Did a God or Gods create the universe? EDITED
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@unknownuser said:
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.
right... of the ~38,000 denominations of Christianity out there, which one should I follow??!
you would think, if the bible and such were so pure/factual/etc there would be no way 38000 different religions would stem from it..
this fact alone would make me stop and really consider my position on believing.. sigh.. -
I don't follow that reasoning at all, Jeff. The speed of light is a fact, irrespective of whether we've measured it accurately or whether there are some things capable of travelling faster than it. It is what it is.
Any scientist worth his salt will admit that science is not in the business of uncovering facts, it's in the business of developing better models to understand and explain those facts.General Relativity explains gravity better than Newtonian physics, but no one is claiming it's the end of the line....just more accurate (if longer-winded).
Scientific progress tends towards discovering 'facts'...in the same way that a property can tend towards zero, but with no real guarantee that it will ever get there.
In the words of Dara O'Briain, "If science thought it knew everything, it would stop." -
@unknownuser said:
I must say that Jesus guy does seem like someone I'd like to know, not worship.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a friend of mine long ago. He told me, "just read the Gospels like any other book you might read..."
That would be my advice to you as well.
Cheers.
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@unknownuser said:
you would think, if the bible and such were so pure/factual/etc there would be no way 38000 different religions would stem from it..
this fact alone would make me stop and really consider my position on believing.. sigh..Doesn't matter how many denominations are out there,just believing that Jesus died for our sins and he is our God and creator is the best start. All other falls in to place.
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@unknownuser said:
@unknownuser said:
you would think, if the bible and such were so pure/factual/etc there would be no way 38000 different religions would stem from it..
this fact alone would make me stop and really consider my position on believing.. sigh..Doesn't matter how many denominations are out there,just believing that Jesus died for our sins and he is our God and creator is the best start. All other falls in to place.
Where did I say that?
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@unknownuser said:
As long as you ignore the old testament then.
You know, for the most part I do. I use it for reference to some of the things spoken of in the New Testament Gospels, especially Isaiah and Daniel.
The Old Testament was really a history of God's interaction, if you will, with Israel, the Jews. As a gentile, I'm more concerned with New Testament teachings because it was at that time that God's promise was extended to us ...
Cheers.
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@idahoj said:
Einstein established the "fact" that the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s. In September of last year, a group of scientists found subatomic particles that move faster than the speed of light. So the "fact of the speed of light" is not a fact at all, only the interpretation of data constrained by our current level of understanding, which encompasses our ability to test, observe, etc. Of course, the new findings are subject to change as well ...
You have your facts awry!
Your argument is thereby not logical or based on truth.
The speed of light was established long before Einstein got involved with anything.
Over the years the accuracy of its value has be carefully remeasured and adjusted.
In essence what Einstein did was shown that the speed of light was a kind of barrier: objects couldn't accelerate up to near the speed of light without paradoxical results of unlimited energy and mass, and minuscule size.
The logic behind the 'light-limit' is that if objects or information could travel faster than light then they would in effect be in the existence twice, and cause and affect fail !
I common parlance, it's 'you can't travel faster than the speed of light' - BUT what his ideas actually said was that you can't do that, because to get up to that speed is in effect impossible. His ideas do NOT preclude objects traveling faster than the speed of light. However, these can't come from/into our day-to-day world, as they'd never slow down to the 'light-barrier' let drop alone through it. Indeed 'tachyons' are olde theoretical particles that can travel faster than light, BUT we can never interact with these or observe them as they would need to slow down into our 'realm' and the converse is true on the other side of the light-barrier - to slow down towards the speed of light results in paradoxes too.
So it is possible for objects to travel faster than light, BUT we should not be able to observe them doing it.
The OPERA scientists you quote have indeed found an anomaly - some 'muon neutrinos' from CERN that arrive several hundred miles away just a tiny-tiny bit sooner than they should. They announced it so it could be tested by others as they themselves were at a loss to understand what was happening [they didn't hide it away because it was embarrassing to the current theories!]. The jury IS still out on this, although it is perplexing. There are so many variables that could account for it - how accurately is the start/end position measurable? how well do they guesstimate which few neutrinos in a batch leave, arrive and are detected [99.999% pass straight through the detector!] using a pulse pattern that they have as they leave and they might keep as they travel and finally show as they arrive [all but instantaneously]; the 'target' only needs to expand thermally by the tiniest amount from the impact energy for the result to appear superluminal - as the target a smidge nearer the transmitter than they suppose. So perhaps there is no anomaly at all - some experts argue for mistakes in the experimenters logic or setups [see Juergen Knobloch, or Shlomo Dado and Arnon Dar at Cornell - NO another place/guy!]... BUT then perhaps there is and the speed of light needs to be adjusted slightly, or more likely is that we change or understanding of how subatomic particles can behave. At the subatomic level weird things are sometimes found to happen, perhaps these neutrinos are momentarily leaving this universe and coming back having skipped a zillionth of a mm or so through another dimension... Whatever the final outcome scientists will adjust their theories or become better observers, and an ever better approximation of the truth should emerge. Scientists are unlike theists, who seem to ignore anything that might mean they have to change one iota of their dogma. Scientists love to find they got it a bit wrong, as it means they can get nearer to a truth. -
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I keep watching this thread closely to see if Alan or TIG logically explain themselves out of existence.
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i'd rather see Socrates comes back to live. [ed] oh, yes. Aristotle too, if he would like to
and asking people of what they really know, one term at a time.
whether it's technically, literally or even philosophically
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@tomsdesk said:
Maybe it's time to stop.
No, it will stop when the posts get further and further apart, resulting in a heat-death that will see it slip slowly down the listing. Until one day, the quantum flux of the forum will result in some new member resurrecting it and it will burst forth once again in the glory of a new Big Bang.
Eric, In the words of the Moody Blues " I think, therefore I am....I think."
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@unknownuser said:
You have your facts awry!
It's quite possible TIG! But I assure you, it's from ignorance and not malice ... Thank you for the corrections.
@unknownuser said:
Scientists are unlike theists, who seem to ignore anything that might mean they have to change one iota of their dogma. Scientists love to find they got it a bit wrong, as it means they can get nearer to a truth.
I'm sure (subjectively, as I lack proof) that not all scientists are happy to get something wrong, and not all theists are resistant to change. Faith, like science, does not seem to reveal itself "all at once" to those who seek truth. Scientists and those of faith are similar in this regard, we both seek "truth", the difference being the answers we seek lay in different domains. Scientists test empirically, I test spiritually.
As far as dogma, well, the Christ gives ample warning about it in John and Luke. Those are my guidelines and I'll leave it at that ...
Cheers
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@unknownuser said:
.
I want to be downloaded onto a satellite and shot off into space to forever scoot around at tremendous speed. When the missus dies I hope she can be uploaded too. I want see a star explode. Witness a black hole. Hopefully with time I can be recalled to wherever mankind is and be uploaded to a new body to start again.If I just die as normal I'll still die happy knowing that I existed and did the best I could with what I have.
Reminded me of a movie idea I wrote once.
Earthquakes everywhere and all oil is gone. People are turning their backs on God everyday left and right. Then the unthinkable great nuclear war breaks out. After a while they start to see that there is no saving this world we all have destroyed. They gather a great team of the world’s smartest scientists “the ones that are left”, kind of like the Manhattan project in the forties. They figure out a way to transfer your conscious into a server or big computer like the matrix. The fighting forces realize that there will never be a winner in their war so they combine their forces to make this project happen before the effects of their war makes it impossible. When complete they plot a course into space for this server type thing that will take them on a ten billion year trip with an unlimited solar power supply. In case an asteroid or something destroys earth, the server will still survive. So in the server when one conscious dies it’s just replayed into someone else kind of like a digital version of reincarnation or reborn to someone’s personal criteria. To make a mockery of the few Christians left they come up with biblical like rules to choose who gets to be placed into the server before the effects of their war kills off everyone, proclaiming its God ending the world not the effects of the war. What they don’t realize that it’s really God’s final straw that forces him to end the world. In his final act before the great glory in the true heaven, God grants them a thousand years of peace in their server heaven before he turns it into the hell we read about today in the bible and only takes the Christians that stayed behind waiting for God to return and he welcomes them to the true Heaven.
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Can you get Roland Emmerich to direct? I think he has the right delicate touch to handle a project like this.
Michael Bay maybe?
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IdahoJ
Please recall that "Christ" didn't "reveal it"... it was just some plain ole guys who did that - albeit whilst saying that they were writing on his behalf !
I'm also sure that there are many scientists who'd prefer to be 'right' rather than 'wrong', BUT the basis of science is to put up an idea and then try to support it OR disprove it. If you find it is probably wrong then you retest until you either find it is right, or if it's wrong then you recast your idea to match the new findings... that's the very basis of science.
I know that there have been many dogmatic 'scientists' throughout the ages - e.g. Lord Kelvin - who have held back science because they have insisted that their idea was right in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, and because they were 'important' they held sway for far too long... BUT these are the exception... -
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God has told us, before, about a series of events that will happen, to prove us that He is always trustworthy. Everything God decided, is fulfilled precisely, so I count my faith firmly on His Word (the Bible). What He said is going to happen, It's done..., the only 'problem' is just time, because every event "takes its time." God has always shown his Authority, but people do not take into account…!
True faith isn’t 'blind', as one imagines, but is based on careful research and check 'tangible' things...!
Bible motto is "Prove all things, and keep what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21), not that false slogan, embraced by naives in the form "Believe and do not question/ investigate!"
Important aren’t the opinions of different kinds of people about faith, but what the Bible says about it!Faith accepts as real, as reliable, things not seen...yet!
There are, for example, Paradise and Hell. Rational I can not prove their existence but my faith accepts them as real...- Is this a nonsense? - Not at all!
I believe in the existence of God because I can see His work, and the Bible revealed Him to me in many ways...
I believe for example in a future resurrection, because the Bible tells me about this, and because Jesus Christ has already risen, and so forth...
The Bible is the only book in the world, containing prophecies which were fulfilled (or are ongoing...) exactly, in great detail. The Bible is the world's only book written in original without fail, without any inadvertence!
The Bible is an Authority, and explains also all that we need to know now about the Creation...!
- Is this a nonsense? - Not at all!
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You quote "Prove all things and keep what is good." and then go on to do entirely the opposite...you accept, unquestioningly, everything that is in the Bible...OT and NT...as fact, for no better reason than it's in the Bible.
If you can't see the irony in that, there is little point in you having a discussion with anybody.
You claim that everything prophesied in the Bible has accurately come to pass. Like what? Here's a few prophesies which some Tribulation website claims have come to pass already, proving that His time is nigh:-
-many shall come in Jesus' name, saying, I am Christ
False prophets appear any time, any place...rather fewer these days, if anything...at least outside of US TV Evangelism, which the whole of the rest of the planet regards as a joke.-wars and commotions
So vague and commonplace as to be worthless.-Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:
Same as above. Been going on since well before Christ.-great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Yet again, absolutely endemic...anytime, anywhere. Don't recall any signs from heaven lately.-Persecution
Yawn!!-ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.
Seems to be rather more typical of the Middle Ages and the Thirty Years War. Did I blink and miss Judgement day?-ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies
When hasn't it been?-Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
It WAS trodden down during the Crusades and during the earlier Roman occupation. I was under the impression that it was now controlled by Jews, not gentiles.-there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
Astrology, same old same old and weather? Seriously?Most of these come from Matthew 24, towards the end of which Christ states that ALL these things will be fulfilled (including his return) within the generation of those present.....still waiting.
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