Did a God or Gods create the universe? EDITED
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It seems that some people cannot accept answers or ideas except as absolute values, with no variables. They need to have the ultimate final answer. There can be no shades of grey. And what they cannot answer with absolutes becomes a mystery. I predict these present discussions will not arrive at a solution. The issue may be shelved for awhile as the passion(pathology?)to impose/express one's opinions dies off. A new batch of folks probably will take this issue up sometime in the future-- one's who may not even be aware of this discussion in this forum.
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“I despair...” for those who criticize the Bible, but have not read it all, have not studied it carefully...!
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Cornel, what makes you think that others might NOT have read the Bible carefully, and if they have done so they might not have understood it as well as you have ???
I take exception to your presumption!Might I suggest that it is you who might have not read it sufficiently carefully, and thereby not understood it at all properly.
Perhaps there are many others who understand it better than you do
I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken... to quote Cromwell...
Good scientists [and theologians] never think they have 'absolute truth' - but rather, the best approximation of it that is currently available to them. They always look to improve their understanding, or sometimes change it completely when things don't fit as expected...You seem to think that you are right, no matter what others might think, believe or know - and more worryingly, in the face of clear and contrary indications you refuse to reconsider one iota of your ill-founded dogma...
Many of us are less set in out ways...
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@unknownuser said:
“I despair...” for those who criticize the Bible, but have not read it all, have not studied it carefully...!
I despair that in this day and age we still need to keep such a book in high regard and be forced to have extensive knowledge of its foul contents.
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@solo said:
@unknownuser said:
Please do not take this as an offense if you are not a believer ,this is just my point of view and was not intended to harm anyone in any way.
No offense at all.
I guess life is easier to just believe in a higher power, pretty much go through life without asking, thinking, questioning.
Hehe there is no place here for the "just" word ,that is for very simple things like eat,sleep,walk ..believing is not that simple. It is easier to believe(which is not that easy as you think or at least as you want to say ) and to put your faith into somebody who is willing to do the best for you.
But you are being a bit ironic here with the "without asking,thinking,questioning",or at least that is how I feel this phrase,because the thinking,the asking and the questioning are still there .It's just that I/we know that someday we will have the answer of all our questions.
If you want a parallel,think of your father when he teach,coach,fed,punished you because he wanted something better for you. Didn't you had then lot of asking,questioning,thinking? Yet the responses weren't there. Only when you got mature enough you got few of your answers because your mind was ready to take it . -
@ Marian
Your country, Romania, is a ‘Christian country’, where most are Orthodox, having knowledge of “Bible foul contents”, as you said.
Who is confused, you or the Romanian people?! -
Arguments, Cornel, not sophistry.
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@ TomDC. Marian denies the Bible used by his ancestors, but it is obvious that he didn’t study it!
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@unknownuser said:
@alan fraser said:
Factors such as 'love' are not evidence for the existence of God...and certainly not a precise Abrahamic one. My dog loves me...in a totally unreserved way; and by any definition of the word. Does that make him christian and bound for glory? Evidence is that which is normally understood as such...the kind of thing that would satisfy a forensic lab.
That is the only thing that does vaguely annoy me...when dyed-in-the-wool theists attempt to draw some kind of spurious equivalence between the proof for God and the proof for some scientific theory or another. There is no such equivalence and it's a totally bogus and dishonest practice to maintain that there is. Faith is faith; it's not subject to scientific probity; get over it. But that does not mean that science is a 'faith' or 'belief' or 'religion'.
Scientific theory entails:-
a) An understood process (maybe not always fully inderstood, as yet, but at least in a general sense.
b) A process which is predictable.
c) A process which is repeatable.
There is not one aspect of God that meets even one of these criteria; that's why belief is called Faith. He moves in mysterious ways...the very antithesis of scientific process.There's nothing remotely 'subjective' about scientific theory. If there was, the electrons rushing through the CPU of the machine I'm typing this on could just as easily deliver me a burger and fries as the contents of this forum page. The quantum mechanics that precisely determine the function of that CPU are exactly the same quantum mechanics that point beyond any doubt to the fact of the Big Bang and the processes that followed in its wake.
I think this is the best post I've read here yet, Thanks
@alan fraser said:
The people I really feel sorry for are those that are so materially deadened that they can spend a small fortune on illuminating their house, apparently leaving them so broke can't even spare a single penny for a charitable cause; or so worn out that they can't even drag their fat arse of the sofa as far as the front door. There might be some unknown mitigating circumstances of course, but if not, those are the true spiritually dead...whether they call themselves religious, agnostic or atheist. But that's a whole other topic.
Second best!
I concur. Alan, I sincerely hope my kid runs into a few teachers (you mentioned you taught, somewhere) of your stature throughout his schooling. I have, and I remember them fondly, still.
Otherwise, it'd be all down to me, and that'd be bad.
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the holy bible seems to be your stick, can't you stand up by yourself?
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@ Bravo ‘TomDC’, for that “the best post you've read there yet”:
“Factors such as 'love' are not evidence for the existence of God”...Of course love is the result of some chemicals or stray electrical bio-circuits...
Congratulations! -
Why doesn't anyone quote these verses?
@unknownuser said:
Ezekiel 23:19-20
Common English Bible (CEB)
19 But she added to her promiscuities, bringing to mind her youthful days when she was a prostitute in the land of Egypt. 20 She lusted after their male consorts, whose sexual organs were like those of donkeys, and whose ejaculation was like that of horses. -
You're right, ‘Gilles’ (and 'Solo'), the Holy Bible is a solid “stick”, a solid rock for me!
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) -
@ Rich O’Brien
I can explain you the verses mentioned by you (Ezekiel 23:19-20), what they mean, but that does not interest you...!
Be serious and honest!(True inclusive for other mockers...) -
May 'heroes', read the whole Bible, then we can talk like people who want to know the truth!
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@unknownuser said:
@ Bravo ‘TomDC’, for that “the best post you've read there yet”:
“Factors such as 'love' are not evidence for the existence of God”...Of course love is the result of some chemicals or stray electrical bio-circuits...
Congratulations!Well, uncomfortable though you may find it, there is much more evidence for the latter, than the fact that it is God-given. In fact there is no evidence for it being God-given at all...and I mean EVIDENCE not presumption; either yours or the authors of the Bible.
When the electrical or chemical activity of the neurons and synapses is disrupted...as in dementia or brain injury...love all too frequently disappears. QEDWe are more than the sum of our parts. It's how you use that love, not the mechanism behind it that is important.
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@unknownuser said:
@ Marian
Your country, Romania, is a ‘Christian country’, where most are Orthodox, having knowledge of “Bible foul contents”, as you said.
Who is confused, you or the Romanian people?!I'm not confused at all, and I don't claim to understand what all my brethern have in their heads. I also don't understand what were you trying to say by that anyway. I can't be an atheist if a large majority of people in my country consider themselves religious?
Please don't pretend to understand the situation on the ground just on the basis of some biased statistics. If you manage to discuss this subject you will find out that most Romanians know little of the bible and its exact contents and I would at most consider them deist or just Sunday Christians. but that is the case with most Christians anyway. It is of course much more complicated than that, but from my experience few people here have or read the Bible, but they do have a lot of prayer books and calendars with all the holy days marked on them. Mostly they follow tradition and what priests say and not scripture. I could go more indepth as to explain why this is but it's not really relevant here.@unknownuser said:
@ TomDC. Marian denies the Bible used by his ancestors, but it is obvious that he didn’t study it!
There's plenty of things wrong with this comment.
Why does it matter what book my ancestors followed? I don't know my complete lineage so I can't be sure what ethnicities my distant ancestors were but I am most certain there were plenty of them who were pagan. Shouldn't I decry the loss of those ways too?
Yes, I deny the Bible as being anything other than a book written by ignorant people, so what? If it were really divine I think it would have been clear to everybody. A perfect, omniscient being couldn't have wrtten such and imperfect and faulty book/s.Oh and I did study it, at least part of it and not very recent,I admit, but I know plenty of the filth it holds. We have religion classes in school here, where the teacher is most often a priest. It's sort of state sanctioned mild indoctrination.
I could, if I really wanted to waste my time, find the bible and its most grotesc passages on the internet and show you, but youtube is full already of very informed excellent arguments against you. -
@unknownuser said:
@ Rich O’Brien
I can explain you the verses mentioned by you (Ezekiel 23:19-20), what they mean, but that does not interest you...!
Be serious and honest!(True inclusive for other mockers...)Can you explain this?
@unknownuser said:
"And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight. And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them."
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@ Marian.
If the Bible is “imperfect and faulty book”, give me please only an example, to believe you! -
@unknownuser said:
May 'heroes', read the whole Bible, then we can talk like people who want to know the truth!
I've read the whole Bible...several times, in addition to all the dipping in and out. The difference is that I read it critically.
"To question all things;– never to turn away from any difficulty; to accept no doctrine either from ourselves or from other people without a rigid scrutiny by negative criticism; letting no fallacy, or incoherence, or confusion of thought step by unperceived; above all to insist upon having the meaning of a word clearly understood before using it, and the meaning of a proposition before assenting to it;– these are the lessons we learn from the ancient dialecticians."
- John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address as Rector, University of St, Andrews, 1867
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