do you believe in God

[breakwake_]

Countless numbers of people have died over thousands of years in the name of God, now we say there is no God. If I was one of those dead people I think I'd be insulted if you told me there is no God. We still kill each other like we killed each other because of God but now we use terrorism and WMD's as a reason to kill each other. Things don't change, only the reasons change.

 

[Elea]

thats the weathers fault

Trying to derail another earnest question, Meg? lol No dice this time.

I restate my question. How does the abuse of free will explain evils beyond the control of human beings?

 

[badly]

Theologians say a lot of things. Jesuit theologians of the 17th century had the chutzpah to declare murder and rape not sinful, so long as the rapist or murderer lacked the most egregious intent. Read Blaise Pascal's Provincial Letters. How could theologians possibly have gleaned God's position on the age of guilt? That is blackguard!

To be clear then,Christian theologians.Everything must be scriptural.

 

[megs233]

Trying to derail another earnest question, Meg? lol No dice this time.

I restate my question. How does the abuse of free will explain evils beyond the control of human beings?

no was trying to make light of it i said what think i wont repeat myself .other people fond of doing that .

 

[Elea]

To be clear then,Christian theologians.Everything must be scriptural.

The Jesuits are a Christian order. Where in scripture does God discuss the age of moral responsibility?

 

[Altair]

If you believe in the Scriptures, that there is a God, creator of Man, then you must also believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old.

You can't cherry pick what is written in the Scriptures.

Also when you compare DNA (genes) to other Animals and even Plants, they fall in a perfect family tree.(Evolution).

As Dawkins explains below....But no one listens...!!!

 

[Altair]

I wouldn't say I "believe" in God any more than I'd say I "believe" in gravity. I can't choose not to accept something which evidence overwhelmingly says is factual.

So, no, i don't "believe in God." I do, however, accept the reality of God's existence.

How can anyone take atheists seriously when one of the leaders of their ideology, Christopher Hitchens*, can't even explain what atheism is, let alone coherently defend it?

*Yes, I'm aware Christopher Hitchens has been burning in hell for many years now.

How can you defend 'Atheism'? or even explain it? ...Iv'e been an Atheist since i was 12 years old... I can do both.

 

[Altair]

To be clear then,Christian theologians.Everything must be scriptural.

Correct. You can't just "Cherry pick"...Either the Scriptures are right, or they are wrong. So many cop outs here with the Theists.

Ask a theist about "Adam and Eve"?.....'Noah's Ark'.....The list goes on.!

 

[Altair]

The Jesuits are a Christian order. Where in scripture does God discuss the age of moral responsibility?

It doesn't matter what 'order'...! (There can only be one)

Quote: "Where in scripture does God discuss the age of moral responsibility?"

He doesn't.

The reason for that is the Scriptures were written by Insecure and uneducated men with no morals.

"Rape and Incest....Hmm...Let's not discuss the age there.....Just make it so we can do it in the name"...?

TO THIS DAY THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT BELIEVE THIS sh**.!

BAN ALL RELIGIONS.

 

[Jude99]

Some people wanna be holy and some dont .... so just let the ones who do, do and the ones who dont, dont.

 

[Elea]

It doesn't matter what 'order'...! (There can only be one)

One what? One True Religious Order? All factions of Christianity believe God exists. Almost all believe Christ is God.

I found the same consensus among world religions. Belief in some kind of Highest God or Spirit is almost universal. In any event, I find the study of different religions and factions thereof of value in itself. Religions and their followers provide a wealth of reflection on deep questions.

 

[Elea]

The reason for that is the Scriptures were written by Insecure and uneducated men with no morals.

Do uneducated men write Stoic works like Ecclesiastes, poetry like Psalms or the Song of Songs, or tragic drama like the book of Job? Do they demonstrate an awareness of the best knowledge of their age as St Paul does in his Epistles? There were profound debates on ethics and the cosmos in St Paul's time. He himself mentions the Stoics and Epicureans. Many subjects scientists/philosophers still debate precede this time: cosmogony, zoogony, stoichogony, abiogenesis, natural law, heliocentrism, evolution, uniformitarianism, different types of multiverse (parallel, cyclic and nested), atoms, elements, physicalism, the conservation of matter/energy, quantitative/mathematical models of the cosmos, probability, isonomia, emergence, the principles of sufficient reason and ou mallon. People asked the same deep questions that we ask now: Is the cosmos eternal or finite? Is the cosmos bounded or infinite? What is the first principle of the cosmos? What processes gave rise to the cosmos? Does the cosmos have a purpose? Is there one cosmos or multiple cosmoi? Are there fundamental constituents of the cosmos (atoms, elements, geometric shapes), or are things infinitely divisible?

I find much of the Bible immoral. Still, if the Bible's authors were utterly devoid of morals, how do you explain Christ's teachings of unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness, humanism, asceticism and final judgement? Why would men without morals write books like Proverbs?

 

[felice]

Definitely not..I certainly do not believe in God, Jude 99

 

[badly]

If you believe in the Scriptures, that there is a God, creator of Man, then you must also believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old.

You can't cherry pick what is written in the Scriptures.

Also when you compare DNA (genes) to other Animals and even Plants, they fall in a perfect family tree.(Evolution).

As Dawkins explains below....But no one listens...!!!

Did you know accepted theory is earth existed below the event horizon when the universe was created. Where time didn’t exist?

 

[Jude99]

The Jesuits are a Christian order. Where in scripture does God discuss the age of moral responsibility?

Elea you seem to know a lot about the scriptures..... have you got any idea what happens to us when we die? There are a lot of theories but nothing solid.

 

[Elea]

The 'Big Bang'....?

The Big Bang is only a Theory...

The Big Bang Theory is flawed...The |Red| SHIFT Values are all wrong.

Even if the galactic redshifts were "wrong" (provide evidence, Altair), there is other evidence for the Big Bang:

Friedmann's equations. Alexander Friedmann showed an expanding universe (an idea some trace to Anaxagoras) is consistent with general relativity.

Thermal evidence. If one assumes the second law of thermodynamics, one would expect an eternal cosmos to have expended its usable energy and reached maximum entropy. Thus, the fact we still observe usable energy is believed to be evidence the universe began.

Helium abundance. Fred Hoyle calculated the amount of Helium in a universe which came from nothing. This is exactly the amount we observe.

The cosmic microwave background. In 1964 Penzias and Wilson discovered electromagnetic radiation pervading space, which is traceable to the recombination epoch roughly 400,000 years after the Big Bang. This electromagnetic radiation is believed to be the Big Bang's afterglow.

Mathematical/logical problems with infinity. Philoponus identified one of many such problems. If the cosmos were eternal, he argued, then infinite time/events precede the present. However, infinite past time/events could never have passed. Thus, an eternal cosmos will never reach the present.

I suspect you challenged the galactic redshifts as a convenient pivot to evolution. "If I accept the evidence for the Big Bang," you will ask, "why reject the evidence for evolution?" To be pellucid clear (negative valence aside), I think there are serious problems with evolution. I read Darwin, Dawkins, and other evolutionists, and took evolution and philosophy of science as part of my major. Still, I see real problems with neo-Darwinism and the mechanism of natural selection. In short, I don't believe we have conclusive evidence of either the Big Bang or evolution. I actually wrote a paper in defence of scientific realism (the belief that scientific theories are true) but found this position untenable. Confronted by philosophers like Popper and Kuhn, problems like underdetermination and induction, and the holocaust of scientific theories which, despite impressively precise predictions (still more precise than Hoyle's), are no longer believed, I was forced to a more moderate position. As Xenophanes said: "Not at first did the gods reveal all things to mortals, but in time, by inquiring, they make better discoveries." Thus when I hear statements in the vein of: "Science has explained the universe!" I remember Bernard Levi's caution: "Beware the republic of scientists." The true scientist knows the limits of his field. He knows science cannot definitively tell us the size of the universe, its origin, history or fate. The best we have are likely models. We hope these models reflect reality better than those they displace, but none are beyond question. For instance, recent evidence suggests a foundational axiom of special relativity may be challenged by quantum entanglement. According to special relativity, nothing travels faster than the speed of light (186,000 mps). However, experiments conducted by Alain Aspect in the 1980s suggest quantum particles can travel instantaneously. This result was supported by Salat's experiments in 2008, which suggest information transfer between quantum particles can occur at 10,000 times the speed of light. Moreover, even if all present scientific theories were true, there would still be unsolved mysteries. We have still to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics. And while some say we should amend general relativity, others believe dark matter/energy compose roughly 96% of the cosmos. We only know of these through their effects on what surrounds them. No one knows what they are. And even this ignorance presupposes a philosophy of empiricism/induction none need accept. I believe we still see through a glass darkly. We walk in darkness with uncertain steps.

 

[Altair]

Did you know accepted theory is earth existed below the event horizon when the universe was created. Where time didn’t exist?

What 'Accepted theory' ?...Never heard of it.!

 

[Altair]

Even if the galactic redshifts were "wrong" (provide evidence, Altair), there is other evidence for the Big Bang:

Friedmann's equations. Alexander Friedmann showed an expanding universe (an idea some trace to Anaxagoras) is consistent with general relativity.

Thermal evidence. If one assumes the second law of thermodynamics, one would expect an eternal cosmos to have expended its usable energy and reached maximum entropy. Thus, the fact we still observe usable energy is believed to be evidence the universe began.

Helium abundance. Fred Hoyle calculated the amount of Helium in a universe which came from nothing. This is exactly the amount we observe.

The cosmic microwave background. In 1964 Penzias and Wilson discovered electromagnetic radiation pervading space, which is traceable to the recombination epoch roughly 400,000 years after the Big Bang. This electromagnetic radiation is believed to be the Big Bang's afterglow.

Mathematical/logical problems with infinity. Philoponus identified one of many such problems. If the cosmos were eternal, he argued, then infinite time/events precede the present. However, infinite past time/events could never have passed. Thus, an eternal cosmos will never reach the present.

I suspect you challenged the galactic redshifts as a convenient pivot to evolution. "If I accept the evidence for the Big Bang," you will ask, "why reject the evidence for evolution?" To be pellucid clear (negative valence aside), I think there are serious problems with evolution. I read Darwin, Dawkins, and other evolutionists, and took evolution and philosophy of science as part of my major. Still, I see real problems with neo-Darwinism and the mechanism of natural selection. In short, I don't believe we have conclusive evidence of either the Big Bang or evolution. I actually wrote a paper in defence of scientific realism (the belief that scientific theories are true) but found this position untenable. Confronted by philosophers like Popper and Kuhn, problems like underdetermination and induction, and the holocaust of scientific theories which, despite impressively precise predictions (still more precise than Hoyle's), are no longer believed, I was forced to a more moderate position. As Xenophanes said: "Not at first did the gods reveal all things to mortals, but in time, by inquiring, they make better discoveries." Thus when I hear statements in the vein of: "Science has explained the universe!" I remember Bernard Levi's caution: "Beware the republic of scientists." The true scientist knows the limits of his field. He knows science cannot definitively tell us the size of the universe, its origin, history or fate. The best we have are likely models. We hope these models reflect reality better than those they displace, but none are beyond question. For instance, recent evidence suggests a foundational axiom of special relativity may be challenged by quantum entanglement. According to special relativity, nothing travels faster than the speed of light (186,000 mps). However, experiments conducted by Alain Aspect in the 1980s suggest quantum particles can travel instantaneously. This result was supported by Salat's experiments in 2008, which suggest information transfer between quantum particles can occur at 10,000 times the speed of light. Moreover, even if all present scientific theories were true, there would still be unsolved mysteries. We still cannot reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics. And while some say we should amend general relativity, others believe dark matter/energy compose roughly 96% of the cosmos. We only know of these through their effects on what surrounds them. No one knows what they are. And even this ignorance presupposes a philosophy of empiricism/induction none need accept. I believe we still see through a glass darkly. We walk in darkness with uncertain steps.

2 things. Red Shift:>>> Redshift - Wikipedia - Free Chat Rooms

If there 'Was' a 'Big Bang'...Then the Red shift values would be much higher than they are now...Un-explainable?

Secondly. Entropy is not the be all and end all of the Universe's expansion.. Early Stars exploding gave off massive amounts of force and energy. After time...Gravity takes control and even's out the playing field.

Just because Stars are rushing away from us, Doesn't prove there was a 'Big Bang'.

 

[Altair]

Elea you seem to know a lot about the scriptures..... have you got any idea what happens to us when we die? There are a lot of theories but nothing solid.

Jude:...I have read both the Old Testament and the New..(King James Bible.) several times.

It's a fascinating read, but none the less, still a book written by folk who had no clue about how they came to be.

Jude:....When you die. You Die...End of. That's it ! Nothing else.

No pearly gates or Mumbo Jumbo...You Just die and Go...!

The same as it has been, since life began.