Infallible proof of god

Whether it is intentional or a veiled attempt of personal attack, the proof is in the pudding.

It was posted, documented and thereby forwarded to Skip and the moderators, inasmuch as everyone is obligated to follow forum rules.

Hopefully this will cut down on the flaming going on in these forums.

 

Well yeah, that's also why they'll use doubt over the absence of a creator as "proof" of the existence of their god. I don't have a problem with religion, but the last person I'm going to ask about the existence of a god is someone who'd believe in it anyway.

 

I disagree. Many religious myths involve artifacts not created by human hands, but where are these today? Obviously not all religions will be correct, with there being thousands and each having its variations.

I try to look at the world with a completely neutral viewpoint. Try to look at it historically. One could say that the human race took such a long time to build civilization because it is the inevitable action of more or less constant growth for 4000 years. Imagine you saw everything from space, but could hear and zoom into whatever you would like. 2000 years ago you would look down and see some smart apes at the dawn of a new civilization. Of course these people don't have answers to many of the big questions that we have only recently answered, and this is where religion comes into the game. It gives people a sense of purpose, morals, belonging and hope.

There really are no glaring holes in our concept of the universe. To say that any information is correct would be ignorant unless you consider both sides of the argument neutrally, and even then there is no guarantee. It is a fact that you cannot be right 100% of the time, but the times that you are not right only help you expand intellectually by disproving old ideas and replacing them with new, stronger ones.

I personally find the concept of faith ridiculous. A single human beliving something untrue makes it no more true. Millions of people believing something untrue makes it no more true.

All non-fringe scientific evidence through experiments shows that evolution happens, stars evolve from gas, planets evolve from the formation of a star and all these galaxies came from the same point in space.

As a side note on the improbability of the human species arising from lifelessness: Consider the Hubble space telescope's most famous image, the ultra deep field. http://media.skyandtelescope.com/images/Hubble_UDF_m.jpg

The most sensitive and long range picture taken by mankind, if you understand it it is truly humbling. Every dot and smear on the background of that image is an entire galaxy. Each with billions of stars, the possibility of nearly anything happening is real... And that is a fraction of a degree of empty night sky. Assume that single celled organisms evolve from lifelessness at an incredibly low rate. Say 10^-500. This is an extraordinarily small number, but on the cosmic scale life will happen with these odds.

Those of you that argue that everything is so fine tuned for our kind of life don't consider the entirely natural and explainable forces that made it this way. Nor is it a matter of our environment being well suited to us, but us being well suited for our environment.


I welcome anyone to poke holes in this.

 

How can these people talk about proving the existence of god, when they can't even prove that they're indeed following the teachings of jesus.

Most of the comments from so called christians in these forums merely project a shallow understanding of what they claim to be. Hence, they're hypocrites.

 

No, I'd say you're right. But I'd also argue that, while faith does not make atoms move and collide in any different way, on a social level faith has a tremendous effect on people's outlook, on the likelihood of them following an impulse rather than not, and consequently on those around you. It can seem petty on a scientific level to this of people as important, but they are, after all, what we invented science for.

 

Barthes would argue that there's no right way to read a book. Whether that book be written by man or God, it's a stimulus, and doesn't become any less of one as a result of people believing it to be true. I don't see that it's massively hypocritical because we all believe in something. That something may be true, it may not be, but hypocrisy isn't exactly a universal force; it's something we invented.

 

Good post.
Talking about science, much has been said about such things as "miracles" in the context of faith alone, without taking into account the science behind it.

Could it be that what we construe as "faith" is nothing more than the science working through our brains?

Thanks by way, for engaging in an intelligent dialogue on this matter.

 

I think people who want to see miracles will, the same way that some people see meaningful coincidences, where others are unable to ignore the wealth of meaningless occurrences and potential coincidences unrealised in between them. I don't know that anyone's claimed a "real" miracle for a while.

The Bible is... it's obviously parables, you know? They're stories to convey ideology, just like any number of soap operas. The fact that they're written down, and that someone decided at some point that this version is God's word and must not be changed is the real tragedy.

I'm frustrated by all this though. It's been my experience that evangelical atheists are every bit as bad as evangelical Christians. They tend to come from a different age group, but they wind each other up and make it look as if it's an eternal battle between youthful anger and aged experience. A lot of people don't realise that there's plenty of balanced people on both side of the debate who are perfectly capable of living and letting live, because those who insist that Christianity is a lie that must be erased, or that atheism renders people incapable of moral judgment, tend to be really fucking loud.

 

Agreed. That certain christians view that their version of the the bible being god's word and only word is a tragedy, taking along with it thousands of lives throughout history all in the name of religion.

Killing in the name of a christian god is anathema to what a christian "god" is all about.

I don't think christians need to help god kill unbelievers, as god can deal with the issue himself.

 

You've never heard of "doing the Lord's work"?

I don't know whether you're being deliberately obtuse, but it seems fairly obvious that people can interpret the Bible any way they want. It's practically designed for that purpose. I don't see it as a problem with the religion, really. Most people, normal people, will not use religion to do anything that they wouldn't do otherwise. I do not believe either that anyone is made into a psychopath or a zealot by religion. They may use it as an excuse to do what they want, but I doubt very strongly that they'd be too troubled if God himself showed up to say "YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG"; they'd just switch God for Jodie Foster and carry on doing what they do.

In other words, I don't believe that the hysteria and mania that religion is accused of inspiring is unique to religion, let alone caused by it. We need there to be a cause for troubling behaviour. We find a reason for any crime. If a kid goes nuts with an AK in a high school, we look for reasons. If he was religious, we blame god. If he liked heavy metal, we blame Satan. If he was a nerd, we blame GTA: SA. None of these things cause violence, but they're as good a scapegoat as any if one is willing to ignore the millions of people who aren't driven to violence by them.

 

i don't see a point to belief in god if you do you most likely will betray it theres no way stay within the rules of god in a real world so u will go to hell.if you wont belief then u are free just use you're logic in which is good and bad and you will live a better happier life

 

So, the Crusades wherein millions of Muslims were killed in order to retake Jerusalem was "doing the Lord's work"?

Yes or no.

 

I know you are new, but I think you should try to read it in context.

Maybe I should have included quotation marks, so that you would not have become confused.

However, I do find it amusing that FedUp himself had absolutly no problem with it, and yet you do.

 

wbld should go over to the Christian site and look at some of the posts by FedUp, Stev90, & Co., if he wants to see personal attacks.

 

I find it rather more amusing that someone who seems to align himself with the Christian mindset like you, would use hateful and derogatory language against another member of this forum.

The fact the FedUp had no problem with you calling him stupid, doesn't make it less of a violation against forum rules with regards to flaming.

In short, if you consider yourself a Christian, or follower of Christ, you shouldn't even consider thinking of using such words.

 

I suppose I will have to spell it out for you then. You're quite the antagonist btw.

First of all, I would never use "hateful and deragatory language". Stick around for awhile and you might figure that out.
Besides, Fedup and I get along well enough. He understands this. You dont. If he has a problem with it, then I will apologize to him, but Im fairly certain that he understands what I was trying to say.

The whole point was that most of people's beliefs are really just faith, even when there is scientific evidence to back it up. Hence the is the world round/flat sidenote. Just about everyone you ask will say that it is round, but yet are unable to prove to you that it is so, without sourcing some other outlet of information other than their own mind.

The quote that you have such a problem with, is simply pointing out how foolish it is to expect someone to go along with your beliefs when you can't even prove them yourself.

In other words, one expecting another to belief ANY scientific fact that they themselves cannot prove, is no different than a believer expecting everyone to believe that there is a God.

 

That's very true fedup.
From my experience, I have seen christians bound to their religion and what they call their faith more out of fear and as a matter of having a sense of "control" whether of themselves or as it translates to others and the world around them.

When that sense of control is threatened, fear comes in and they immediately collapse and do all kinds of strange things, all in the name of safeguarding that sense of "control" in their lives.

 

This thread is getting off track. You're risking having it closed down. I agree with neo. There's no infallible proof of anything. Not even the Pope or the Bible are infallible or inerrant. Neither is science. But that isn't saying all beliefs are in the same boat. If a refutable theory is supported by lots of evidence, I think we have a better reason to believe it than to believe in an irrefutable theory with no supporting evidence. All theories, including scientific ones, rest on assumptions which could be wrong, so all knowledge is tentative. The only way out is to keep testing and to place your bets on the basis of educated Judgment and informed hunches. If that's faith, I guess neo is right, but I put blind faith in a different category from faith grounded in reason. (By the way, I'm using Luther's definition of faith as a bet).

 

Hello Okiefreak,
Forgive me to say this, but I almost laughed after reading your post. No harm intended. You seem to be skirting the issue by using illogical reasoning and presenting it as your basis for argument.

Not all science is based on theory.
For example, Sir Isaac Newton's Law of Gravity is a scientific fact not simply one based on a theory. Any human being anywhere on earth can test it anytime and obtain a similar reproducible result.

Is there a corresponding "law" based on fact from a religious standpoint, particularly the christian view, one that is not based on faith, or rather, blind faith alone?

Do you still believe that the earth could still be possibly flat, after all?

 

Relativity theory and Quantum Mechanics have broadened scientific thinking considerably concerning even Newton. Newton at one time was considered definitive in terms of our knowledge of things we could be certain of, and he still gets us by within the normal range of our operations, but Einstein and Heisenberg have shown that some of his "laws" ultimatley break down in important contexts of reality. You seem to hold a nineteenth century view of the universe. Can you explain the phenomenon of nonlocality to me? How does gravity relate to electomagnetism, quantum phenomena and the space-time continuum? Do you understand the relationship between gravity and the other fundamental forces? If you do, you must be one of the greatest scientists alive. We should be honored, I guess, that you've chosen to go slumming on Hip Forums. Have you developed a TOE yet? Would you call it a law? Some particle physicists claim that energy, matter, space and time can be explained in terms of resonating filaments called "Superstring"? Do you think they could be right? (Give this thing a mind and we could call it God). And I never said the earth is flat. When did you stop beating your wife? Yes indeedy, all science is based on refutable theory which, if tested often enough and empirically verfied, can be tentatively accepted as law. You might take a course on the philosophy of science before you go spouting off again. Forgive me for saying it, but your comments reflect a certain amount of arrogance. If you had read my previous post carefully, rather than going by what you thought a dumb okie might say, you might have noticed that I said:"If a refutable theory is supported by lots of evidence, I think we have a better reason to believe it than to believe in an irrefutable theory with no supporting evidence." Far be it from me to knock science, but there are many phenomena that so far science doesn't seem close to explaining: life, human consciousness, the fine tuning of the universe, the formation of DNA, how the Big Bang happened, etc. Maybe science will come through some day. Maybe it won't. To say that it will is a matter of faith.