The God Arguement

[ink]

Originally posted by phookat
Yeah, just minor things, like in one of them believing in Jesus gets you to heaven, and in the other believing in Jesus sends you to Hell.  No big differences though.

show me these?

[Seagoon]

Hi Sandy,

Originally posted by Sandman
There is no god.


...but if there was, he would have my contempt.

Actually, your summary above comes pretty close to what scripture says about relations between God and man in His fallen state - the reality being that there is a God but that he is treated with contempt by His creation. This includes what the Bible says of his Son, Jesus, both prophetically as in Isaiah:

"He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him." (Is. 53:3)

as well as in application, as Jesus taught his Apostles, they should expect to be hated by the world, as He was hated and rejected by the men of his own generation, and indeed still is to this very day:

"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. "Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated Me without a cause.'" (John 15:18-25)

Having once felt nothing but contempt for Christ and Christians myself, I can well understand the response of British author Kingsley Amis to Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s question if he was an atheist, "It's more than that. You see I hate Him."

Sadly, we are as stiffnecked and stubbornly opposed to God as ever and John 1:11 is still as true today as it ever was: "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him."

- SEAGOON

[ink]

seagoon very well written

allthough i dont think truine GOD is bible teaching,
 its mans teaching

ive heard all the arguments why people believe this is so but like every thing we have our own opinions,mine is based on the word of GOD not what man has said or done.

  i think most christen religions have a aspect of truth but have been turned into something thats not the truth.

people blame GOD for the things that happen in this world,  
GOD  gave us freewill    what happens to us is our own fault we brought it on  ourselves
  but most people will dispute that, thats cool remember FREEWILL

IMHO  when people stop judging, or feeling that they have the capacity to judge others, this world might be on a better road.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Seagoon
Hi Sandy,

Actually, your summary above comes pretty close to what scripture says about relations between God and man in His fallen state - the reality being that there is a God but that he is treated with contempt by His creation. This includes what the Bible says of his Son, Jesus, both prophetically as in Isaiah:

"He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him." (Is. 53:3)

as well as in application, as Jesus taught his Apostles, they should expect to be hated by the world, as He was hated and rejected by the men of his own generation, and indeed still is to this very day:

"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. "Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated Me without a cause.'" (John 15:18-25)

Having once felt nothing but contempt for Christ and Christians myself, I can well understand the response of British author Kingsley Amis to Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s question if he was an atheist, "It's more than that. You see I hate Him."

Sadly, we are as stiffnecked and stubbornly opposed to God as ever and John 1:11 is still as true today as it ever was: "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him."

- SEAGOON

Strangely enough, you have my respect. You sir, are a true believer. The rest can go **** themselves.

[Gunthr]

hmm.  Sandy says there is no God.  According to PhooKat, Sandy is not an atheist...  its confusing.


maybe there are different sects of Atheists...

[phookat]

Originally posted by Seagoon
As I stated in another thread, there are really only three possibilities to explain the existence of the Universe

Are you a scientist seagoon?  Have you really studies the various theories of cosmology?  Do you have the appropriate education to understand all of them?  If not, then I think it is unwise of you to offer them as proof or evidence of your position.  The events of that time in the ancient past are a great challenge for even the greatest geniuses of our time.  And if the history of science has taught us anything, it has taught us this: our intuitions are often wrong and always to be suspected.  Quantum mechanics, for example, is an unbelievably unintuitive science.  So we can't discuss cosmology off-the-cuff, as it were, and expect to arrive at any conclusion.

The first cause argument is undoubtedly the strongest possibility for the existence of God, because it deals with an area of science that we haven't figured out yet (and we may never do so).  As history progresses, there is always a frontier of our knowledge of reality.  The religious and theologians have always eagerly inserted God at this frontier: we don't know how that works, therefore God did it.  As science uncovers more and more, the religious are forced to place their "God of the knowledge gaps" further and further back.  Now the first cause happens to be our frontier, and the many-times-failed God currently resides there.

There are several problems with the first cause argument:

1) We don't even know if there was a first cause.  A 4-dimensional closed manifold is one cosmological theory that eliminates the idea.

2) The first cause is just an infinite regression.  What caused the first cause?

3) There is nothing to indicate that such a first cause would be intelligent.

4) There is nothing to indicate that even an intelligent first cause is actually the Christian God, the perfect author of the Bible.

Only a sufficient answer to all of that would constitute evidence for your God.  I will be surprised if you are actually able to answer those challenges, Seagoon.  If you can, I'd suggest you buy your tickets for Stockholm and pick up your prize (not to mention the Templeton prize you would get right here, which I understand is an even higher dollar amount than the other).


As far as the rest of your long post (which deals with how the Bible says some people will reject God), it all has a fatal flaw.  A flaw that many of your posts share.  You assume the Bible is true, and is the perfect word of God.  There is no reason to assume that, in fact it is quite a fantastic assumption to make.  So although you can make all sorts of brilliant intellectual maneuvers, it all hinges on that weakest link.

BTW a good website that discusses some of this is here:

http://www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com/

BTW Ike, if you are reading this: My comment was referring to Islam vs Christianity, in response to your statement about "many religions being similar".

[john9001]

no one can explain the existence of the Universe, all you can do is speculate.

[bustr]

phookat,

You are working overtime on this board to silence the voices of persons like seagoon in favor of your as yet disclosed professional persona, title and bonafides as the ultimate arbiter of the structure and nature of the universe. Or at least telling this audience it lacks the right to any discource because you can detect fallicies in our arguments. Science as a vocation accomplishes only decoding the language which describes the existance and mechanics of the universe. It does not grant you dominion over us because you can speak some of the phrases.

Science does not know who, what, how and when that language was created and placed into function. It can only describe it's phenominon and duplicate imperfictly some of it's functions. Your statements to seagoon about his fitness to speak on this subject sound exactly like Midevil Catholic clergymen telling the masses they are too stoopid to know the nature of God.

[AKIron]

"Science is a technique, social and institutionalized, whereby even unintelligent people can be useful in the advance of knowledge."   --Abraham Maslow

[bozon]

When you don't understand physics, but still apply it to you arguments, you get an interesting philosophical arguments. When you do start to understand the physics you realize:
a) People that give these arguments use bad physics.
b) Physics is not meant to answer these questions.
c) People that apply bad physics to answer questions that are not relevant to physics, are trying to sell you something.

A not so relevant side note: I once had this talk with a religious friend of mine, which I highly respect for his open minded and inquisitive approach to religion. We were only undergrad physics students at the time. I asked him "Lets say we do come to a conclusion, using pure science, that there is a god. This still doesn't tell us which one is it. Why are you Jewish?". He said, "Well, you have to pick one. I pick the one I know".

[AKIron]

Originally posted by bozon
When you don't understand physics, but still apply it to you arguments, you get an interesting philosophical arguments. When you do start to understand the physics you realize:
a) People that give these arguments use bad physics.
b) Physics is not meant to answer these questions.
c) People that apply bad physics to answer questions that are not relevant to physics, are trying to sell you something.

A not so relevant side note: I once had this talk with a religious friend of mine, which I highly respect for his open minded and inquisitive approach to religion. We were only undergrad physics students at the time. I asked him "Lets say we do come to a conclusion, using pure science, that there is a god. This still doesn't tell us which one is it. Why are you Jewish?". He said, "Well, you have to pick one. I pick the one I know".

I think one of the points in our musings in this and various other threads is that none of us (some less than others perhaps) really understand "physics". Oh sure, some bandy terms and/or concepts upon which they don't have a firm grip but that doesn't necessarily mean they are missing the true nature of our existence any less than those who fully understand their beliefs.

[bustr]

Granting yourself authority over others because of being infatuated with your own cleverness is neither good science or religion. But more accurately a sublime rendering of a donkey making whoopy with itself.

[AKIron]

Originally posted by bustr
Granting yourself authority over others because of being infatuated with your own cleverness is neither good science or religion. But more accurately a sublime rendering of a donkey making whoopy with itself.

ouch!

[AKIron]

My view is that believing in God means I don't end when I die. If there is a God I continue on, if there isn't, I don't. Beyond this basic "black and whiteness" there is room for much speculation.

[Chairboy]

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/120984.html