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Intelligence not agreeing with making errors is a western way of thinking. Many great thinkers from the east would say that errors lead to new understanding, and that it would be better to attempt much and fail much (and learn much), than attempt little and have the easy and perfect life, appearing superficially wise and powerful.
Someone like Abraham Lincoln could be considered an intelligent person, but made many mistakes on his way up the ladder of accomplishment and growth. The same can be said of countless other persons from around the world and over time. You gain most from the observation and effort put in, not the measure of your results. Americans love to belittle people and throw stones based on only end results, and never give a moment into seeing all the rest that has been involved. It's a narrow, shallow, and limited way of seeing. Just another example of "See little, know little".
Completely agree, where humans are involved... but isn't God supposed to be a little more than just "another person from around the world and over time?" This would seem to chip away at (or perhaps obliterate...) the concept of God as the entity with enough chops to pull off everything with which we want to credit him/her/it. If God is learning from his mistakes, he starts to look more and more human all the time. Which would fit perfectly well with a "common sense" conclusion (per the theme of this thread) that he is a creation of humans.... with almost as many variations as there are humans.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thoreau424
I'm of the opinion that God has changed his approach over time. Dinosaurs? Yeah, around and carrying on, but perhaps not the ideal way to go, so taking an exit. The old vengeful and domineering God of the OT? That could only go on for so long until a totally different approach was needed (the relaxed and mutual friend in the form of Jesus). Look around the universe, and the constant you'll see is change.
Following on the above, I know we like to humanize our God(s), to make them accessible and relatable (repeat after me, "Our father, who art in heaven..."), but this seems a rather extreme case of anthropomorphizing coupled with reverse engineering. We have natural explanations for many of those changes you see, including the appearance and disappearance of dinosaurs, without rationalizing that the all-powerful, all-knowing creator simply wanted a do-over (really?). Similarly, the first place we should be looking to understand differences between the OT and NT versions of God is the difference in time and culture and motivation of the HUMANS who wrote all those books, which were much later bundled together into what we now know as the Bible (through a very human editorial process). Isn't that a more likely source of difference than God deciding that his nasty war god vibe was getting old, and he needed to take a kinder-and-gentler approach?
Perhaps I am missing the point (though it was written clearly enough)... but this seems to require a great deal of reverse engineering, working backwards to fit God to what we see all around us. There are MUCH easier explanations for those things (see Occam's Razor).
Last edited by HeelaMonster; 07-16-2021 at 12:26 PM..
Completely agree, where humans are involved... but isn't God supposed to be a little more than just "another person from around the world and over time?" This would seem to chip away at (or perhaps obliterate...) the concept of God as the entity with enough chops to pull off everything with which we want to credit him/her/it. If God is learning from his mistakes, he starts to look more and more human all the time. Which would fit perfectly well with a "common sense" conclusion (per the theme of this thread) that he is a creation of humans.... with almost as many variations as there are humans.
Following on the above, I know we like to humanize our God(s), to make them accessible... but this seems a rather extreme case of anthropomorphizing. We have natural explanations for many of those changes you see, including the appearance and disappearance of dinosaurs, without rationalizing that the all-powerful, all-knowing creator simply wanted a do-over (really?). Similarly, the first place we should be looking to understand differences between the OT and NT versions of God is the difference in time and culture and motivation of the HUMANS who wrote all those books, which were much later bundled together into what we now know as the Bible (through a very human editorial process). Isn't that a more likely source of difference than God deciding that the nasty war god vibe was getting old, and he needed to take a kinder-and-gentler approach?
Perhaps I am missing the point (though it was written clearly enough)... but this seems to require a great deal of reverse engineering, working backwards to fit God to what we see all around us. There are MUCH easier explanations for those things (see Occam's Razor).
The issue is that we simply do not know what our Reality comprises but we have a unique capability not found in any other aspect of its directly measurable composition - our consciousness. It is not too surprising if we try to "conscious-ize" our Reality (as opposed to anthropomorphize it). As best we can determine, our macro Reality manifests within a spacetime field (or fields) comprised of aggregations of vibratory micro phenomena variously characterized as quanta, sometimes characterized as quantum foam.
Unfortunately, these field phenomena exist at energy levels largely inaccessible to our macro measurements. The aggregated spherical standing waveforms of these vibratory manifestations are responsible for the existence and consistency of material objects in our experience of Reality. Any simplistic Occam's Razor understanding of such an amorphous actuality is just beyond foolish.
Completely agree, where humans are involved... but isn't God supposed to be a little more than just "another person from around the world and over time?" This would seem to chip away at (or perhaps obliterate...) the concept of God as the entity with enough chops to pull off everything with which we want to credit him/her/it. If God is learning from his mistakes, he starts to look more and more human all the time. Which would fit perfectly well with a "common sense" conclusion (per the theme of this thread) that he is a creation of humans.... with almost as many variations as there are humans.
Following on the above, I know we like to humanize our God(s), to make them accessible and relatable (repeat after me, "Our father, who art in heaven..."), but this seems a rather extreme case of anthropomorphizing coupled with reverse engineering. We have natural explanations for many of those changes you see, including the appearance and disappearance of dinosaurs, without rationalizing that the all-powerful, all-knowing creator simply wanted a do-over (really?). Similarly, the first place we should be looking to understand differences between the OT and NT versions of God is the difference in time and culture and motivation of the HUMANS who wrote all those books, which were much later bundled together into what we now know as the Bible (through a very human editorial process). Isn't that a more likely source of difference than God deciding that his nasty war god vibe was getting old, and he needed to take a kinder-and-gentler approach?
Perhaps I am missing the point (though it was written clearly enough)... but this seems to require a great deal of reverse engineering, working backwards to fit God to what we see all around us. There are MUCH easier explanations for those things (see Occam's Razor).
You are NOT thinking in terms of a conscious universe, whose nature is to create complex systems. Gods with personalities can be included in those systems, but they are not the ultimate creators or rulers of the systems. The system ultimately creates itself.
No, it was questioned, and it was not accepted because of atheism, it was accepted because of the evidence for it. That is why religious people accept evolution, because of the evidence. But do continue to build your straw man.
I NEVER said I don't believe in evolution!!!!!! My criticism is of the neo-Darwinist theory of evolution, which does NOT have any supporting evidence!!!!
All the evidence is for evolution -- yes we know evolution happened, most likely, and for natural selection -- yes we know natural selection necessarily has to happen.
NO EVIDENCE FOR NEO-D. NONE. The lack of common sense I am talking about is the faith in a theory that makes no sense and has no evidence behind it.
And it's circular reasoning to say neo-D must be true because materialism is true, and materialism is true because neo-D is true.
The issue is that we simply do not know what our Reality comprises but we have a unique capability not found in any other aspect of its directly measurable composition - our consciousness. It is not too surprising if we try to "conscious-ize" our Reality (as opposed to anthropomorphize it). As best we can determine, our macro Reality manifests within a spacetime field (or fields) comprised of aggregations of vibratory micro phenomena variously characterized as quanta, sometimes characterized as quantum foam.
Unfortunately, these field phenomena exist at energy levels largely inaccessible to our macro measurements. The aggregated spherical standing waveforms of these vibratory manifestations are responsible for the existence and consistency of material objects in our experience of Reality. Any simplistic Occam's Razor understanding of such an amorphous actuality is just beyond foolish.
First, please resist the urge to close with "beyond foolish" as a parting shot, and I'll return the courtesy.
Now take all that conscious Reality, manifesting within a spacetime field, with aggregated vibratory micro phenomena and quantum foam and further aggregated spherical standing waveforms, all amorphous and inaccessible to our macro measurements... and set it aside for one moment... and respond to these non-complicated statements:
"God decided one day (year, century, millennium, whatever) that dinosaurs weren't working out as well as he hoped, so he took a mulligan."
"Sometime during the few thousand years between the writing of the OT and the writing of the NT, God realized that being mean wasn't working out either, so he decided he needed to turn that frown upside down."
Because those were the claims (paraphrasing) to which I was responding.
Last edited by HeelaMonster; 07-16-2021 at 01:30 PM..
Even if you could establish the falsity of the Omni's, Phet, you would not establish that God does not exist. The Omni's are just human creations of attributes they THINK God should have. I missed that step by not buying into any of it for 30+ years. I can imagine how frustrated you must have been with those around you pushing their certainty about God. Let it go. They were just wrong.
God just is with whatever attributes God actually has, period. Your choice of belief system suggests that you have an inner sense that we are not just physical beings. I agree and have discovered how that could possibly be. I am bemused by your tenacious resistance to my views about it, but I will get over it. You should try to forgive your aunt and whoever else pushed their beliefs on you.
1. My position is not that God doesn't exist. My position is that I don't see sufficient evidence to conclude that god exists.
2. Why should I listen to why you THINK God exists or behaves, any more than any other person with a totally different viewpoint?
3. When I was a kid, one thing my relatives did teach me that was good advice was: It's okay for you to talk about your own family. It's not okay for someone else to talk about your family. Sorry that you and Arach never learned that.
1- I don't answer to religion-ist. I answer to observation. All knowing, all powerful doesn't seem to fit.
The real issue is why don't people change not really the belief.
2- you answer to Christians, your reply is based on them. My reply is based on what we see around us
3- Yes, you here to fight religion not talk about beliefs. Yes, I am here to discuss beliefs but will not back down from you.
The big difference is I start with "me", you start with "can't be me".
My list is done my man. You know that. You can't hang, because this is a war for you. Too bad to are blinded by so much rage. I am sorry the adults in your life didn't act as such. But it aint my fault either phet.
I add new beliefs as they come. You get right back to that "not beating a dead horse" of fight religion over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
1. My points stand.
2. Just cause you say it, doesn't mean it's so.
3. Show us your concise list. Don't talk about it. Show us.
I NEVER said I don't believe in evolution!!!!!! My criticism is of the neo-Darwinist theory of evolution, which does NOT have any supporting evidence!!!!
All the evidence is for evolution -- yes we know evolution happened, most likely, and for natural selection -- yes we know natural selection necessarily has to happen.
NO EVIDENCE FOR NEO-D. NONE. The lack of common sense I am talking about is the faith in a theory that makes no sense and has no evidence behind it.
And it's circular reasoning to say neo-D must be true because materialism is true, and materialism is true because neo-D is true.
When you make statements as you do above, then it appears to me you are being hyperbolic.
IMO
Common sense comes from experience or the cognizance of the mind to learn, and what they learn, know how to apply it.
Some folk have the presence of mind to know gas is flammable but without thinking, light a match to see what they are doing. They have knowledge, but not common sense.
There is plenty of evidence of interferent design much like our breeding horses and dogs and cats, but there are volumes of creatures that man had no influence what so ever that are very complex and survive conditions most other creatures can not, due to their chemistry. Have you ever looked through a microscope and seen living organic creatures?
They have a mind and a will and take action. They consume food and reproduce, and they are food for something else.
There have been no new species evolving in recorded time. NO proof of evolution.
There is plenty of proof of intelligent design though, and a God that not only set it all in motion but takes special interest in certain of His own.
...
There have been no new species evolving in recorded time. NO proof of evolution.
There is plenty of proof of intelligent design though, and a God that not only set it all in motion but takes special interest in certain of His own.
No.
Now hop on Noah's ark and float down to your nearest library and read some respected scientific literature.
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