Evolution...

#127
#127
MontereyVol said:
Depending on the definition of hurt? If you do hurt someone I believe you can be forgiven by being truly sorry for actions, if you keep doing the same thing you probably are not truly sorry.
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i guess. the fact is that people do what is right in their own eyes, the bible specifically talks about it.

the realization is that people try to justify their life by saying they live a "good" life and think it's good enough to go to heaven. they're the ones who are establishing the standard to get into heaven. but the fact is they don't 100% know, they're basically playing the lottery.
 
#129
#129
rjd970 said:
You all can can start with John 14:6 for a good idea of who gets what after they die -
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Pretty clear cut to me, but I am sure this can be parsed somehow by you guys to include everybody.
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There are many Christians who believe the verse above as literal. I'm not one of them. No parsing there.

Again you can use specific tenets of organized religion to try to support your argument but they miss the larger point of Creator vs. no Creator.
 
#131
#131
volinbham said:
Again you can use specific tenets of organized religion to try to support your argument but they miss the larger point of Creator vs. no Creator.

...There are many Christians who believe the verse above. I'm not one of them. No parsing there.

.....Personally, I don't think Heaven is only reserved for Christians but I don't want to derail this thread.

....Tough question but given the similarity of prescriptions across religions for being a good person, I'd say that's a good place to start

...I do reject the notion that one must be a Christian to be "saved" (in whatever form that occurs) and I'm not particularly religious at all.
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It takes faith to say that a creator is responsible for everything. It takes even more faith to say the creator is best explained through Christianity. It takes no such faith to say "I don't know". That is my argument.

According to you, most spiritual roads lead the same way and you don't subscribe to some basic Biblical narratives. Why exactly do you get your spirituality from Christianity? There must be something.
 
#132
#132
joevol320 said:
i guess. the fact is that people do what is right in their own eyes, the bible specifically talks about it.

the realization is that people try to justify their life by saying they live a "good" life and think it's good enough to go to heaven. they're the ones who are establishing the standard to get into heaven. but the fact is they don't 100% know, they're basically playing the lottery.
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Thats about how I see it. You do not know who or what is right so you have to make your own interpretation and live by it.
 
#135
#135
MontereyVol said:
No, your interpretations changed for a reason, this is where we get back into forgiveness.
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why do you need forgiveness if you think what your doing to get into heaven is fine? if your interpretations change and you think it's fine, then why do you need forgiveness?
 
#137
#137
rjd970 said:
According to you, most spiritual roads lead the same way and you don't subscribe to some basic Biblical narratives. Why exactly do you get your spirituality from Christianity? There must be something.
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Part of it is the way I was raised - part of it is a belief that man recognizes spirtuality in different ways --- it is the common thread that tells the real story but there are different pathways to get there.

I think it takes as much faith to deny a Creator as it does to believe in one.

Put another way, I'm not sure lack of faith (in either position) is somehow a preferred mental state. Faith is certainly a real concept - the fact that we can't explain everything doesn't mean it's somehow smarter to only believe in things that can be explained.
 
#138
#138
rjd970 said:
So you do or don't believe God created everything? From what I have gathered, your posts indicate the answer to this question is you do believe it, not "I don't know".

I get back to the I don't know to the question of where God originated. It's not that hard. We all eventually go back to some point at which we make some leap of faith, OR RELY ON OTHER INDICATORS TO HELP US MAKE DECISIONS.



You all can can start with John 14:6 for a good idea of who gets what after they die -
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Pretty clear cut to me, but I am sure this can be parsed somehow by you guys to include everybody.
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See bold.
 
#139
#139
volinbham said:
I think it takes as much faith to deny a Creator as it does to believe in one.

Put another way, I'm not sure lack of faith (in either position) is somehow a preferred mental state. Faith is certainly a real concept - the fact that we can't explain everything doesn't mean it's somehow smarter to only believe in things that can be explained.
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Does it take as much faith to believe there are or are not pink goblins on the moon? It's absolutely ridiculous to say that it takes as much faith to believe in modern mythology instead of disbelieving in such nonsense. It is smarter to not assume what happened instead of having faith that something happened a certain way. Lumping everything unexplained with the old "god works in mysterious way" is cheap copout horsecrap.
 
#140
#140
666 said:
Does it take as much faith to believe there are or are not pink goblins on the moon? It's absolutely ridiculous to say that it takes as much faith to believe in modern mythology instead of disbelieving in such nonsense. It is smarter to not assume what happened instead of having faith that something happened a certain way. Lumping everything unexplained with the old "god works in mysterious way" is cheap copout horsecrap.
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The key distinction is we know there was a "creation" whether by a creator or by some other process. Concluding it couldn't have been a "creator" is an act of faith just as assuming there was one is an act of faith. We simply do not know. The pink gobblins argument is a strawman.

Put more simply, insisting there isn't a "creator" is a major assumption. It is a belief system.
 
#141
#141
volinbham said:
The key distinction is we know there was a "creation" whether by a creator or by some other process. Concluding it couldn't have been a "creator" is an act of faith just as assuming there was one is an act of faith. We simply do not know. The pink gobblins argument is a strawman.
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Here's the problem. You are making the positive assertion that it is equally probable the universe had a Creator as not having one. When the real cosmologists come back from their next conference and say things like, "spacetime may be a closed manifold and, therefore, may have no beginning or end" this would be one of many possible descriptions of the universe which would close the door on a creation event and, therefore, on a Creator. You are saying a theory proposed by a group of cosmologists that actually know what they are talking about carries the same amount of "faith baggage" as those of theologians. It's pulling up faith by it's own bootstraps.

I find your "equal amounts of faith needed to affirm a creator as to deny" could be used to assert the possibility that any metaphysical claim is true. "It takes as much faith to say the flying spaghetti monster created the universe as it does to deny it". It's silly. All ideas and theories are not on equal ground.
 
#142
#142
666 said:
Does it take as much faith to believe there are or are not pink goblins on the moon? It's absolutely ridiculous to say that it takes as much faith to believe in modern mythology instead of disbelieving in such nonsense. It is smarter to not assume what happened instead of having faith that something happened a certain way. Lumping everything unexplained with the old "god works in mysterious way" is cheap copout horsecrap.
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eventually everything can be philosophically taken back to a point of nothing prior. We all get to that point one way or another.

It is by no means smarter to assume something came from nothing than to believe something came from a power greater than we know, have seen or can comprehend.
 
#143
#143
rjd970 said:
Here's the problem. You are making the positive assertion that it is equally probable the universe had a Creator as not having one. When the real cosmologists come back from their next conference and say things like, "spacetime may be a closed manifold and, therefore, may have no beginning or end" this would be one of many possible descriptions of the universe which would close the door on a creation event and, therefore, on a Creator. You are saying a theory proposed by a group of cosmologists that actually know what they are talking about carries the same amount of "faith baggage" as those of theologians. It's pulling up faith by it's own bootstraps.

I find your "equal amounts of faith needed to affirm a creator as to deny" could be used to assert the possibility that any metaphysical claim is true. "It takes as much faith to say the flying spaghetti monster created the universe as it does to deny it". It's silly. All ideas and theories are not on equal ground.
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You confusing a type of creator with the overall notion of a creator with your FSM analogy.

I'm merely saying to take one view (there is no Creator) is a closeminded view. It rules out a possibility without confirmatory evidence to do so.

I fully recognize my belief in a creator could be wrong. That's why it's faith. For a cosmologist to definitively say there is no creator is likewise a leap of faith - it is a monumental assumption.
 
#144
#144
rjd970 said:
Here's the problem. You are making the positive assertion that it is equally probable the universe had a Creator as not having one. When the real cosmologists come back from their next conference and say things like, "spacetime may be a closed manifold and, therefore, may have no beginning or end" this would be one of many possible descriptions of the universe which would close the door on a creation event and, therefore, on a Creator. You are saying a theory proposed by a group of cosmologists that actually know what they are talking about carries the same amount of "faith baggage" as those of theologians. It's pulling up faith by it's own bootstraps.

I find your "equal amounts of faith needed to affirm a creator as to deny" could be used to assert the possibility that any metaphysical claim is true. "It takes as much faith to say the flying spaghetti monster created the universe as it does to deny it". It's silly. All ideas and theories are not on equal ground.
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the theories from the scientists, such as spacetime may be a closed manifold is as plausible as the statement that I created the universe.

Science's verbiage of maybe is as useless as any other maybe out there.

I can tell you that debating the odds of how this all began isn't of any merit whatsover, because based upon what we know today, anything is as likely as any other thing.
 
#145
#145
the theories from the scientists, such as spacetime may be a closed manifold is as plausible as the statement that I created the universe.

I can tell you that debating the odds of how this all began isn't of any merit whatsover, because based upon what we know today, anything is as likely as any other thing.
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All ideas are not on equal ground, I say it again. You are saying all ideas are equally likely. I think this is where we fundamentally disagree.

Look, what if I told you that I am certain that I have an even number of cells in my body? What are the chances that I am in a position to have actually counted my cells and counted them correctly? Would it be unfair of you to dismiss my assertion as either a product of self-deception or outright dishonesty? Note that this claim has a 50% of being true (unlike claims about any God), and yet it is patently ridiculous. Some claims to knowledge-even about facts that have a high order of probability--immediately brand their claimants as intellectually dishonest.
 
#146
#146
rjd970 said:
All ideas are not on equal ground, I say it again. You are saying all ideas are equally likely. I think this is where we fundamentally disagree.
/quote]
I'm not saying they're all equally likely. I don't believe that one bit. One answer is the only one that is right and it is 100% likely. Conjecture about which is more right than another, and trying to convince someone of that likelihood, is silly.

We fundamentally disagree as to what that one might be. Your weak use of a 50-50 proposition to make your point doesn't change the fact that you're claiming something likely began from nothing and I am not.
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#150
#150
rjd970 said:
All I know is that the reasons for believing in "The God Did It Theory" are entirely faith-based, and every attempt at empirical justification at proving his existence comes up short.
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That is exactly what every poster has said in this thread. If you are trying to argue otherwise, it is you who is guilty of misrepresentation.
 
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