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scottbre

Arguments for (or against) the existence of God

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Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.


--Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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"Scared of love, love and aeroplanes...falling out, I said takes no brains." -- Andy Partridge (XTC)

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Jesus existed. I have no doubts about that. I'm sure he was a very intelligent, very charismatic person, like Hitler.

But unlike Hitler, he had good ideas, and wanted others to follow hime. The Church however has taken his teachings and (ab)used them for their benefit.

I have absolutely no problem with Jesus or his teachings. The Church however I have absolutely no respect for.
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I personally consider myself an agnostic. To me there is absolutely no proof Jesus existed. None whatsoever.



There's a lot to say that Jesus existed. The part about the resurrection and being the son of God is a different matter entirely. I think you have to be a person of faith for that.

Most folklore is based on actual events and evolves from there.

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There's a lot to say that Jesus existed.



Oh I agree 100% Unfortunately, the key word in your comment is say.

Talk is cheap. Rumors are started very easily. People are misguided and often say lies to support their beliefs.

Hell, look at politics. If you listened to everything the liberals say they would have you believe Bush is the second coming of Satan.



Forty-two

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If you listened to everything the liberals say they would have you believe Bush is the second coming of Satan***

He's not???:o

"For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

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There's a lot to say that Jesus existed.



Oh I agree 100% Unfortunately, the key word in your comment is say.

Talk is cheap. Rumors are started very easily. People are misguided and often say lies to support their beliefs.

Hell, look at politics. If you listened to everything the liberals say they would have you believe Bush is the second coming of Satan.



Do you believe that Shakespeare actually existed?
How do you know?

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Let's here'em... :)



I subscribe to a spritual theory put forth by C.S. Lewis, which attempts (successfully, imo) to reconcile the humanist scientific view of reality with divine order.

It went something like this (I'm paraphrasing, not quoting): Lewis stated that the laws of physics are known, quantified and measurable values in our existence; exempli gratia - that the immutable laws of conservation of energy state that matter can be neither created nor destroyed, only converted, exchanged or transferred, such as when the energy contained in fossil fuels is converted into power. The stuff that made it up hasn't been annihilated, it's just been converted from one thing (complex hydrocarbons) into another (heat, simpler hydrocarbons [id est, exhaust], mechanical motion, etc.).

Yet the stuff that originally made it remains, albeit in a different state.

Lewis went on to remark that humans are comprised of much the same material, and act as both producers and consumers of energy, running at about 120W per person, which is quite a bit of electrical power, when one stops to consider it.

Anyway, when the vehicle which converts and sustains that energy has gone, that energy, as recognized and acknowledged in the common laws of physics, must go somewhere.

In Lewis' opinion, it is this "somewhere", or the conversion process, which forms the backbone of mankind's quest for spiritual meaning.

This theory neither acknowledges nor dismisses the nature of the Divine. IMO, it frankly embraces and sustains the diversity of spiritual beliefs that exist around the world; id est, that a logical conclusion is arrived at by scientific method. However, because it encounters the end of the human capacity to rationalize and/or quantify, the concept by its very nature defies rational thought, even though the conclusion is arrived at by rational means, and through various philosophical and spiritual systems throughout Man's time on Earth.

Pretty profound, huh? :SB|;):)
It is my opinion that atheists, in their zeal to supress any expressions of spirituality in this endeavor, overlook this simple concept.

mh

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There's a lot to say that Jesus existed.



Oh I agree 100% Unfortunately, the key word in your comment is say.

Talk is cheap. Rumors are started very easily. People are misguided and often say lies to support their beliefs.



Yet rumors and talk rarely survives 2000 years without some basis in fact. I don't believe there is a divine god, but I do believe Jesus lived.

But you're not going to find great proof since recorded history took a beating in the middle ages. You couldn't even say the earth revolved around the Sun without losing your head.

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C.S Lewis is a great writer and a very complex philosopher... where he loses me everytime is when he shifts from theorizing about the nature of God to asserting that the christian path is the only correct one...

in that transition he goes from a logical analysis to pure faith.... which is the basis for alot of peoples belief...
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Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

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There's a lot to say that Jesus existed.



Oh I agree 100% Unfortunately, the key word in your comment is say.

Talk is cheap. Rumors are started very easily. People are misguided and often say lies to support their beliefs.



Yet rumors and talk rarely survives 2000 years without some basis in fact.



Rumors persist because of people's willingness to believe and spread them, not because of any basis in fact.
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Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

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