Do u beleave in God

[Mockingbird 0]

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Religious folk are being +ve but the rest are being -ve.

If you only knew how true this is... We state our beliefs, and others belittle our beliefs or try to convince us otherwise. One act is positive, the other is negative.

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[Mockingbird 0]

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How is your God any better then Allah or any of the other gods out there? There is the same amount of evidence.

If I thought you were asking out of a sincere desire to understand rather than tear down, I'd be glad to answer. In the meantime, you can check out my previous posts on the subject. I've written 996 posts on dz.com, and probably 900 of them are about my beliefs or what the Bible says.

I'm tired of answering the same questions over and over. No offense to you personally, of course.

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[Mockingbird 0]

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The claim is "There is a god."

The atheist says "That sounds a bit far out, I don't believe you yet - could I see some evidence?"

The theist says ".... um... old book and stuff... warm fuzzy feeling... duck-billed platypus..."

You fail at logic.

You lie, m'dear. You know that's not the way it goes down. We don't ever start out making a claim. We state our belief; y'all attack the belief with CLAIMS to the contrary-- "your god is a myth"... "it's all in your head", "he's an imaginary friend", blah blah blah... and there we go over and over.

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[Mockingbird 0]

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Anyway, the conversation swayed a little towards free-will vs predestination vs omniscience and it just became so evident all the twists and tricks and contradictions that have to be made to satisfy the requirements of free will in a creature created by an omniscient being. Remove God, on the other hand, and so many contradictions just fall away.

Too bad you can't see past all the secondary issues to the primary problem and its solution. How do you expect to understand the mind of that omniscient being, Jakee? I stick with what He's clearly revealed to us about Him, and us.

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[Mockingbird 0]

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Until proof is presented, it is just a myth.

Aside from talking about God, your sentence above is very interesting, coming from someone who says he's a scientist. Lots of things have been proven over the years by science; does that mean that before they were proven, they were only myths?

There is still lots to be discovered. Things that are already... you know... REAL!

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There is not one shred of objective proof of your beliefs. That's why they are beliefs. That's why it's called faith. If it were provable, faith would not be needed.

Now Kallend, let's not play dumb. It's not becoming. You know very well that we, as Christians, have never claimed proof for (I think you meant "for", not "of") the existence of God.

Now evidence... that a whole other story. We have evidence-- the evidence is what gives us reason for our beliefs.

It's really not that complicated to understand the concept of faith. After all you exercise faith when you skydive.

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[Mockingbird 0]

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No, jakee; in my experience, it's usually the other way around. A Christian merely says he believes in God (a profession, not a claim).

So you're saying that you can profess believe in god without thinking god exists? Very strange.

How you got that from my statement, I'll never know.

Jack, a profession is not a claim. It's a personal statement of what you believe. I'll try to help you out, OK?
This is a profession: I believe that Christ is the son of God.
Here is a claim: Christ IS the son of God.

Does that help?

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[Mockingbird 0]

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When I say I am an atheist I am by definition saying that I think your belief is wrong and basically made up. When you say you are a christian you are by definition saying that my belief is wrong and naive.

Still not true, at least, not necessarily.

If you profess to be an atheist, and in turn i profess to be a Christian, I'm NOT claiming your beliefs are wrong. If you take it that way, then you've just jumped to a conclusion.

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[Mockingbird 0]

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EVOLUTION has the answer.

too bad it has nothing to offer of eternal significance.

Doesn't evolution have as many quesions as it does answers?

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[Andy9o8 0]

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EVOLUTION has the answer.

> too bad it has nothing to offer of eternal
>significance.

Of course it does. Evolution is but one of the myriad naturally-occurring processes of the universe. To the extent the universe exists in time, its natural processes - all of them - have significance.

That being said, there is no more "need" for that particular natural process to have "eternal significance" than there is for the roundness of the world, or for that matter any other natural process, to have "eternal significance".

"Eternal significance" may very well be valid, but it is the stuff of philosophy and ideology. As much as one wishes to label a natural process - whether it be evolution, or the Earth's orbiting the Sun, or what have you - as ideology, it is not. Likewise, labeling a sentient awareness of a process of nature as "ideology" does not make it so.

>Doesn't evolution have as many quesions as it does answers?

No. The fact that our particular species at this stage of our development may not yet fully understand every aspect of a particular natural process does not call into question that that process occurs in nature, nor does it invalidate our sentient awareness that that natural process exists.

For a fuller explanation, please refer to all the previous posts on the evolution "debate". After a while, we, like you, get tired of re-hashing it.

[philh 0]

Love is an emotional state and there is plenty of evidence that points to its existence especially chemical changes in the body and altruistic behaviour
If You are saying you could get an actor to replicate love, that is very doubtful. Could you get an actor to perfrom the same sacrificies that a parent does for their children? that a husband might do for a wife? Sure they could maybe replicate the tears of a loved ones death but that is not the same as the action involved in a lifestyle of love and affection.
As for chemical changes in the body, could you get an actor to change the levels fo testerone, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotnin, oxytocin and vasopressin in the ways that are associated with love and bonding? I doubt it very much.
Your comment about wieghing a room is a very silly analogy. The fact that one cannt quanitfy something exactly does not mean that we have no evidence that it exists. If you do follow that line of reasoning you would have to conclude there is no evidence that carbon emmisions lead to global warming. It is a fact that we are unable to exactly quanitfy the amount of global warming we will get for any specified level of carbon emmissions. One of the reasons for this is that we dont have a full understanding of cloud feedbacks. But that doesnt mean we dont have any evidence that carbon emmissions lead to global warming.
In pyschology its much harder still to quantify observed phenemenon than it is in enviromental science. For example we cannot quantify the amount of anti semitism in germany in 1936, there is no scale that we can say oh thats a 7.8 up from 7.45, but does that mean we can say there was no evidence of anti semitism? Of course not. So you analogy falls apart.
There is evidence that love exists, there is no evidence that god exists. Im still waiting for some, care to provide any?

[steveorino 7]

If you guys are saying you can measure love please let me know. After 32+ years my wife occaisionally asks what I believe is a dumb question, "Do you still love me?" If I could give her the results that say emphatically I love her, maybe that would help.

But on the other hand she is a woman ...

steveOrino

[JackC 0]

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If you guys are saying you can measure love please let me know. After 32+ years my wife occaisionally asks what I believe is a dumb question, "Do you still love me?" If I could give her the results that say emphatically I love her, maybe that would help.

But on the other hand she is a woman ...

A quick MRI scan should do it.

http://www.neuroreport.com/pt/re/neuroreport/fulltext.00001756-200011270-00046.htm;jsessionid=FyXJnpMvvtWJXphGTC8s0MRG2hxt95lL9VbhQG4nTHWyrGjDp53w!-1480123504!-949856144!8091!-1

[shropshire 0]

Love : Measuring it would take the pleasure away. A large measure of it's worth is in the 'not knowingthe answer' abd subsequent investigation - IMHO

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[steveorino 7]

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If you guys are saying you can measure love please let me know. After 32+ years my wife occaisionally asks what I believe is a dumb question, "Do you still love me?" If I could give her the results that say emphatically I love her, maybe that would help.

But on the other hand she is a woman ...

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A quick MRI scan should do it.

Dude, I had one of those when I lost vision in my left eye. I've been a Sub lock chamber at SCUBA school in SF, and a lot of cramped small places, and I never thought I had claustrophobia, but I was wrong! Freaked me out! I counted the whole time! Unless I'm dying, no more MRIs for me -- at least not the type that makes you feel like a cigar being inserted into a case.


/thread drift

steveOrino

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[beowulf 1]

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I bet the JWs in your family just love you skydiving to boot!

They don't say anything about skydiving. They know that I am going to do what ever I am going to do regardless of their opinion. Then again I never ask them what they think before I do something. I moved to Florida when I was 22 with out ever asking them what they thought. It never occured to me to ask. The Jehovah's Witness stance is that I am needlessly endangering my life.

[philh 0]

If you read my piece you will find what I am saying is that love cannot be measured in any exact way but there is evidence of real phenemonen going on. for example a new study by Enzo Emanuele of the University of Pavia demonstrated that people who have recently fallen in love have eleveted levels of NGF, BDNF, NT-3, and NT-4 compared to a control group of those who had not , he is quoted
"our data demonstrate for the first time that circulating levels of nerve growth factor, but not of other neurotrophins, are elevated among subjects in love,"
this of course does not mean love can be measured exactly but it does mean that love can be associated with real and not imagined phenemenon. the same cannot be said with god unless you concede that god is simply an emotional state, that I might agree with. there is certainly evidence that people who experience religous rapture do have changes in brain chemistry. that of course would not imply that god itself exists as any real external reality. I am still waiting for someone to present some evidence of that. i really find it baffling that someone as obviously intelligent as Bilvon can believe in something so lacking in any evidence. Is it becuase of social pressures in the US?

[steveorino 7]

There has been simlar studies done about spirituality.

EDITED TO ADD: Oops I see you said that to some degree ... sorry, I must read slower.

steveOrino

[philh 0]

Thats right and i dont deny that spirtuality exists as an emotional state in the same way that love exists as an emotional state. What I do deny is that those who have those spiritual states necesarily draw the right conclusions from them. If there is some change in your brain chemistry and you experience this and interpret it as being in touch with some all powerful being that doesnt mean you are right. Similarly if you fall in love and believe your desired person is perfect that doesnt mean you are right either.
Michael Persinger, a professor of neuroscience at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario,has run expirements using electromagentic signals around the brain 80% of people people, he said, claim a ""mystical experience, the feeling that there is a sentient being or entity standing behind or near" them. Some weep, some feel God has touched them, others become frightened and talk of demons and evil spirits.

"That's in the laboratory," Persinger said. "They know they are in the laboratory. Can you imagine what would happen if that happened late at night in a pew or mosque or synagogue?"

What we need is to use our brains and distinugish subjective feelings with emperical facts. So many people claim reality for god through experience but if we can demonstrate that religious expereince can be replicated in the lab by changing brain chemistry we should conclude that such subjective feelings cannot be trusted to represent physcial reality. In short your expereince of god does not count as evidence of god.

[steveorino 7]

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Is it becuase of social pressures in the US?

I won't speak for Bill, but I can say with certainty, while some may feel the pressure to be religous from their social setting. It has neglible factor in my life now.

steveOrino

[philh 0]

fair enough Steve and thank you for your honest answer. But if everyone considered religious question on their own merits and then picked the religion they felt had the best evidence we would not expect the geographical distribution of religion that we have. the fact that most people who are Muslim are born to Muslim parents and most people who are Christian are born to Christian parents and so on surely speaks vloumes about the nature of how people come to their religious beliefs. Im sure we all think we are immune to these social pressures but the evidence says othherwise.

[jakee 1,260]

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You lie, m'dear.

I most certainly do not, the claim is inherent in your statement of belief. This statement however "We don't ever start out making a claim. We state our belief" is a lie.

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Too bad you can't see past all the secondary issues to the primary problem and its solution. How do you expect to understand the mind of that omniscient being, Jakee?

I wasn't talking about the mind of God - why would I be trying to figure out something that I don't think exists? I was talking about the problems theologians face in trying to gel human free will with an omniscient creator and predestination.

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Lots of things have been proven over the years by science; does that mean that before they were proven, they were only myths?

Unless proven it remains overwhemingly likely to be a myth! Your God is just one (or is it three) of thousands that have been told of by humans over the years.

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You know very well that we, as Christians, have never claimed proof for (I think you meant "for", not "of") the existence of God.

If you keep talking in absolutes I'm going to have to keep pointing out that you're lying.

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This is a profession: I believe that Christ is the son of God.
Here is a claim: Christ IS the son of God.

The claim is inherent in the profession.

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f you profess to be an atheist, and in turn i profess to be a Christian, I'm NOT claiming your beliefs are wrong. If you take it that way, then you've just jumped to a conclusion.

How can that be? How can you simultaneously say that you believe God exists, but not think that I am wrong? Like I said, the claim is inherent in the profession.

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too bad it has nothing to offer of eternal significance.

Doesn't evolution have as many quesions as it does answers?

Uhh, so what? Gravity doesn't have any 'eternal significance' yet Intelligent Falling is a very poorly supported theory. The heliocentric solar system offers nothing of eternal significance and yet even the church eventually had to accept that theory.

I guess you are just happy to sacrifice knowledge for your warm and fuzzies.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[shortyj 0]

For those of you who don't believe in God who do you turn to when you feel like life's in the crapper or when everyone else has left you? I'm not making fun but a lot of you go around spouting science so is that where you turn? Is science there for you.

Playtime is essential.

[steveorino 7]

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fair enough Steve and thank you for your honest answer. But if everyone considered religious question on their own merits and then picked the religion they felt had the best evidence we would not expect the geographical distribution of religion that we have. the fact that most people who are Muslim are born to Muslim parents and most people who are Christian are born to Christian parents and so on surely speaks vloumes about the nature of how people come to their religious beliefs. Im sure we all think we are immune to these social pressures but the evidence says othherwise.

I agree my parent's Christian heritage played a BIG part on what I learned. And yes, our culture does have a big sway about how we are raised. I thought you were speaking how we feel now as adults.

steveOrino

[beowulf 1]

I turn to people that care about me and talk to them.

Science has nothing to do with that.

[philh 0]

No I turn to my friends and family for suport. Also if I am having problems i try and solve them my self.
did u ever see the movie "Touching the Void" its an excellent documentary about a climbing trip that goes wrong. In fact its one of the most exciting movies I have ever seen. there is a scene where the protaganist is in a depserate situation and believes he is about to die. In the documentary he narrates that he had abandoned his Christian upbringing and rejected belief in god but wondered whether in the face of death he would reverse that and start to pray. Well he didnt pray he fought for his life and he survived against an appaulingly desperate situation. Taking action to deal with your own problems inlife is far superior to wishing them away which is what prayer amounts to.