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I can understand why you and many others take that view. I actually see that it looks more as though the complexity and order that we have is the result of natural processes rather than being designed by some independent will.
That said, even if one gives credit to the ID/complexity argument, one still needs to ask which was the god that dunnit?
The Bible is such a flawed and untrustworthy document that none of the religions that are based on it and which take any of its claims as valid (and that includes Islam, too, old son ) can be given any credence, and neither can the claims their founders and prophets make for their man - made particular gods; man - like or not.
Not sure if you have gotten the answer you were looking for yet. I am thinking that maybe you are asking because you might be open to hear what others might say. A while back the pastor at the church we were attending left to start his own church. A Seeker Church. We really liked him so we ended up leaving where we were and going there as well. It was full of different people no matter their "walk" at that time (believer or not/questioning). I am sure that you would see people there that you might not see at other churches. EVERYONE was welcome. It was obvious if you looked around. It was the type of church that you wore what you wanted. Among them would see bikers with cut off shirts and tattoos all over. people in suits/dresses, and in between. There was even a guy there, I will never forget years later. A young man, came in with white face paint, painted lips and horns, dressed all in black. He was welcomed like everyone else. Later heard that he had been turned away at other churches. We no longer attend there but while we were it was a wonderful experience and it helped not only people that questioned but also helped reenforce to those of us that believe. The reason I say this is if you just want to know, question or are curious, I am sure there are other churches like this in your area. Here is a website if you have any questions. GodWhy.com I am sure there are other websites as well for this purpose but thought I would give you one that I know of for certain.
We are humans and our minds are limited in the way we think. We cannot comprehend God's existence completely. He is nothing like us. Just like a tiny ant can't understand the complete workings of the Hunan body we too can't understand the workings of God.
Well considering that he's so 'unknowable, beyond understanding etc, there appears to be rather a lot of you Christians that know what your god does and doesn't want, his likes and dislikes, who he's going to allow into 'heaven' and who he isn't going to allow in, what he is and isn't going to do etc.
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We are limited in our minds by time and space and believe God has to have cone from somewhere but he didn't He was always there.
Oh, well in that case - if your god has 'always been there' then so too has the universe 'always been there'.....there, that settles it...or are you going for 'special pleading' in the case of your god?
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He is not like us He is far greater. And trying to think what came before will never lead you to an answer.
Oh, I don't know!! Science seems to have managed well enough. I understand that, as a Christian, you would rather see us living with bronze-age thinking and beliefs but fortunately, science moves on. Aeroplanes fly, magic carpets and broomsticks don't.
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In this life we should just focus on all the amazing things he has created to get some understanding of his greatness and some of his wonderful characteristics instead.
The Hindus might say the same about Brahma.
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Originally Posted by Lailz
Just looking at the order and intricate way this world was created is evidence enough for me that a being far superior than a human or any accident created this world.
I think you need to look at the puddle of water a little closer.
if you trace your family tree you will end up with Adam and Adam was created by God
Oh? And yet, when we use the very modern science of mtRNA* tracking via the female Hominids of our distant past, we find ourselves travelling back through N. Asia, down through SE Asia, across the Tibetan highlands and through Iran, Syria, Egypt, into Africa and eventually to Lucy in S. Africa. (afarensis spp)
Hmmm.
No Adam and Eve at all, which is obviously a great big allegorical fairy-tail. It's also odd how so-called educated people, in this early but very technically advanced and advancing 21st century choose to believe in Adam and Eve, and the literal impossibility of their Genesis story (talking snakes? A world which is a mer 6000+ yrs old? Noah's incomprehensible Flood? )
And yet, obviously by the post above, many still willingly buy into this kiddie's myth!
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BTW, moonsun, if you refute *mtRNA tracking, could you please be so kind and scholarly as to briefly explain it's rather simple premise and process to us? You know; so we can understand why you might deny it's existence or validity? Thanks!
Islam unlike other religions in NO way whatsoever says that God is human. He is NOT a human. He is NOTHING like us which is what makes believing in his greatness easier. He is not limited like we are He can do anything. I dont see oxygen but i believe in it because logical evidence points me towards believing in it. Just looking at the order and intricate way this world was created is evidence enough for me that a being far superior than a human or any accident created this world.
Life's origins do indeed turn out to be an accidental or chance occurrence, but the statistics of such an event are far from unlikely given the sextrillion reproductive replications of such events that occur in the world's oceans each and every hour, multiplied by about 13 - 14 BILLON years of trial and error testing, times the resulting uncountable numbers of "parents" that are regenerating all those independent reproductions. The output is staggering, not impossible! It's just simple exponential math!
Plus, initial life forms, per se, are really nothing particularly amazing; it was simply a uni-celled molecule capable of remembering it's past versions [via DNA], entertaining the occasional mutations that we in fact know do happen, and then replicating those "new and improved" [or possibly lethal and thus lost…] versions for that never-ending trial and error real-world testing process.
How utterly and understandably simple huh? And yet, for some inexplicable reason, you are Awestruck by it? PS: is that what they told you to be at AiG or those other criminally inept and technically illiterate Christian websites? As in:
"Don't question any of it! It's just too awesome for your mind to comprehend! Just leave it to US; we'll do all your thinking for you, trust us. Now: Tithe, my children, tithe! Like there's no tomorrow!"
Ok for all those people who have been replying to my comment I would like to clarify that I am a Muslim and NOT a Christian. For the person that said Christianity is flawed then have a proper look at Islam which believes in Jesus as a prophet and a messenger and not as a God. Also we as Muslims don't believe that we are just the best and will get an automatic ticket to go to heaven. We believe we will be punished in hell as well if we didn't behave as good Muslims should.
Also for the person who said the universe always existed you must not believe in science then either because according to many scientists the world was CREATED following the big bang a few billion years
ago
Life's origins do indeed turn out to be an accidental or chance occurrence, but the statistics of such an event are far from unlikely given the sextrillion reproductive replications of such events that occur in the world's oceans each and every hour, multiplied by about 13 - 14 BILLON years of trial and error testing, times the resulting uncountable numbers of "parents" that are regenerating all those independent reproductions. The output is staggering, not impossible! It's just simple exponential math!
Plus, initial life forms, per se, are really nothing particularly amazing; it was simply a uni-celled molecule capable of remembering it's past versions [via DNA], entertaining the occasional mutations that we in fact know do happen, and then replicating those "new and improved" [or possibly lethal and thus lost…] versions for that never-ending trial and error real-world testing process.
How utterly and understandably simple huh? And yet, for some inexplicable reason, you are Awestruck by it? PS: is that what they told you to be at AiG or those other criminally inept and technically illiterate Christian websites? As in:
"Don't question any of it! It's just too awesome for your mind to comprehend! Just leave it to US; we'll do all your thinking for you, trust us. Now: Tithe, my children, tithe! Like there's no tomorrow!"
Ok seeing as you mentioned statistics have a think about this.
A dice has six sides. If you throw a dice and guess any number between 1 to 6, the chances that your guess will be correct is 1/6. If you throw the dice the second time, the chances that your guess will be correct in both the throws is (1/6 x 1/6) which is equal to 1/36 and so on.
So now apply this theory of probability to the Qur’an, and assume that a person has guessed all the information that is mentioned in the Qur’an which was unknown at that time and see what the probability of all those guesses being simultaneously correct are.
At the time when the Qur’an was revealed, people thought the world was flat, there are several other options for the shape of the earth. It could be triangular, it could be quadrangular, pentagonal, hexagonal, heptagonal, octagonal, spherical, etc. Lets assume there are about 30 different options for the shape of the earth. The Qur’an rightly says it is spherical, if it was a guess the chances of the guess being correct is 1/30.
The light of the moon can be its own light or a reflected light. The Qur’an rightly says it is a reflected light. If it is a guess, the chances that it will be correct is 1/2 and the probability that both the guesses i.e the earth is spherical and the light of the moon is reflected light is 1/30 x 1/2 = 1/60.
There are more examples but this could get very long. My point is that these scientific facts were mentioned in the Quran 1400 years ago well before they were discovered by science. As Muslims we draw the conclusion that the science from the Quran couldn't have been luckily guessed by a Human because there would be too many lucky guesses at a time when those were not known about at all. We believe only God could have known that and revealed it as one of the many signs of his existence in the Quran.
But first we have to categorically eliminate all the conjecture, the obtuse and/or inarguable or alternative meanings. Thee irrefutability factor, as it were. It's easy to speculate on what someone might mean when they perhaps say "And then all the light of the heavens shall flow into the house.." to mean, well, a lot of different things, but to conveniently then peg it as meaning something specifical, but also only after you know what you want it to mean, is pure conjecture, not proof.
The specific words you need to look up and think about at length here before coming back at me are "Incontrovertible" and "Unambiguous".
Meaning, in a nutshell, having one and only one meaning, and absolutely demonstrable. For which, I'm afraid, passages in both the bible and the Qu'Ran don't ever qualify!
As in: your Qu'Ran never says that "on April 22, 2012, the sun shall rise in the west.!!!
Now that is what I call a prophecy, and if your book ever did say such stuff, I'd have been completely convinced and would have converted the next morning to Islam if it came true.
But I'm betting (a) there are no such specific quotes in your pet book, and (b) it won't happen that way anyhow.
After all, your little book of ancient allegories and fables has never yet pegged itself down that tightly, because, just as with these never-ending and relentlessly stupid Christian "End-Times" doomsday predictions, they ALWAYS fail. why? Because there is no God in Heaven, so how on Earth could He engage The Reality Drive any time soon?
Agreed? Incontrovertibly so? Unambiguously so? So... uhhmm.... you have no argument.
And so, finally, we can conclude that both the Qu'Ran and the Bible are not so hot as science texts! They both have absolutely no special knowledge in their day or today, other than wild ambiguous conjectures designed to fool the illiterate, and they have precious little functional prophetic value in these modern times.
I am an agnostic, basically I just don't know either way. Convince me of God WITHOUT quoting anything from the Bible. I promise to listen ( or read!) with open mind.
You are asking an impossible question to answer as you you either have faith that God exists or you dont, what could you possibly expect some one to say that would give you that ahah moment of the existence of God.
I think you are on your own on this one..
I don't know how the Earth was created, but why does it matter?
I mean, the Earth is here and we are living on it. We just have to determine how we want to live our lives.
Yes, God created you and I to have free will, the freedom to believe or deny. I take solace in knowing that, whatever there is at the end of this life; my belief will not be a barrier at the end of my days. Living a good life (doing unto others) is a virtue... however, no man comes to God except through him. No matter how hard any of us tries we will always be imperfect and this imperfection is why he made the ultimate sacrifice.
If God made us then who made God? Our brains do not possess the ability to comprehend this. Choosing to dismiss God entirely is a laymens way of hiding from the reality of God.
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) can be given any credence, and neither can the claims their founders and prophets make for their man - made particular gods; man - like or not.
Some day, it will all be clear to you, kiddies!
Oh Lord! Not this again!
