many others it makes sense.
The Pagan and Norse influenced millions over many years as well with their teachings and beliefs. Are they right too?
Nostradamus influenced millions over the years. So did Hitler, Ramses, and the Caesars.
Just because people are influenced by someone/something doesn’t mean it’s right, or that it’s not caused by immoral means.
People will follow what is convenient for them.
The difficult thing is to question the very things you believe.
There is definitely something that caused every single human culture in history to independently develop their own religions.
What exactly causes this built-in affinity for supernatural belief is an interesting (and unanswered) question. The cause could of course be the actual presence/perception of the supernatural, or it could be a wired-in evolutionary response to support tribal identity, or any number of other things.
For me, it isnt hogwash. For me and for many others it makes sense.
Demanding solid reasoning over something that is in its nature faith based is not really a fair demand is it?
To any religious people, in this thread, I’ve been asking this for a while now.
Where is this evidence of god('s work)?
Conception.
Oh wait wut! Not THIS again!
Whenever I say religion I am mainly talking about Christianity or Catholicism because those are the two religions we are currently discussing and I don’t think anyone here has argued for any religion that isn’t a sect or interpretation of those two yet. I’m sorry for not being clear enough, from now on if you hear me say religion assume I mean Catholicism or Christianity.
I probably didn’t notice said post of Floyd’s I’ll go back and look for it.
I found the post and he didn’t fully address some points and I posted a legitimate counter argument.
I mentioned that religion had been wrong about a lot earth being flat and a few others in particular. He said that those were come up with by science and that science had been wrong.
The entire point of that was to give a track record of science compared to religion. And it wasn’t truly science that came up with the earth being flat. Back then science was not yet full developed into the scientific method. When they came up with the idea of the earth being flat they said, well, it doesn’t look curved to me and left it at that. That’s not really science. And then it was the church that clung furiously to the belief that the earth was flat as true science emerged and said otherwise. Also, people like Galileo were religious because they were raised religious. It’s very hard to go against everything you’ve been told all your life no matter how stupid and wrong it is. There’s a kid at my school who is really smart and gets A’s but he is also convinced that all black people are gay and we should shoot Obama and bring back slavery. Why? Because his parents are racist assholes. No matter how smart you are and no matter how wrong your upbringing was your probably going to cling to it. if Hitler and been raised in a well-off Jewish family he probably would have become a great politician who did great things.
Yes science has been wrong from time to time, but they readily accept that and modify their theories to fit what they have discovered and science has been wrong far far less often than religion.
That’s pretty vague catz.
Edit: I also don’t want anyone to throw a couple of philosophies and theories my way. Some of you say there is evidence for this, so show me actual cold hard evidence.
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