Did a God or Gods create the universe? EDITED
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I guess I wasn't clear as to why I am distracted -- I am on a deadline and I have a complex software to teach so my mental focus is elsewhere... I cannot go blow for blow with every point made so I was speaking in basic generalizations to at least put it out there. I am also not inclined to allow myself to get drawn in by the more mean-spirited qualities of this conversation as I am prone to become a rather big bastard when pushed... and while I have no doubt I could silence the critics with enough time and energy, I have neither. And anyway ultimately it may not open any hearts, and in fact may have the outcome of further hardening hearts.
So since, I don't have the time or energy to see this through properly at this point and rather than do a half-way job I'm excusing myself. Since I never come to this section of the forum and only found this yesterday because Jeff mentioned it in the gallery and I was curious... you should not miss my contribution.
Suffice to say I am a believer -- and I find less incongruity between "science" and the Bible than you do -- but I also allow for more things than you do as possible, so I am not limiting myself to only discussing what we currently know as "fact".
I honestly do hope you find peace -- the alternative is not very pretty and it is completely needless to end up that way due to the Grace of God... nothing is needed but faith.
As a last aside: Gravity is a bit of sticky subject because while we do "appear" to have a handle on this subject here, when you get down to the quantum level things get much stranger in relation to gravity -- this is one of the things which string theory attempts to resolve ( as one of the purported theories of everything). However there are several competing ideas being thrown out that either downgrade or completely discard the theory of general relativity... so it is not so cut and dry. But again as I say I do not have the time or energy to dig into these subjects properly for the next 8 weeks.
Now I must attempt to successfully try to pry myself away from this distraction and get back to work.
Best,
Jason. -
@jason_maranto said:
(...) and while I have no doubt I could silence the critics with enough time and energy, I have neither.
[trying not be too snarky] I'll gladly wait until you find both. Please do consider this an invitation. [/trying not be too snarky]
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Maybe it's time to stop:
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Some parting thoughts, since I have some work to do too, thankfully.
Like Pete said, Jesus was a radical socialist. He turned political and religious structures on their heads. But that's the point, Jesus operates in the human faith and relationship realm, not the scientific realm, and to conflate the two is pointless. IMHO -
But whose reply was the 666th? Ah!
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@jason_maranto said:
... and while I have no doubt I could silence the critics with enough time and energy, I have neither.
I'm also rather curious on how you are gonna do what no one else on Earth managed to do concerning this subject. I'm gonna watch this space.
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No, you're not.
The winner, I mean. -
You guys do know that the number of the beast is actually 616, right?
Or you can try 01562 55789....that's the fax no. of the beast.
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@solo said:
Funny thing is if he was around today the exact folk that worship him would hate his social liberal ways and he'd be dismissed and persecuted...oh wait he was back then also.....hmmmm.
A point that most believers tend to miss.
When you critique the current North American view of Christianity you are critiquing a caricature of what following Christ really means.
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What I do notice about this thread is that non believers are very supportive of others statements. Whilst believers are largely left unsupported or have separate ideas. Understandable considering the amount of variants to follow.
I do think both Brodie and Jason have a firm grasp on their faith and I commend them for taking the time to share that belief. Whether you agree with it or not.
On such a divisive subject it's nice to see a wholesome debate as such.
Has any believer questioned their thinking after reading the non believer responses?
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@unknownuser said:
I do think both Brodie and Jason have a firm grasp on their faith and I commend them for taking the time to share that belief.
Agreed.
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I'm not seeing Cornel's posts since he doesn't see my questions
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@unknownuser said:
Has any believer questioned their thinking after reading the non believer responses?
I doubt that Rich. Both believers and non belivers alike think they are right but only one group thinks they hold the absolute knowledge, truth and righteousness.
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@unknownuser said:
:lol:
But whose reply was the 666th? Ah!
OOOoooh, counting back, I might be the winnner!!
geez, I really gotta go...
Edit: Rats! I just saw Tom's screen grab. I guess my post was to light and fluffy to warrant a significant number. Eh, sort of "Life of Brian"-ish...
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@unknownuser said:
I do think both Brodie and Jason have a firm grasp on their faith and I commend them for taking the time to share that belief. Whether you agree with it or not.
I also agree
@unknownuser said:
Has any believer questioned their thinking after reading the non believer responses?
Not at all, a friend told me once and I'm not sure this would get him where he wanted to go but thought it fit the question. He said He'd rather believe and be wrong than not believe and be right.
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@unknownuser said:
I do think both Brodie and Jason have a firm grasp on their faith and I commend them for taking the time to share that belief. Whether you agree with it or not.
@unknownuser said:
Has any believer questioned their thinking after reading the non believer responses?
Yes.
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Getting this back onto the topic...
The existence of [a] God [and that's 'any god', not just the Christian version] is a separate issue from the exact question in hand - although if you were to define God as "the being who created the Universe" then they do get uncomfortably close!
You can't prove beyond doubt the validity of a 'negative' statement.
So therefore we can't prove beyond doubt that, "God didn't create the Universe.".
Unfortunately this is not as good as it first appears for 'believers', because it also means that they can't prove beyond doubt that, "The Universe didn't simply pop into creation of its own accord".Let's set that issue to one side for a moment... you can support a 'positive' statement with supporting positive 'facts'...
So for example we really need to recast this question more like this...
"Is there substantive evidence that God created the Universe?"
For if we present enough proof then the conclusion is that 'God created the Universe'.
There is an undeniable and massive body of 'opinion' [faith/belief/etc] in favor of this; but that's quite simply not 'evidence'; someone saying something is 'so', doesn't make it 'so' - it's a baseless assumption, not 'truth'.
There is also significant written documentation, but that was first written down and later edited 'by men', to support the very position that we are testing, so it's hardly reliable independent 'evidence'.
So, what evidence do the 'believers' have that would withstand the tests of evidence of a court of law?
I have seen nothing presented thus far that has not been a regurgitation of entrenched opinion, dogma and cant; without any proper evidential 'proof' or reasoned 'argument'!As I said earlier - non-believers can't prove that, "God didn't create the Universe". BUT on the other hand there's no proper proof that God did make it either.
However, there is significant testable evidence that, "The Universe could have come into existence spontaneously.". This is not a 'negative', so it can be disproved. A substantial body of evidence has been established by scientists and many agree that there is a very strong indication that, "The Universe could have come into existence spontaneously", simply as an inevitable result of Quantum fluctuations in 'space'. Of course the whole ethos of science is to theorize/test/re-theorize/..., so sometime in the future opinions might have changed, and we might all accept that, "The Universe came into existence as a result of supernatural intervention." BUT there are really no indications of this; except from the extreme-believers' side, but they always fail to provide any concrete, testable evidence anyway...
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@unknownuser said:
@unknownuser said:
Has any believer questioned their thinking after reading the non believer responses?
Yes.
yes again.
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@unknownuser said:
He said He'd rather believe and be wrong than not believe and be right.
He put that very nicely.
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@unknownuser said:
He said He'd rather believe and be wrong than not believe and be right.
That's practically a simplified version of Pascal's wager. I don't really understand his stance.
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