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by the elders of the community that needed a way to control the group
mostly well intended and benign until the absurdist specificity becomes more important
hth
MrRational, I think I am developing a cyber crush on you.
IMHO Gods serve no purpose when their religion is replaced by another, and just disappear.
The ancient Greeks believed their Gods lived on Mt.Olympus, Zeus, Hera, etc. Once Greece switched to Christianity, their Gods went poof, gone.
Same as in Europe, and Egypt. For thousands of years Egyptians worshipped Ra, etc. until about 650AD when they became Muslim.
Ok, so the lesson is in time(some 200-500 years) Christianity and Islam will be replaced by... God knows what.
IMHO Gods serve no purpose when their religion is replaced by another, and just disappear.
The ancient Greeks believed their Gods lived on Mt.Olympus, Zeus, Hera, etc. Once Greece switched to Christianity, their Gods went poof, gone.
Same as in Europe, and Egypt. For thousands of years Egyptians worshipped Ra, etc. until about 650AD when they became Muslim.
Ok, so the lesson is in time(some 200-500 years) Christianity and Islam will be replaced by... God knows what.
Probably non-belief, if I were to guess. We are no longer living in the dark ages of ignorance where we as a civilization need to make up irrational, unproven explanations for things we don't understand but need an answer to.... We are better able to answer those questions that led to the invention of supernatural explanations in the first place, and with technology advancing and improving every single day, that pattern isn't likely to change. Superstition is being slowly replaced with actual, testable, viewable facts. So, I imagine 200-500 years from now, the current faith based belief systems will be replaced with the truth, whatever that is.
MrRational, I think I am developing a cyber crush on you.
That's OK. Really.
When you're ready just head south down 99 a bit.
Make a left on 58 at Bakersfield (catch I-40 at Barstow) and keep coming.
One more left turn when you get to Winston.
When you're ready just south head down 99 a bit.
Make a left on 58 at Bakersfield (catch I-40 at Barstow) and keep coming.
One more left turn when you get to Winston.
I'll leave the light on for you.
Aww too bad, MrRational.
I just moved out of Winston just last summer. Lived over by Hanes Mall.
Hopefully I'll be moving back to the Triad soon, but it'll be Greensboro this time.
What you say is technically true. The problem, though, is people use this logic to legitimize a belief in God and even as a proof that God exists. I call this the conceit of religion since this logic only works (or, I should say, only accepted) within a religious context. If I were to say that I believe absolutely and devoutly in invisible pink unicorns because no one can prove they don't exist, people would start crossing to the other side of the street when they saw me coming.
But when it comes to gods, suddenly and inexplicably, it's perfectly fine to claim gods exists because no one can prove they don't.
To even mention this skewed view of the world only gives credence to religious conceit and believers of all stripes can use it to "win" on a technicality. "Humph! Well, no matter WHAT you say, you still can't prove God DOESN'T exist, so there."
I'm not sure what you mean by "some kind of god" but ... there is reasonable enough evidence that the kinds of gods most people worship do not exist - namely because they wouldn't be a part of nature. And there is no evidence to suggest that anything can be separate from the natural world.
This is true. One of the biggest issues when it comes to believers and the concept of proof is that they too often seem to not understand it. Or if they do understand it, they chose to not apply it to God. The fact is, saying 'you can't prove God doesn't exist' is an awful point. You can't prove a negative. I can't prove unicorns aren't real. There is no way to prove something isn't. You can prove that something is, or you can search for something and not find it.
And, by the way, when I say 'some kind of god' I do not apply that to any religion. By that, I mean the possibility for some kind of force that creates things. More or less, physics. To say it's 'god-like' I would only be implying that we have a limited knowledge on physics, which any scientist would agree we do. We have a limited knowledge on everything. It's responsible for us to assume that. Even if we know everything there is to know about something like evolution, we have to assume we don't on the off chance that there's still more to learn.
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Originally Posted by deadwood
Says the lost.
Not a helpful argument.
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You're response typifies the reason for my comment. If you don't believe in a God then there would have been no God created: thus, no reason for your uninformed response.
In the original post, it was asked if man invented God. Why would that be directed only at believers?
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Are you referring unto the eternal God or the LORD of heaven and earth?
Does your faith have more than one? I was referring to the 'one true god' of your religion.
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Then obviously God wouldn't hold it against me.
However, I would suggest that all men are believers, please feel free to explain the reason you believe that I am wrong when your ability to speak is one falsifiability, if you hear what I am saying.
So therefore that your question is unprincipled which is charateristic of the ignorant. In such, you should be able to answer yourself in that the substance of your faith is based upon what you have not seen nor hear. Hence faith without works is dead, and the dead know nothing. But not all men all have faith, as it is written in Mark 9:23, "if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." The faithful believe all things but believe not all things are true by faith.
So is your unbelief due to your faith or your ignorance?
You say God obviously wouldn't hold it against you, but once again, you don't know that. He may find what you do so repulsive, he sends you to hell without a trial.
As for my non-believe, it's come from a realization that all belief is based on mostly false hope. I don't believe there's no God. There's no belief. What I know is that we have no knowledge of any actual existence of God/gods. We can't actually prove it. This is a fact. Rather or not I believe there is/might be a god quickly becomes irrelevant because I try to spend less time on the belief and more on the questioning and observable facts.
[quote[Chew on this: Man does not live by bread alone but by every word the proceedeth from mouth of the LORD does man live.[/quote]
That's a wonderful anecdote, but that doesn't even address what I was saying.
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Must have been one of those Holy Ghost tongue twisters, since you used the singular 'the Jew' and used the plural syntax 'were right'
Did you think that you just made a typo?
But to answer your question, the Spirit of truth is always right!
Umm... the question is not resolved. I asked: What if the Jews (yes, it was a type) who executed him were right? What if Jesus was just a man; not god. You weren't there, so you couldn't possibly know. Your taking the word of men whom you can not name, have not met, and can't even prove their existence, who spoke an entirely different language from you, that Jesus was in fact the son of God (or God himself...?).
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Many questions from one who claims to have the answer!
In order for Jesus to have been a false prophet, that would require one to hold faith in the fact that the LORD did raise of up individuals from the people and give them knowledge of the truth and that we should listen to what those individuals had to say as written in Deuteronomy 18:18.
So is it your contention that you do not listen to the prophetic word? You know that if you listen you might not have so many questions.
I never claimed to have all the answer. I never even claimed to have an answer. My claim was more or less that no one actually has a real answer.
When I said Jesus could have been a false prophet, I was referring to the views of the Jews, who do believe in God. I don't care what Jesus was. I personally think he was most likely just a man with an insightful message. Some would say that takes the meaning away from him, but I disagree completely. Him being just a man makes him a far more intriguing character. Being God makes most accomplishments seem pretty unspectacular. "Oh, he created a major religion? Well of course, he's God! It'd be pretty pathetic if God couldn't do that!"
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Thank you for proving the point of my post.
I'm failing to see how that proves your post considering it was a statement referring to arrogance and assumptions about being right. Which by the way, you are the only one (of the two of us) who has shown that. I never claimed for sure that there is or is not a god. All I did was ask question, most of which you didn't really answer. And no, quoting the Bible is not an answer. That works for your faith, but no one else will benefit from that. If you want to appeal to other people, you'll have to 1) actually address the questions head on and 2) use unbiased material to the best of your ability.
I'll have a room for rent soon.
Maybe even an entire MIL apartment.
Indeed I tend to lean liberal and am an atheist. I have no idea when I'm getting back there. Hopefully within the year. I'm guessing you'll want to rent those places out before then.
Either way, your point is an important one that everyone needs to here. There is no evidence that a god for sure exists and there is no scientific need (as in, no question is so far from answering that we have to come up with something like god to even come close to an explanation) for a god to exist, but there is also no evidence that would suggest that some kind of god can't.
And before someone points to the Bible as evidence, it's not. Yes, the Bible says it's true, but that means nothing. That's called circular logic, and it's not considered valid by basically anyone.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
What you say is technically true. The problem, though, is people use this logic to legitimize a belief in God and even as a proof that God exists. I call this the conceit of religion since this logic only works (or, I should say, only accepted) within a religious context. If I were to say that I believe absolutely and devoutly in invisible pink unicorns because no one can prove they don't exist, people would start crossing to the other side of the street when they saw me coming.
But when it comes to gods, suddenly and inexplicably, it's perfectly fine to claim gods exists because no one can prove they don't.
To even mention this skewed view of the world only gives credence to religious conceit and believers of all stripes can use it to "win" on a technicality. "Humph! Well, no matter WHAT you say, you still can't prove God DOESN'T exist, so there."
You miss the essential feature of a God. It establishes the existence of our reality.(How is irrelevant.) That is the characteristic endemic to any concept of God. Since there IS a reality . . . there is a reason to proffer God. There is no such endemic characteristic mandating invisible pink unicorns . . . unless you are proffering them as God.
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I'm not sure what you mean by "some kind of god" but ... there is reasonable enough evidence that the kinds of gods most people worship do not exist - namely because they wouldn't be a part of nature. And there is no evidence to suggest that anything can be separate from the natural world.
We agree that there is no such thing as supernatural or not natural . . . but that is no limitation at all since over 95% of our natural reality is unknown and currently not amenable to scientific investigation. I refer to dark energy and dark matter . . . which are currently not directly measurable and we have no idea what they comprise. There is more than enough room for God and our Spirits, Shirina.
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Always install adequate protection.....
