Did a God or Gods create the universe? EDITED

srx

‘srx’ wrote: “I don't think this is IF AND ONLY IF statement...”
“He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.”, Jesus Christ said...
“I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”, Jesus Christ also said...
(Conclusion need not!)

As I said Bible is open book. You have to read it between lines. Have you thought what does it mean to be with Him, and against Him? I don't think that non-Christians all go to hell. It is not what Christ would say. Or do you think he would? We are all "God's children". Many atheist are walking His path. Solo for example He is trying to be good to others, as he would like others to be good to him. It sounds familiar. I think that Gods word is in our genes, it is hardware. The Christ was a perfect example, the Bible is a manual.

pilou

Funny as something who is not established can produce so many posts
That is a truely creation from nothing!
Astonishing is not it ?

irwanwr

that reminds me of the good samaritan

[ed] it's a software, srx. something like operating system

Rich O Brien

@unknownuser said:

So I'm kinda like him

Pete, you've just had your Beatle 'Bigger than Jesus' moment.

Although, I did see you on the white phone to god at Basecamp....very inspiring stuff

solo

@unknownuser said:

@unknownuser said:

So I'm kinda like him

Pete, you've just had your Beatle 'Bigger than Jesus' moment.

Although, I did see you on the white phone to god at Basecamp....very inspiring stuff

Nah, not bigger than him, I'm sure he has many more twitter and Facebook friends than me.

But with exception of all the praying, god stuff, miracles and walking on water stuff (does ice skating count?) I believe I live my life according to much of his ideals, does that make me Christ-like?

brodie

@solo said:

But with exception of all the praying, god stuff, miracles and walking on water stuff (does ice skating count?) I believe I live my life according to much of his ideals, does that make me Christ-like?

I know there's a handful of facetiousness here Pete but it's still an interesting idea. What ideals would you say you live your life by?

-Brodie

jeff hammond

@idahoj said:

What I do believe is that Man was created as a unique being, one possessing a soul, or spirit, if the term is more comfortable. We were created in the image of our Creator, not in the physical sense but in the spiritual one, for what is God, if not spirit?

i'm pretty sure we're on the verge of taking evolution into our own hands.. i'd say within the next 50 years (probably less), we'll have made a computer with a soul or spirit or whatever you want to call it..

i don't necessarily think we'll create an entirely new species.. what i do think is that we'll evolve ourselves by blending technology with our bodies.. which will eventually lead to a new species (though humans as we know us and the 'new' species probably won't be coexisting)..

point being, we're going to witness evolution firsthand and not at the hand of god.. (and if you open your eyes some, you'll already notice this happening)..

computers and our brains really aren't that much different anyways.. both are just some electronics bouncing on/offs around..

dunno, when i imagine the super advanced civilizations out there (you know, the ones that have been around for a few million years), i'm pretty sure they didn't just happen to be genius cave people from the get go.. they made themselves into what they are.. and humans are on the same track granted we don't nuke the earth before we can leave it or get hit by a crazy disease/giant space rock etc...

i guess this may sound too scifi for a lot of you but it's going to happen.. maybe not as i describe in this post but something similar.. where will god stand in all of this? honestly, i don't think the god myth is going to be able to survive it.. there will be a few sects of people that refuse to upgrade etc for a generation or two but after that, adios god..

jeff hammond

@solo said:

AI (artificial intelligence) is another great topic, I also believe we will one day create a machine that can learn and be autonomous, I guess we could say it would posses consciousness, would that be a soul?

dunno, i think AI is a misnomer.. i mean, intelligence is intelligence.. just because it's not human intelligence doesn't make it artificial..

but yeah.. another topic/another day..

Marian

I love the new direction this thread is taking.

My opinion is that the blending of human and machine will be more subtle.
As nanomechanics develops, technology could become more organic and also make humans more suitable and compatible for technological updates.
This coupled with AIs could some day in the future make possible the creation of some unique, non-human, sentient beings. Whether they will become new species or not will depend on whether we will give them the ability or if they will want to.
In essence such a being would be almost immortal, what purpose would procreation serve?

So...yeah no god in there

jeff hammond

@unknownuser said:

Part of the problem with our culture is that we've turned the Bible into a series of children's stories. I think this is not only false but it damages our perception of God. Noah's flood, is a classic example, painted on the walls of many sunday school rooms. It makes for a pretty enough scene if you focus on the cute animals and not all of they drowning people and animals which are left out - but those things are important to the story.

-Brodie

the story of noah's flood is almost laughable but the fact that many adults believe the story is entirely laughable.. (sorry)

if i have the story straight, noah was a man.. just like us.. with no divine powers etc..
so he builds a boat that has to house two of every single species on the planet.. penguins & anacondas on the same boat.. octopi and scorpions etc..

you do realize how big that boat would have to be right? i think larger than anything we've built today.. it'd have to have a polar zone, aquatic zone, desert, sky.. etc.. plus, somehow noah has to keep a zillion animals from eating their natural prey for 40 days (then another hundred or so years after until the population builds up to a survivable level)..

so one guy, noah, managed to find every single species on earth and put them on one boat while the earth floods..
meanwhile, there are thousands to millions of people that have spent their time on earth trying to document all the species we have living amongst us and they are still finding new things to this day.. lots of them..

but somehow, you actually believe this story of noah? i'd have an easier time believing in santa clause (much easier).. santa's task is impossible.. noah's task is well beyond impossible..

jeff hammond

@marian said:

I love the new direction this thread is taking.

My opinion is that the blending of human and machine will be more subtle.
As nanomechanics develops, technology could become more organic and also make humans more suitable and compatible for technological updates.
This coupled with AIs could some day in the future make possible the creation of some unique, non-human, sentient beings. Whether they will become new species or not will depend on whether we will give them the ability or if they will want to.
In essence such a being would be almost immortal, what purpose would procreation serve?

So...yeah no god in there

i think i'll be satisfied when we figure out how to grow new teeth (i think we're pretty close to growing skin already.. we can but it's not quite there yet)..
anyway.. pop a little tooth seed in the jaw and a new one grows out.. gonna be sweet!

[i have a dentist appt in a few hours.. root canal.. so that's why i'm on about teeth ]

srx

@solo said:

@unknownuser said:

@unknownuser said:

So I'm kinda like him

Pete, you've just had your Beatle 'Bigger than Jesus' moment.

Although, I did see you on the white phone to god at Basecamp....very inspiring stuff

Nah, not bigger than him, I'm sure he has many more twitter and Facebook friends than me.

But with exception of all the praying, god stuff, miracles and walking on water stuff (does ice skating count?) I believe I live my life according to much of his ideals, does that make me Christ-like?

YES
I wouldn't say that you are like him, but that HE WAS THE PERFECT VERSION OF US (after TomTom's Cleanup He showed us that you don't need walking on water and stuff like that to be powerful (as earlier gods had, and TV show us). His greatest power was, and is in Love, which is the ability to sacrifice yourself for other. For example, would you stop playing with SketchUp if your son needs you more? Bringing this sacrifice to the extreme, as a man only, not as God he showed us that we all have that power...but have to work on it...which is the biggest challenge of our life. The purpose of prayer is like practice of this Love capacity...it is not in service of our desires like discussed earlier.

brodie

@solo said:

@Brodie

These are the virtues of Jesus:

Humility

Kindness

Patience

Chastity

Temperance

Charity

Diligence

Now IMO one does not need to follow a religion to live life by these virtues, okay Chastity may take work.

I'd say that's a pretty good list. I'm sure you'd agree that it's not exhaustive but certainly paints the picture. I'd agree with you, btw, that one need not be a theist to do a very good job at living according to these virtues. I think a disservice is done when we turn some peoples story (I was a wretched person, found Jesus, became a great person) into everyone's story.

I think, like the issue of heaven, our society has popularized Christianity as a way of becoming a good person and we Christians often go right along with the idea. Not that I don't think God can't do that - He does. It's just that it isn't the point and shouldn't be the focus (neither is 'getting to heaven' but we fall into that trap too often as well).

-Brodie

irwanwr

i think i just saw misunderstanding around recent post.
nevertheless, i'd like to point little things that some might misunderstood. else, i'll just let it be.

i do think our intellectual capabilities and consciousness are different that those artificial or human made things. as if the same thing went through by this kind of sentences,

@unknownuser said:

"Could an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that even that being could not lift it?" If "he" could lift the rock, then it seems that the being could cease to be omnipotent, as the rock was not heavy enough; if "he" could not, it seems that the being was not omnipotent to begin with..", Averoes/Ibn Rusyd.

and physicians as far as i know, admit that even the most advanced computer cannot be compared to human brain. a simple thought, compare the size of human brain with those super computer. and let's think of how many nerves, muscles, etc. a brain controlling.

about the flood. i think i remember someone mentioned that the flood were not really drown the whole earth. i don't really know what others have to say about their scriptures. i do believe in those scriptures and scrolls (kitab and mushaf), in their former shape though.
rather to drown some kind of a civilisation. that's a "world" in certain meaning. for those whales, it does make sense to be there. there were news about whales stranded on the beach even without storm or flood.

the topic is still "did God or Gods..." even if i am not really think i am a religious pious kind of person. i do believe someday people will have their enlightenment. perhaps not all, but at least most. hopefully.

brodie

@unknownuser said:

the story of noah's flood is almost laughable but the fact that many adults believe the story is entirely laughable.. (sorry)

if i have the story straight, noah was a man.. just like us.. with no divine powers etc..
so he builds a boat that has to house two of every single species on the planet.. penguins & anacondas on the same boat.. octopi and scorpions etc..

you do realize how big that boat would have to be right? i think larger than anything we've built today.. it'd have to have a polar zone, aquatic zone, desert, sky.. etc.. plus, somehow noah has to keep a zillion animals from eating their natural prey for 40 days (then another hundred or so years after until the population builds up to a survivable level)..

so one guy, noah, managed to find every single species on earth and put them on one boat while the earth floods..
meanwhile, there are thousands to millions of people that have spent their time on earth trying to document all the species we have living amongst us and they are still finding new things to this day.. lots of them..

but somehow, you actually believe this story of noah? i'd have an easier time believing in santa clause (much easier).. santa's task is impossible.. noah's task is well beyond impossible..

I can certainly understand that position. I don't spend much time fretting about that one. There are a variety of ways which people have interpreted the story to make sense of those questions. I don't really come down in any particular position. Some like to prove with science that all of those seemingly impossible things you mention are actually possible. Some say the flood was not world-wide in our sense but in their sense - ie. it was localized to their 'world'. Some say it's not meant to be taken literally.

You should understand though that even if we assume the 'worst case scenario' the claim isn't that a normal guy built a boat and gathered all the animals, etc. The assumption here is that God, himself, was involved in these circumstances and it's claimed that He did far more unbelievable things than this (everything from creating light to feeding 5000+ people with a handful of food). Debating the believability of the flood is, to me, like arguing that Mother Theresa was a good person because she never went to jail.

-Brodie

solo

[flash=600,400:1c31ih1v]http://www.youtube.com/v/3LtiyefHCe4[/flash:1c31ih1v]

Marian

@unknownuser said:

i think i'll be satisfied when we figure out how to grow new teeth (i think we're pretty close to growing skin already.. we can but it's not quite there yet)..
anyway.. pop a little tooth seed in the jaw and a new one grows out.. gonna be sweet!

[i have a dentist appt in a few hours.. root canal.. so that's why i'm on about teeth ]

Well, I keep reading from time to time on Popsci about some gizmo or solution that has been invented that can repair the damage done by tooth decay and so on.
I also saw on Discovery a segment on a show that a powder made out of pig stomachs can regenearate limbs if you put it on the wound every day. It showed how the brother of the researcher had the top of one of his fingers regenerated after he injured himself with a model airplane propeller.

The only problem with these is that they can't be in the doctor's hands soon enough. I also have two teeth with problems and I keep dealying the moment.

Alan Fraser

Well, no doubt one day they shove a few shark genes into the human genome and we'll be able to grow endless sets of teeth.

jeff hammond

@unknownuser said:

Debating the believability of the flood is, to me, like arguing that Mother Theresa was a good person because she never went to jail.

-Brodie

no it's not.. debating the believability of the flood is about showing obvious holes in the bible. if one single part of the bible can be accepted as fiction then the whole thing is discounted as a literal truth..
and the idea about you being able to interpret however you like in order to make this flood story sit well in your mind is bs.. either the bible tells the truth or it doesn't.
so do you believe Noah loaded up the boat or not?

TIG

The "seven virtues" do not belong to Jesus.
They were simply ascribed to him, long after his death, by mere men.
They same way that he ceased being a middle-eastern semitic Jew and was metamorphosed in writings and illustrations into a European !
That's not to say he didn't have these virtues, but it's only our inferences, not Biblical fact...

In the Catholic catechism, the seven catholic virtues refer to the combination of two lists of virtues, the 4 cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, restraint/temperance, and courage/fortitude, (from ancient Greek philosophy) and the 3 theological virtues of faith, hope, and love or charity (from the letters of Paul of Tarsus - an early churchman with no direct contact with Christ in his day); these were adopted by the early Church Fathers as the "seven virtues".

A list that was developed later, sometimes called the seven heavenly virtues, was proposed by a Christian governor named Aurelius Prudentius [who died around 410 AD], in his poem "Psychomachia" ["Battle of the Soul"]. This poem proposed "seven virtues" to directly counteract the "seven deadly sins". These virtues were chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.