Zenister 0 #51 January 11, 2003 actually none of that is evidence, only arguments for the existance of god and also arguments only for the christian view of divinity as well.. Quote If we believe in God and he exists, we will be rewarded with eternal bliss in heaven. If we believe in God and he does not exist then at worst all we have forgone is a few sinful pleasures. hard to believe anyone still uses this argument, it has enough holes to be a collander.. lets see..this paraphased from a discussion i once had on Pascal's Wager Quote reasons for belief in God ie:Pascal's Wager. Case 1: God exists and you believe = Yippee! Case 2: God exists and you don't believe = Boy, you are in trouble! Case 3: No God and you believe = no gain Case 4: No God and no belief = no loss however Pascal's Wager has an entire laundry list of problems, not the least of which is that an Omnipotent god should see your sham of a belief for what it is (fear of hell and not true belief). Just a few more cases: Case 5: More than one god and you picked wrong one - Go directly to hell loser. Case 6: Only one god and you picked wrong faith - Go to hell. Case 7: God doesn't require belief to gain benefits - Go to heaven without having wasted your time. Case 8: God exists but hell doesn't - Everybody goes to heaven. Case 9: God exists but neither heaven nor hell exist - Death leads to oblivion or somewhere else. Case 10: Multiple Gods with variety of heaven/hells. - Increasing odds of gain and lose By the way: Case 3: No God and you believe = no gain Is incorrect. You lose from all the time and energy wasted in belief. Also: Case 1: God exists and you believe = Yippee! (See the other cases for this, it's not cut and dry like Pascal thought) We have to make a lot of assumptions for Pascal's Wager to be viable. In reality, these uncertainities make the potential for loss far outweigh the potential for gain. personally case 7 makes the most sense to me. the christian god has some strange need for justification thru the belief of mankind. Religion attempts to make man the reason for creation in the first place, this is a very self centered and self serving idea. Other than some old literature claiming so what evidence do you have that an individual life is of any concern to a being capable of creating everything?? ----------------- btw science is a method of inquiry not a belief and a great deal of it can be proven, and demonstrated repeatedly..(gravity for example ) while no claim made by any religion can be called anything more than faith. -------edited to add------ Quote thanks K "Pasteur's Wager". Let's say you contract an easily curable, yet fatal disease like... Syphilis. Now then, we have to wager here: On one side, we have God, the all-powerful who will take care of you and who knows what is true and what is false. Just consult his manual if you have any questions or concerns. On the other hand, we have god-less science that REQUIRES evidence before we can say something is true. So, what are you going to do? Pray that you get well or take a Penicillin shot? Well, which is it? Do you put your hands in God or science? Don't worry. If this is God's will, the sores and rash only last for a few months and then you usually have several productive years before it drives you insane and kills you. ____________________________________ Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rhino 0 #52 January 11, 2003 QuoteI agree!! I believe in God, and Jesus Christ. I pray and have faith in that belief. I live by the belief that "Everything happens for a reason" good and bad. However...organized religions have been used by man as a tool and method to control society..in all religions, christianity, muslim, budist, etc. The purpose of church is FELLOWSHIP.. Nothing more.. I believe most churches are out of control.. I agree.. I don't attend regurlarly. But I do goto bible study.. And I tithe in other ways... Rhino Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rhino 0 #54 January 11, 2003 QuoteGod" does not exist. Never has, never will. I'll say it before God tells you to go to hell.. You are going to burn.. LOL Rhino Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Iflyme 0 #55 January 11, 2003 [QUOTE]The purpose of church is FELLOWSHIP.. [/QUOTE]And here I thought it was to gather all that money in the collection plates! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rhino 0 #56 January 11, 2003 No. That is to fund the spreading of the Gospel and missions to bring people to Christ.. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jraf 0 #57 January 11, 2003 i hate to spread this most blasphemous rumor, but i think that god has a sick sense of humor, and when i die i will find him laughingjraf Me Jungleman! Me have large Babalui. Muff #3275 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
flyangel2 2 #58 January 11, 2003 This is the way I see it. I believe in a god, cause when I die and I find myself standing at the pearly gates, and he ask if I believe, I tell him "yes". On the other hand if I don't believe and I die and I'm standing in front of the pearly gates and god ask if I believe, and say "no", I'm in trouble. If I believe and when I die and there is no god, I'm out nothing. I was imprisoned for 12 years when I attended catholic school. What gets me going is when people try to force their believes on other people. If everyone would just live by good morals, the world would be a better place. Who's to say one religion is the right religion and their god is the almighty? May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zenister 0 #59 January 11, 2003 and pay for a nice pretty building, the preachers Mercedes etc... god doesn’t need your money, the church does. churches are a social club, a means of enforcing mores, controlling and fleecing the masses.. get out and experience divinity for your self, accepting the words of man in place of the experience of god is a path to slavery not enlightenment.____________________________________ Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
christopherm 0 #60 January 11, 2003 Quote btw science is a method of inquiry not a belief and a great deal of it can be proven, and demonstrated repeatedly..(gravity for example ) while no claim made by any religion can be called anything more than faith. Quote btw no science can be proven. A scientifical theasus can be probable from many experiments but can't be proven. Even though the idea of gravity has been proven probable, it isn't proven because it could be failing constantly yet we can't see it's failure. Maybe "gravity" will sease to exist tomorrow, we all have faith that it won't. The only things we can prove are those that we make the rules. 1+1 will =, ummmm, just a sec, let me get my calculator,.... okay, 2 forever. That can be proven. Oh yeah, I'm glad there are people who can intelligently argue those points. -So, how hard is the ground?! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jumperconway 0 #61 January 11, 2003 in a word Y E S ! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zenister 0 #62 January 11, 2003 sophistry. until you show me one example of gravity not working it is a 'proven' law. the first time it doesn’t science will modify its theory to fit the current observation.this is what makes the scientific method so successful. as i stated before it is not a belief it is a manner of inquiry. the earth orbits the sun. there are many ways to prove this, based on observation, experience, and independantly repeatable experiments, that constitute proof. Not to be divisive, but if you disagree with this then you lack a fundamental understanding of what science is and how it works. science seeks to understand why things function in the manner they do. religion on the other hand makes assertions without evidence. for example: if gravity stopped working tomorrow science would seek to understand why, religion would claim "its gods will" and be done with it. Nothing in science and religion is inherently incompatible, until religion makes un-testable and therefore un-provable arguments and unfounded claims based on little more than wishful thinking.____________________________________ Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
christopherm 0 #63 January 11, 2003 Quote science seeks to understand why things function in the manner they do. religion on the other hand makes assertions without evidence. I believe that miracles qualify as evidence, they happen everyday. Why does someone with line stretch bounce and survive when obviously, according to all probable science, should have died. That I consider evidence of god. Damn my lack of a college education, I imagine I would be much better at this if i had one -So, how hard is the ground?! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
peckerhead 0 #64 January 11, 2003 It is not likely God is concerned with the fates or actions of humankind, on a universal scale such things would seem trivial to an omni-potent super being. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zenister 0 #65 January 11, 2003 really? and what leads you to believe that god had any hand in it? Because you cannot explain it? why one person lives and another dies?? What you are experiencing is the exact reason why man creates gods to begin with, to explain that which he is afraid of or does not understand. Earth quakes, floods, fires…etc, what you call a miracle can usually be traced to actually physical causes assuming there is enough documented evidence to investigate. Unless you see the hand of god reach down and catch someone, you are only giving a name to an event not easily explained some would call the smile of a child, or the smell of summer grass miracles and therefore evidence of god, and for that individual they are. However none of those events actually qualifies under the strict definition of 'evidence' when used in an empirical manner. Also when you label such events as evidence of god, do you include which god may or may not be responsible? Yahweh? Jehovah? Allah? Zeus? Brahma? Vishnu? IL? Quezequtol? Why do you believe one mythos over another? What makes one more valid to you? Actually an education often interferes with understanding, as to many people learn only ‘facts’ and not how to think for themselves.. [I]The answer is in the quest..[/I]____________________________________ Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Deleted 0 #66 January 11, 2003 I believe that there is something watching over me...because more than once I should have bit it. And I just can't keep chalking that up to luck. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mindygirl 0 #67 January 11, 2003 Good Quotes: When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. Faith is often the boast of the man who is too lazy to investigate. An apology for the devil:It must be remebered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books. Most people can't bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere similar to it for eternity? "If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
indyz 1 #68 January 11, 2003 I believe in the math that holds the universe together. "In the beginning there was the ratio, and the ratio was with God, and the ratio was God." - John 1:1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
christopherm 0 #69 January 11, 2003 Well, okay, i give up. I'll work on my concession speech tonight. I still believe in God and that Jesus died on the cross to save me from my sins, it's too bad I'm not smart enough to prove this too a jury but oh well God is a theory of how the universe began. Why is it so much easier for people to believe in a theory just as fantastic like, "the big bang theory"? -So, how hard is the ground?! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daizey 0 #70 January 11, 2003 Interesting...i just wrote a paper on this for philosophy class.... Here is part of it...its kinda long...sorry...but i think its rather interesting....makes good arguments both ways To know whether or not God exists is based on personal opinion. This chapter though, helped to explain reason why or why not God does or does not exist. One of the first ideas presented was faith versus reason. This basically is the argument of believing that God exists and knowing that God exists. How does one know that God exists? One can base the opinion on the following proofs or arguments: The Ontological Proof, the Teleological Proof, and the Cosmological proof. The Ontological Proof, said by St. Anselm in the eleventh century, states that God is that being than which nothing greater can be achieved. Therefore, God exists. This basically means that God is the greatest, or most perfect, being conceivable. God has no flaws, he is perfect. It is a greater perfection to be than not to be. Therefore, if one were to be listing all of his perfections, he or she would have to list existence in order for him to remain perfect. Since one recognizes this idea, God must exist. Though this sounds logical, there are counterpoints. One stated by Ganilon includes the opinion that based on what Anselm says, anything could be proved to exist. One example of his argument is the perfect island. According to Anselm, in order for anything to be “perfect” it must have no flaws. Therefore, when listing the perfections of the perfect island, one would have to include “existence.” Therefore, according to Anselm, this island now exists, and that is not the case. But, Anselm argues with Ganilon saying that this logic works for one and only one idea. He says that there is no idea but the one of God having every possible perfection. Therefore this idea only holds for God. Philosophers disagree with him. They say that it the proof is wrong because the concept can’t really exist. He then says that if one believes in God it is because of something. The Teleological Proof is the notion that there is an organization to nature. It didn’t happen naturally. Organisms are so perfectly set up; therefore it did not happen by nature but by design. Teleological argument is an inductive argument from observations about the presence of purpose and apparent design in the universe to a designer or God who created order in the universe. The best known example of this argument is William Paley's analogy of the watch which begins by assuming that someone who has never seen a clockwork watch before, accidentally discovers one. Paley goes on to say that after careful examination of the design and operation of the watch, any reasonable person would conclude that the watch was man made, therefore, he reasons, anyone who carefully observes the universe must ultimately reach the conclusion that it displays characteristics indicating the presence of a mind behind its design. Although strongly attacked by David Hume, this form of argument has been revived recently by a number of statisticians, astrophysicists, and philosophers like John Leslie. The last proof is the Cosmological Proof. This proof says, for anything that exists, there must be a cause for its being. There must be a first cause and this cause must be something that begins the infinite regression. But, the first cause can not have a cause. Therefore it must be an uncreated thing. This could be God. God may have created everything, but there has never been anything said about what caused God to be created. Therefore, he could be the “something” that begins the infinite regression. Darwin and evolution could be a part of this theory too. After all, it says that God could be the cause of everything’s being but, it does not say how the ‘being’ got there. So, in a way this proof shows that the scientific theory of Darwinism has flaws since it never addresses how what evolved got there. The final point is not a proof. It simply states that the logical contradiction is evil. According to western tradition, God is all good, all knowing, and all powerful. Yet, these traits cannot possibly be true. One reason is that if God is all good, why would he create a world in which there is so much evil? Furthermore, if God was all powerful, he should have the power to stop the evil in the world. Many argue the fact that God gave us “free will.” This means that we have the choice to do whatever we want. We choose evil, so evil enters the world. This however, is not logical because since God is all knowing, then he would have known instances like Hitler entering our world were going to happen. Yet we were created anyway, making God not all good because he would have known we were going to endure pain. If God is all knowing, then this point clearly shows that he is not all good. And since he cannot stop it, he is not all powerful. Therefore contradicting what western tradition holds to be true for God. *daizey* Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cajun 0 #71 January 11, 2003 I believe. And no one can convince me other wise. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 #72 January 11, 2003 dont know whether there is a god or not. I am content to wait till I am dead to find out. If there is an after life. I dont really see how believing in god and going to church every day would make my life any better. I will still live and die like everyone else. As long as I am being the best person I can be, I will be okay. I truly believe that church is "Man's" way of trying to control people. I dont think there is any religion that is sanctioned by "GOD". I like to be in control of my own life, that way the only person I have to blame for my mistakes is myself. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zenister 0 #73 January 11, 2003 oh no! dont give up! that is exactly the point. true religion (anyones) is a matter of faith.. the only sin is in blindly accepting someone else 'truth' about divinity, not looking critically, for yourself, with your own eyes, and interpretations, question the 'facts' as they are presented to you and come to your own conclusions on the nature of god. if he/she is out there and cares to show you you will find enlightenment, without the need for anyone elses dogmas or control... the answer is in the seeking.. ____________________________________ Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
larry 0 #74 January 11, 2003 I’m just glad to see that there are so many out there who either don’t believe or are not sure. It just doesn’t make sense to me for many reasons. Unfortunately I’m a very small minority among those I know, and it kind of pisses me off. Not that they believe, but that they know they are right and I am the idiot for trying to have and honest, open and analytical mind toward the subject. This attitude is seldom directly expressed but implied by their actions or comments.“Now click your heels together 3 times so you can return to Kansas to live in poverty with your teetotaling, dirt farming aunt and uncle!” paraphrased Prof. Farnsworth Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Faber 0 #75 January 11, 2003 Nope im an atheist,and dosnt belive in life out in space either.I dont like sienc fiction,or eventure movies.. What i do belive...We can make this world better place to be.I belive that my loved ones loves me.I belive in fact and in many chases what i see(not movies,entertenment)and what i can touch. Ibelive that i only have this life,and its the end for me when i die.Thats why i lives my life out,meet people by openmind,religion or mind dosnnt matter,until they prove the oppersit.. Stay safe Stefan Faber Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
