A Theology Question

BidenPresident said:
Doc Dutch is the forum ASSHOLE
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Agreed!

I even have the merit badge. :)

BEZEhBk_d.webp
 
Cypress said:
I think to a certain extent, moderates and liberals will be deferential and respectful of Jewish beliefs, Islamic belief Hindu belief, and Buddhist belief. No how much they criticize things that were written in the Old Testament, aka Hebrew Bible, they generally won't complain about it to Jewish people.
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Most people favor live and let live. It’s the extremists of all stripes who seek to dominate others. BP and Perry are no different than the Jerry Falwells of the world.
 
Doc Dutch said:
Most people favor live and let live. It’s the extremists of all stripes who seek to dominate others. BP and Perry are no different than the Jerry Falwells of the world.
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I guess I'm as guilty as anyone, I've mocked the Creation Science Museum mercilessly. But I guess I consider that a matter of science education first and foremost
 
Cypress said:
We know what lukemia is and why it kills.
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Yet this is a STANDARD question many ask of God. Why do you deny it?

Missing tools in my garage are not a metaphysical mystery for the ages, they are missing because I misplaced them.
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You miss my point, though. Why do you make a special pleading for "metaphysical mystery"? I'm serious when I ask that.

SURELY you know that MANY religious people often pray to God for the most mundane things imaginable. They are as dedicated to that request as your desire to know the origins of the universe.

None of these mundane examples approaches the metaphysical questions I have highlighted.
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And I am merely pointing out that "metaphysical questions" aren't usually all that special. They just FEEL like it to you. You have no way to adequately differentiate them from the mundane other than your feelings that asking about the universe is somehow "special" but asking about a child getting a random cancer is not.

I just don't think it's a good analogy to compare belief in an ultimate creative organizing principle underlying reality to belief in pink polka-dotted unicorns.
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So an invisible being who created all mankind and then manifested himself as his son to come down to earth in a backwater Roman colony in the middle of nowhere so that he could arrange to have himself killed to atone his creation to himself ISN'T in any way similar to an invisible pink polka dotted unicorn?

That aside, if you just want an "organizing principle" does it have to be an intelligence? Can it just not be what it is? An eternal universe caught in a cycle of bang-and-bust-bang-and-bust?

What is this "principle" of which you speak? Is it an intelligence? Does it have will? If not, what do you imagine it to be?
 
Concart said:
Because science has established those benchmarks.
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Incorrect. I'll give you a little rundown on science. You should be wondering why I am the first person to be telling you this:

1. Science predicts the future. It is a "future tense" thing. Given a cause, what will be the effect. Science follows the "if -> then" statement of formal logic. Science has nothing to say about the past.

2. Science is entirely falsifiable. No model/theory can become science until at least its null hypothesis survives the scientific method. Until we develop time machines, nothing in the unobserved past can be directly verified and is therefore unfalsifiable. Again, science has nothing to say about the past, only the future.

3. Science doesn't establish "benchmarks". Science never "suggests" anything. Science cannot confirm or verify anything as true. The scientific method (not to be confused with science itself) can only show that something is false. Ergo, science is a collection of models/theories that have not yet been shown to be false.

4. Everything about the unobserved past is merely someone's speculation. Dishonest people who speculate about the unobserved past like to claim that their speculations are somehow "science" to fool the unwary into affording unwarranted authority. You stated a speculation about the past. You should explain why you believe that speculation. If you believe because you were simply told to believe by someone you hold in authority, much like the way most religious beliefs come about, then you should acknowledge that your belief is faith-based.
 
Doc Dutch said:
Doe they believe “when you’re dead, you’re dead” or do they believe they’ll transcend to a different plane…
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Terry, Terry, Terry ... this might appear stupid to normal people but you are really showing some improvement. This is what you can accomplish if you just stop trying to compete with others in "my brain stem is bigger that your brain stem."

If someone has no belief in those matters, he has no belief in those matters. It's a lack of belief, Terry, not a belief. Can you get that through your thick stem? ;)

Don't ruffle your pressure sores. Adjust the feeding tube and get back to your food digestion.
 
Doc Dutch said:
If are waiting for me to become as angry as an immature and lonely 20something, don’t hold your breath, dear.
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Who's waiting? You already did so many times. Each time was spectacular, Terry. S-P-E-C-T-A-C-U-L-A-R!

Doc Dutch said:
FWIW, I never ban people or put them on ignore. What’s the fun in that?
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You probably tried and couldn't figure out how to do it. Next time, just ask for help.
 
Tinkerpeach said:
It doesn’t mean you have to accept it but you should be open to the possibility.

If your tools are missing that means you don’t know where they are which means it’s an unexplained event

If you can’t explain the origin of the universe or life it’s an unexplained event.

In science all possible explanations remain until disproven
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What????

Of course I accept the possibility of gods existing. I also accept the possibility that no gods exist.

That is what I have been arguing all along.

So has Cypress.

We just acknowledge that we do not know which it is.
 
Concart said:
The entity you describe could certainly reveal itself. Don't you find it in the least bit odd that God hasn't done that? He supposedly talked to a couple of guys, but those stories don't pass the smell test they are so utterly inane.

I don't believe in the supernatural. That's my nature. But there is no evidence, so belief in a supernatural God is entirely faith based. That's fine, my objections come when faith is introduced as science in the classroom, because it is not. Intelligent Design is not an alternate theory. It is a hocus pocus story, nothing more.

So if the God you described exists, he either a) doesn't care about us, b) is messing with us or c) both of the above. For all we know, we are a part of a science experiment by some junior high kid in another universe, and when they clean up, we'll be tossed in the trash.

I just can't see where God is a necessary part of the equation, and I don't take on faith that God exists. All of us have our own beliefs. Ours differ. Man of Science not Man of Faith (I miss Lost). We only know what we experience and if you think, for example, an ant colony isn't aware of anything outside of what they do. But we know there is a whole universe of things they never experience, right here on earth. Could we be someones ant colony? Sure. But that someone is not a God to be worshiped, it's a natural phenomenon we don't have the capability of measuring or understanding.
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I don't think you have been reading what I have been writing.

Please read this. It is a statement of my take on the issue:


I do not know if any GOD (or gods) exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect that gods cannot exist…that the existence of a GOD or gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that at least one GOD must exist...that the existence of at least one GOD is needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction on whether any gods exist or not...so I don't.

(When I use the word "GOD or gods" here, I mean "The entity (or entities) responsible for the creation of what we humans call 'the physical universe'...IF SUCH AN ENTITY OR ENTITIES ACTUALLY EXIST.)
 
Frank Apisa said:
I don't think you have been reading what I have been writing.
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You haven't been reading what you have been writing.


Frank Apisa said:
I do not know if any GOD (or gods) exist or not;
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You are fully aware that what you do or do not know is not the question you were discussing. You are well aware that the issue is what you believe or don't believe.

You intentionally conflate the separate topics as convenient to ensure you never say anything intelligent.


Frank Apisa said:
I see no reason to suspect that gods cannot exist…that the existence of a GOD or gods is impossible;
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This also EVADES the question of what you believe. The question is not "What is, or is not, possible?"

Once again, you avoided all honesty in order to refrain from being value-added.
 
Frank Apisa said:
BP is becoming more an asshole with each post. He actually craves the position of Chief Asshole.
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I think she’s just young, angry and lonely. Kinda like the girl in class who goes around pushing boys because she thinks physical abuse is “love”. Maybe she’s Italian. Ask Niblick. She likes him.
 
IBDaMann said:
Incorrect. I'll give you a little rundown on science. You should be wondering why I am the first person to be telling you this:

1. Science predicts the future. It is a "future tense" thing. Given a cause, what will be the effect. Science follows the "if -> then" statement of formal logic. Science has nothing to say about the past.

2. Science is entirely falsifiable. No model/theory can become science until at least its null hypothesis survives the scientific method. Until we develop time machines, nothing in the unobserved past can be directly verified and is therefore unfalsifiable. Again, science has nothing to say about the past, only the future.

3. Science doesn't establish "benchmarks". Science never "suggests" anything. Science cannot confirm or verify anything as true. The scientific method (not to be confused with science itself) can only show that something is false. Ergo, science is a collection of models/theories that have not yet been shown to be false.

4. Everything about the unobserved past is merely someone's speculation. Dishonest people who speculate about the unobserved past like to claim that their speculations are somehow "science" to fool the unwary into affording unwarranted authority. You stated a speculation about the past. You should explain why you believe that speculation. If you believe because you were simply told to believe by someone you hold in authority, much like the way most religious beliefs come about, then you should acknowledge that your belief is faith-based.
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You are clueless. Of course science looks back, how fucking stupid are you to think it doesn't. We have determined the age of the first fossil record of life.

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/educa...est life forms we,about 3.7 billion years old.

And we know the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. That leaves no life on earth for the first few hundred million years.

You are a fucking moron. The reason no one has told me before that I'm wrong is that I don't tend to interact with fucking morons except on this forum.
 
Frank Apisa said:
I don't think you have been reading what I have been writing.

Please read this. It is a statement of my take on the issue:


I do not know if any GOD (or gods) exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect that gods cannot exist…that the existence of a GOD or gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that at least one GOD must exist...that the existence of at least one GOD is needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction on whether any gods exist or not...so I don't.

(When I use the word "GOD or gods" here, I mean "The entity (or entities) responsible for the creation of what we humans call 'the physical universe'...IF SUCH AN ENTITY OR ENTITIES ACTUALLY EXIST.)
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It was once believed that a dragon god was trying to swallow the sun. What was actually happening was a eclipse. Those people did not understand something, so they explained it with God. All due respet, but the highlighted is doing the exact same thing. You can't come up with an explanation, because we simply don't have the capability or the knowledge to understand the beginnings of the universe. If we could understand it, the explanation would be natural, it would not be supernatural. Because every phenomenon in the history of man that was attributed to a God turned out to be a natural occurrence.

Imagine if you were observing a basketball game for the first time, but your field of vision was so small that all you could see was a little portion of the rim. You don't know anything about basketball. Every once in a while, a ball would suddenly appear. Wow, it must be God doing that. How else would this magic ball suddenly appear out of nowhere and then vanish again.

Our scientific knowledge is that view of the universe. It takes years of scientific research to expand that view even a little. It may take hundreds of thousands of years before we finally see the men on the court. God should not fill those gaps. Belief in that entity removes our curiosity. We stop asking questions, because God is the answer. Sorry, but God has never been the answer, and I have no reason to believe that God will ever be.
 
Quincunx said:
Yet this is a STANDARD question many ask of God. Why do you deny it?



You miss my point, though. Why do you make a special pleading for "metaphysical mystery"? I'm serious when I ask that.

SURELY you know that MANY religious people often pray to God for the most mundane things imaginable. They are as dedicated to that request as your desire to know the origins of the universe.



And I am merely pointing out that "metaphysical questions" aren't usually all that special. They just FEEL like it to you. You have no way to adequately differentiate them from the mundane other than your feelings that asking about the universe is somehow "special" but asking about a child getting a random cancer is not.



So an invisible being who created all mankind and then manifested himself as his son to come down to earth in a backwater Roman colony in the middle of nowhere so that he could arrange to have himself killed to atone his creation to himself ISN'T in any way similar to an invisible pink polka dotted unicorn?

That aside, if you just want an "organizing principle" does it have to be an intelligence? Can it just not be what it is? An eternal universe caught in a cycle of bang-and-bust-bang-and-bust?

What is this "principle" of which you speak? Is it an intelligence? Does it have will? If not, what do you imagine it to be?
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Religions are human beings' attempt to embrace and recognize the mystery of the infinite.

I believe the only reason to make the preposterous comparison of the mystery of the infinite, to pink polka-dotted leprechauns is a passive-aggrressive attempt at inserting mockery of the beliefs of Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism.
 
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