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Thread: Religion

  1. #1541
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dicknose View Post
    I just expect that if it is the word of the all knowing being who created the universe, that it would give a bit more insight into that.
    The creation story looks like it was the word of goat herders.
    Like I've pointed out to you that due to the expansion of the space time, it is mathematically possible to prove that our universe may indeed just be 6 day-ish old if it were a static and non-expanding universe. Creation sequence also match evolutionary sequence pretty well. For a goat herder, I thought Moses did a pretty good job. Bible's focus wasn't to explain to you in detail about the creation story, but stories of relationships between God and men.


    Possibly. Its also possible that its mostly a work of fiction. how did we get the baby jesus stories, but then he wasnt heard of for many years.
    and most of the written works about him are from much later by unknown people who didnt meet him.
    There are definitely parts of the Jesus story that bible was silent on... like what happened to his human dad Joseph? Sounds like he disappeared from the story. I don't know why that is, but apparently that wasn't critical enough to the overall scheme of things.

    But think of it this way... if you were a professor given a textbook 2000 years ago... will you be able to give new lectures again and again every sunday for 2000 years? That's the wisdom of this living book. You could have new revelations in this old book. Fact or fiction? all depends on your faith.



    It would be almost impossible to prove it false, unless another god comes out and says so.
    If there is no gods then this myth could go on forever.

    What would convince you that god doesnt exist??
    I've already stated that in my response to g'day.

    Look. A theology could certainly die or fall into irrelevancy like Europeans previous religions. Had the gospel spread eastward, surely Hinduism and buddhism might become less relevant too? This is the case of one God showing up telling people that what they believe was fake...

    Now, how does atheism prove itself?

    It's not impossible.

    I do believe science will eventually give us the final word as scientists learn more and more about the universe. Given enough time, scientists will either discover a Creator... or not.

    It's just that it's not that time yet and you guys are drawing conclusions too early. Now, I'm not saying that I must be right, I could definitely be wrong. Just saying I choose to believe Bible's not lying to me. We could coexist believing totally different things. Jesus isn't not telling me to kill you guys. Don't worry!

  2. #1542
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dicknose View Post
    We havent proved relativity.
    We cant prove relativity.

    Both special relativity and general relativity were hard to test and so far all important tests have passed. But none of this "proved" them.

    Actually we have proved that general relativity it is wrong - it cant reconcile with quantum theory. Both seem great in their areas, but cant combine. So both are actually wrong in terms of describing the complete universe. A better theory will fix this. But in many ways general relativity will still be "correct" in the same way that we still teach and use Newtonian gravity even though it has been disproved.

    Again you show that you dont understand how science works.

    And this style of science work (cant prove, only test and pass, or disprove) is not that applicable to an untestable faith based system. That could easily be proved (but hasnt been - because god refuses for his own sneaky reasons), but almost impossible to disprove without something miraculous. Heck aliens could turn up, welcome us to a collective of 1000s of other intelligent beings and tell us god doesnt exist and people would still justify the existence of a god.
    its virtually impossible to prove the nonexistence of something. Especially if that thing has ultimate power and almost anything can be explained by "they made it that way"
    You are stuck in the details with the devil again... IMHO, God is this undiscovered theory that's not 'wrong'.

    Are you really trying to tell me relativity is unproven? Yes, it's not universally applicable, but passing all the tests so far isn't proving?

    If we can't even prove theory of relativity, how do you expect to prove God? Also, God doesn't want us to test Him. Just believe!

    Actually as I was telling swervo, there is one way we're allowed to test God, which is to give away at least 10% of our income to help the needy and see if God will bless us with more!

    Anyway, fine, I don't understand how science work, but I hope you understand that I wasn't using relativity to prove God, but only as an illustration that before we could even 'test' anything, Einstein sounded wacky and unbelievable! Before we're able to test it out, what are other scientists to do when they see such revolutionary theory?
    Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; October 20th, 2020 at 09:25 AM.

  3. #1543
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    So yeah, you’re saying that gods just taking his time, so we can’t really go anywhere with that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Crazed_Insanity View Post
    If Jews were all dead and if there are no more Christians left, then it'd be clear to me that bible is fake.
    No you wouldn’t because you wouldn’t be here

  4. #1544
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    If I were the last Christian standing, and if I see that the next Hitler has successfully slaughtered all Jews and God didn’t do anything about that..., then I’ll most likely give up believing.

    However, knowing that Jews didn’t have to lift a finger to destroy the mighty Egyptian and Nazi armies and then able to get their own land again and again... not to mention the Christian influences Europeans had... makes it hard for me to not believe. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I may be too dumb to understand science, but perhaps I’m a bit wiser?

    God is love. Love is patient and kind... so God is indeed very patient and has all the time in the universe to wait... in order to maximize the number of souls saved.

    Salvation is free for all. You don’t have to accept it if you don’t want it. God is prochoice! But of course it’d be better if we all could have eternal life as well...

    Even if future eternal life is BS, Christianity still had a positive effect on the West in the here and now... so I believe it worth it to place a wager as pascal did. Of course, you are free to wager on whatever you want. Not twisting any arms here.
    Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; October 20th, 2020 at 05:00 PM.

  5. #1545
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crazed_Insanity View Post
    Like I've pointed out to you that due to the expansion of the space time, it is mathematically possible to prove that our universe may indeed just be 6 day-ish old if it were a static and non-expanding universe. Creation sequence also match evolutionary sequence pretty well. For a goat herder, I thought Moses did a pretty good job. Bible's focus wasn't to explain to you in detail about the creation story, but stories of relationships between God and men.
    No it doesnt match the expansion - as Ive pointed out you could pick the numbers to match any number of days.
    And the creation sequence is soooo far from what happened. Earth first? Evolution doesnt match that - you know grass and fruit is relatively new, say compared to dinosaurs. Hmm and day 4 was sun and moon - after the earth and grass!
    And its widely considered a knock off of an earlier Mesopotamian creation story.
    Nothing particularly enlightening about it. Certainly nothing that would make any predictions that have matched what science has discovered.
    Plenty of poor efforts at retrofitting it to current science.

    Now, how does atheism prove itself?

    It's not impossible.
    I think it is impossible - how do you prove a god doesnt exist.
    What I think is that atheism "validates" itself by showing you dont need a god to - be a decent person or discover important things or basically improve the world.


    I do believe science will eventually give us the final word as scientists learn more and more about the universe. Given enough time, scientists will either discover a Creator... or not.
    But there is nothing you can do to discover a god if he doesnt want to be found. So no amount of searching will disprove him.
    And the god could just reveal themselves whenever they want.
    How do you go about finding a god who is outside the universe?

    Hmm it seems amazingly convenient that god hides and only shows in the most obscure ways, small miracles that could be confused for random luck. Or maybe in big ways, like making nations stronger than others!

  6. #1546
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crazed_Insanity View Post
    Are you really trying to tell me relativity is unproven? Yes, it's not universally applicable, but passing all the tests so far isn't proving?
    You still dont understand science!
    You cant "prove" science because at anytime something can contradict and disprove it.

    If we can't even prove theory of relativity, how do you expect to prove God? Also, God doesn't want us to test Him. Just believe!
    And you dont think its convenient that god is untestable?
    If it was testable then it would have failed and would have fallen like most other religions.

    Actually as I was telling swervo, there is one way we're allowed to test God, which is to give away at least 10% of our income to help the needy and see if God will bless us with more!
    Pretty sure you could show that has failed. Well except for those who died poor and got the unprovable gift of an afterlife.
    Again its setup as untestable.

    Anyway, fine, I don't understand how science work, but I hope you understand that I wasn't using relativity to prove God, but only as an illustration that before we could even 'test' anything, Einstein sounded wacky and unbelievable! Before we're able to test it out, what are other scientists to do when they see such revolutionary theory?
    Yes... ok.

    But dont you see that religion is the opposite. Its fundamentally untestable.
    Id argue that is an important feature of any religion, especially ones that rely on false premises such as a deity.

    Science is designed to be "test it - show me Im wrong"
    Religion is designed to be "believe with faith as it cant be tested"

    If religion could be tested wouldnt we have some convincing evidence by now? And wouldnt there be a single religion? How did god mess up so badly that we have dozens of religions?

  7. #1547
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    Anyway, with regard to ‘testing’, it goes back to my original point that g’day focused on...

    People in the West, were there more Christians or more atheists?

    If the West developed itself this way as bunch of atheists, then you have a point. However the West was predominantly Christian, even the founding fathers of modern science were Christians...

    So I thought the test results are pretty clear that as a religion, it worked out pretty well for the West.

    Isn’t it obvious that the West has been more blessed than people in Africa, Middle East, and Asia?

    Even if Jesus is BS, Christian influence wasn’t all that bad for the West, right?

    Can God really provide sufficient convincing evidence? There were people in the gospel stories who’ve seen Jesus but refused to believe.

    If Jesus show up to your face, will you really believe?

  8. #1548
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    Right off the bat, correlation does not equal causation. I'm not entirely sure what metric you're using to measure "working out pretty well", but plenty of predominantly Christian nations find themselves in very different socio-economic situations. Being predominantly Christian doesn't automatically mean "more blessed." It also ignores not-predominantly Christian countries that have also done quite well - I know you're not a fan of the CCP, but the CCP is less than 100 years old and China's done very well for itself over the centuries.

    The only thing I think you can get from your test is that having a predominantly Christian population isn't necessarily ruinous to a country. You'd have to be able to repeat the experiment (multiple times) with a predominantly atheist country (or other religion or a mix of religions where none is the dominant one) and compare the results to make the call that one is better than the other, which obviously isn't possible.

    This again loops back to that fundamental misunderstanding about science. You have a conclusion you want to reach and are picking and choosing the things that get you to that conclusion. You're ignoring the centuries of plague, war, and famine that the "west" has gone through despite widespread Christianity. You're excluding non-Christian civilizations that have thrived in the past or are thriving now.

  9. #1549
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    I think it should be apparent that dictatorships can always be bad for us. The only possible way for dictatorships to work out is if we have the perfect dictator or king like Jesus. Any other humans, sooner or later, corruption will get to him or his sons and then he'll destroy everything.

    Also, you can't just judge how somebody like Enron is doing so well in such a short period of time.

    I am rooting for China to do well, but are you really going to praise China for having a dictator in charge? For the awesome work they did with WHO to fight and contain this virus?

    The only thing I like about the Chinese commies is that it has completely destroyed China's various religions during cultural revolution... and perhaps that will help pave the way for the Gospel. However the CCP has totally ruined traditional Chinese culture. People of Taiwan has probably preserved a more authentic chinese culture...

    Anyway, I understand correlation is not causation. However, we do have a long long time to make our judgment with regard to the development of the West.

    Islamic worlds had done very well for a while actually... but their dictatorial theocracy ended up killing their development. I also don't believe Hinduism had helped India much. Its caste system most likely hindered India's development on a social economic level...

    Whereas Christianity, at least protestant christianity, isn't about what organized religion telling you what to do. You are encouraged to read the bible and do what Jesus would do... not to be told to worship and pray at a specific time or specific place or specific positions... Christianity also encourages individualism. Jesus is not into any class systems and would want to help us break free from all chains. Yeah, some christians might use the bible to argue FOR slavery, but it should be clear from the exodus story to the gospel story that God wants to set ALL people free!

    It's these fundamental ideas that helped a culture flourish. Christianity's faith didn't ruin science, but it helped created science. The way of living in the West has been copied 1st by the Japanese and now by the Chinese. I'm okay with Japan, but I'm sorry, I'm not okay as long as there's a dictator in charge. CCP has been going backwards politically IMHO. Primarily because they know they have more market power to dictate the rest of the world around. People enjoy making money in China, but rest assured that most rich people in China don't really plan on staying there longterm.

    The day Dalai Lama feels safe to return is the day China can be returned to normalcy. Otherwise, any group of folks could run the risk of being locked up in a concentration camp. Ideally, I'd like to see Jesus moving in and then China will truly be transformed.

    Lastly, if you live in the time when Einstein 1st introduced relativity and the theory was untestable at the time. What would you guys as a persons who fully understand how science work do?

    Personally, I'd have reservations because why should I doubt Newton when Einstein's new theory couldn't be tested, right? However, distortion of space time is something that's not going to change whether I believe Einstein or not. Truth shall remain true. That was the point I was trying to make. How many times to you guys need to attack me about my lack of understanding of science?

    Well..., you guys lack understanding of Jesus!

  10. #1550
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    It's really easy to support your theory of "The west is successful because jesus, and other areas aren't successful because not jesus" when you don't know anything about history.
    -Formerly Stabulator

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