Seth Rutledge wrote:

*nod*  My friend would argue that God was created within the last few millenium as a marketing tool to keep people in line via their beliefs.

So, if the basis of God is that the world is too complex to have kick-started itself, then does that mean God prescribes a set moral code, and if so, how would we know about it?

I know that strays away from "God" and into "Religion", which is where I start to miss the boat.  I have no problem believing in a higher power that created things, but I think that every organized religion sells morality as a way of controlling people.

D Cooper wrote:
In the sincerest spirit of love, I say to those of you who don’t believe and those of you who have formed your own belief system, “seek God for who He is, not who you want him to be.â€? (a quote from a very dear friend)

And I say unto you, my friend,
"Believe in the holy Spider-man, who cometh on a web-strand in the night. His temple is The Web and it encompasses world-wide! And, verily, those that do not believe in the spider-man, he shall turn his face from them, and shall ignore them with his spider senses. And they shall become fat and stupid and will believe everything they see on television. Those that believe not in spider man, they shall become WAL-MART dwellers and Presidents of The United States and will utter stupid things about their false gods, until they are smitten by plagues of butt-zits and cellulite."  (Spider Man 11:23)

There's lots of proof in the reality of the Spider man; way too much to go into, here, but there is exactly as much evidence of the existence of Spider man as of any other god that has ever been worshipped on earth.

mjr.

Justin wrote:
Thomas Aquinas had logical postulates about the existence of God in Summa Theologicae. Other people have different logic.

Some scientists, such as Einstein, look at the prevailing order in the universe and see a creator of that order. Other scientists, such as Sagan, look at the prevailing order in the universe and see the inherent need for order in that fabric, outside of the need of any creator.

Some people feel that abstract thought processes could not occur from material existence without an abstract presence to make it so. Other people feel that it certainly can happen, because it has.

Some people look at unexplainable or miraculous events as proof of a spiritual entity that exists outside the laws of material existence. Other people feel that those events do not really occur, or that they are the result of circumstances that we have yet to explain, but we will.

Some people feel the presence of the divine in mundane existence, or in inspirational moments. Other people do not feel that presence.

The subject matter of this thread could be discussed dispassionately. The fact that it won't is one reason some might not come around much more, but that others are drawn to it.

Very Good Posting and Comments.

Marcus J. Ranum wrote:
And I say unto you, my friend,
"Believe in the holy Spider-man, who cometh on a web-strand in the night. His temple is The Web and it encompasses world-wide! And, verily, those that do not believe in the spider-man, he shall turn his face from them, and shall ignore them with his spider senses. And they shall become fat and stupid and will believe everything they see on television. Those that believe not in spider man, they shall become WAL-MART dwellers and Presidents of The United States and will utter stupid things about their false gods, until they are smitten by plagues of butt-zits and cellulite."  (Spider Man 11:23)

There's lots of proof in the reality of the Spider man; way too much to go into, here, but there is exactly as much evidence of the existence of Spider man as of any other god that has ever been worshipped on earth.

mjr.

This, Sir is CLEARLY blasphemy against the mighty Flying Spaghetti Monster who created all things.  Fear the wrath of his noodly appendages.

http://www.venganza.org, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

D Cooper wrote:
In the sincerest spirit of love, I say to those of you who don’t believe and those of you who have formed your own belief system, “seek God for who He is, not who you want him to be.â€? (a quote from a very dear friend)

Also, I submit this scripture and I pray that all who read it allow for it to grow roots in the good ground of your spirit.

Hebrews 11: 1
“faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.â€?

God bless all of you and may He continue to overlook all of our faults and supply our needs!

I'm just curious as to what makes YOUR Holy Book more correct than MY (or anyone else's) Holy Book?
Can't even claim majority status now, as Christianity is the #3 or so religion in terms of followers.
Arguing that it's the holiest because the God that you know exists because the book tells you he does, and the book must be correct because the god it tells you exists wrote it and the book says it's not lying gets awfully circular.

Rebecca Alsbury wrote:
He created us with free will, so that we may make our own choices as to what we wish to believe.

There's a basic problem with this statement.  If an all-knowing all-seeing creator with a plan for the universe created all of us & set the world in to motiong KNOWING what would happen, free will is irrelevant.  Think about it.  God knows ALL.  He KNEW when he set Adam & Eve in the Garden that they would fall.  By knowing it & setting up the situation to occur he denided them free choice.  God has a plan, for that plan to work the fall had to happen.  Eve had no choice and none of us have had choices since then.  If "He" created us then we have no free will.  That's a basic fallacy of Christian thought.

Rebecca Alsbury wrote:
I believe that when we die, we are all judged for our sins. I also believe that there is a Heaven, and there is a Hell. I believe that if we accept that Jesus died on the cross for us, that we will enter Heaven.

And let's get back to those "sins"...it's a setup.  We're all born in sin why?  Becuase of the events of the Garden.  But as I noted, God KNEW that was going to happen & set it up because it suited our plan.  He wanted us to be mired in sin so we would have to pay obesciance to him.  He's an egomaniacal puppet master, in that case.  As another for instance here, since in your theory Jesus had to die to redeem us for the stain of sin that God set us up to be born with, Judas should be revered because he had to betray Jesus.  He had no choice, since God needed Jesus to die.  It's a ridiculously convoluted plot.

Rebecca Alsbury wrote:
I believe that God is a God of second chances.

Oh?  I didn't see a lot of those poor innocent people in New Orleans getting second chances.  And all you people going on about the wickedness of New Orleans seem to forget about the few thousand people killed in Alabama and other neighboring states, not to mention the tens of thousands left bereft & homeless, and that's not even COUNTING all the people in Mexico & other places Katrina hit first.  Explain how your just & loving God of second chances took out all THOSE folks just to stamp on the wicked New Orlineans.  Wouldn't a fire or meteor or something that just affected them have been better?

Rebecca Alsbury wrote:
I also believe that there is only one God.

Then you haven't read your Bible very carefully.  In several places in the Old Testament, God refers to other gods.
Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
not "there are no other gods" but "none before ME"
'cause as he mentions in 20:5 "For I am a jealous God"
And while we're talking about that famous part of Exodus:
20:4 "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or likeness of ANY LIVING THING that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or is in the water that is under the earth."
Seems like your faith should keep you away from a website devoted to said graven images, no?

And as to your father's books, pretty much every one of those books of "Biblical archaeology" can be factually disproven.

Sorry, I just couldn't handle it anymore, I had to speak out about a few of these things  :-)

Rebecca Alsbury wrote:
Being a Christian, as well as having a love for archaeology, I have found that there are many things that were stated in the Bible can be proven as fact.

Yeah! There was a Rome. And there was an Egypt!

Lots of stuff that's described in Spider Man comic books is also provable as a fact! There are lots of girls nicknamed MJ! There are cities! There are newspapers! And buses. Etc.

The bible is a compendium of myths, and the best myths have some root in truth. The question is "how much" root. Just like with Spider Man.

mjr.

Rebecca Alsbury wrote:
Ah, you see...you are taking the verses out of context, though. You forget to mention the entire reason why God stated these things...which was because people were worshipping graven images...statues of false Gods. If you want to get technical, then there really are other Gods...but not true Gods. For some, money is their God. For others, it is sex or drugs. For some, it is popularity....the list can go on.

And for the books I was talking about: they don't just talk about things that were found that can prove some of the things of the Bible, they actually show photos of them as well.

I do still believe that God is a God of second chances, though. Just because these people may have perished in this life, doesn't mean that they perish in the afterlife....Maybe some had died while trying to save another's life...I feel that they will be martyrs. Death and destruction is all a part of life. It's just that simple. And yes, God does know what we are going to do before we even do it. That's not the point I was getting at. The point I was getting at, was that our free will means that we can choose to believe what we want. God doesn't force us to either believe or disbelieve in Him.

I suppose that I have just had too many things happen in my own life that lead to God's existence, that it would be near impossible for me to not believe in Him. I know that I will be persecuted in this life for my faith, and I'm fine with that. I know what I know...both facts and faith.

And a persecution complex too.  That's part of how religion forbids any rationality.
There IS no context to the Bible, that's why it's impossible to have a rational conversation with someone who puts their faith in it.

Rebecca Alsbury wrote:
I'm not sure if I got the links to work, but here are some interesting articles that show a few of the things discovered in the past that correspond with some of the names/places/etc. of the bible.

That's because portions of the Bible were based on history.  A lot of the places & things described in Greek mythology are archeologically verifiable, does that mean I should be afraid of Zeus throwing lightning bolts at me?
And your logic on those people being martyrs is flawed.
How, I ask again, can you claim a god of love & second chances would not only wipe out a whole city because some of its residents were wicked (and, I might add, the areas where most of the strip clubs & gay bars are is the part that SURVIVED), but indiscriminately take out THOUSANDS of others along the way?
You are NEVER going to convince anyone of a just, righteous, loving god with thoughts like that.
That is why I say religion (not just yours, but all of them) have POISONED man and led him away from God.

SLE Photography wrote:
If an all-knowing all-seeing creator with a plan for the universe created all of us & set the world in to motiong KNOWING what would happen, free will is irrelevant.

If God exists, then I doubt that the motives, or lack of motives, of God would be subject to our expectations, presumptions, or demands.

Justin wrote:

If God exists, then I doubt that the motives, or lack of motives, of God would be subject to our expectations, presumptions, or demands.

True.  Which's another problem with these arguments.  The believers will be the first to insist we can't know or understand God, and then they will turn around & tell us God has a plan and THEY know what it is, so we should all follow what they say.
My simple point is that the conception of God the poster I was replying to negates the possibility of free will.  Not God overall, just that particular PERCEPTION of God.

Tim Hammond wrote:
Spirituality is a natural, healthy part of being human.  Religion is a bastardization of that and is the most evil, insidious institution ever invented by mankind.  It ALWAYS leads to degradation of the individual spirit and the corruption of humanity.  It disguises itself in "charity" and promises escape from reality for the weak minded while subjecting them to the control of those pursuing power and wealth.

Bingo. To deny one's spirituality is to tacitly accept oneself as sub-optimal human.

To allow religion to play virtual daycare to one's spirituality is an extraordinary act of either intellectual and emotional laziness or pure self-loathing.

Marcus J. Ranum wrote:
And I say unto you, my friend,
"Believe in the holy Spider-man, who cometh on a web-strand in the night. His temple is The Web and it encompasses world-wide! And, verily, those that do not believe in the spider-man, he shall turn his face from them, and shall ignore them with his spider senses. And they shall become fat and stupid and will believe everything they see on television. Those that believe not in spider man, they shall become WAL-MART dwellers and Presidents of The United States and will utter stupid things about their false gods, until they are smitten by plagues of butt-zits and cellulite."  (Spider Man 11:23)

And verily I say lo!  Here comes the Spider-Man!

Marcus J. Ranum wrote:
And I say unto you, my friend,
"Believe in the holy Spider-man, who cometh on a web-strand in the night. His temple is The Web and it encompasses world-wide! And, verily, those that do not believe in the spider-man, he shall turn his face from them, and shall ignore them with his spider senses. And they shall become fat and stupid and will believe everything they see on television. Those that believe not in spider man, they shall become WAL-MART dwellers and Presidents of The United States and will utter stupid things about their false gods, until they are smitten by plagues of butt-zits and cellulite."  (Spider Man 11:23)

Seth Rutledge wrote:
And verily I say lo!  Here comes the Spider-Man!

This is what evolution has come to?! Wow!! Talk about the human ability to use reasoning powers! NOT!! lol

tgimaging wrote:
This is what evolution has come to?! Wow!! Talk about the human ability to use reasoning powers! NOT!! lol

"A planet where apes evolved from MEN?" Yep... but they still read Spider-Man comix!

RickTaylor wrote:
I guess it's just lucky that the Big Bang worked out so well.

If the Big Bang theory holds up, it may be that there's an infinite number of universes, past and future, that have resulted and will result. Given that, the Big Bang would have to work out well, having an infinite number of chances. Of course, there's also arguably infinite numbers of times that it did not work out well before reformulating once again. (But that argument is as scientifically based as intelligent design.)

This would happen in a closed universe. The singularity forming the nascent universe reaches a critical mass, of sorts, where the hyperdense universe explodes out. However, as a closed universe, with its books balanced, it will necessarily and eventually fall back upon itself again. Infinitely.

As I recall, and it's been a long time, the perceived impossibility, or at least illogism, of infinity was one of Thomas Aquinas' reasonings for the existence of God. Others don't see any impossibility or illogism to a physical world.

I'm not quite understanding your argument. You stored film that, by chance, turned out to be a stunning shot. It wasn't by design. I thought, until your last couple sentences, that you were arguing for the ability of chance to produce results that look like they were designed.

Justin wrote:
If the Big Bang theory holds up, it may be that there's an infinite number of universes, past and future, that have resulted and will result. Given that, the Big Bang would have to work out well, having an infinite number of chances. Of course, there's also arguably infinite numbers of times that it did not work out well before reformulating once again. (But that argument is as scientifically based as intelligent design.)

This would happen in a closed universe. The singularity forming the nascent universe reaches a critical mass, of sorts, where the hyperdense universe explodes out. However, as a closed universe, with its books balanced, it will necessarily and eventually fall back upon itself again. Infinitely.

As I recall, and it's been a long time, the perceived impossibility, or at least illogism, of infinity was one of Thomas Aquinas' reasonings for the existence of God. Others don't see any impossibility or illogism to a physical world.

I'm not quite understanding your argument. You stored film that, by chance, turned out to be a stunning shot. It wasn't by design. I thought, until your last couple sentences, that you were arguing for the ability of chance to produce results that look like they were designed.

In the body painting images here on this site, I'm convinced that it was pure chance that created (oops, evolved) the patterns and designs on the model's body. Now what were those photographers, models, and MUAs doing while the pattern evolved? Yep, it had to happen by chance given an infinite number of possibilities. No design was involved what-so-ever, right? (And this train of thought is for a simple visual inaminate pattern.)

This is the reasoning that I should use to allow for the infinite complexities of the cosmos with it's orbits, and DNA, and the images my eye and brain can see - right?
On that note, I'm going to go find out what my dust is turning into. I'll keep everyone posted. :-) And, please let me know what your dust turns into. Given all the chances - something has to happen somewhere, right?

Here's a question for open discussion: Using the 'infinite possibilities' reasoning - how does that rule out a creator? It's a possibility! Einstein proved that matter is inherently linked to energy (E=MC2). Creatures composed of energy would have to have a chance of evolving in a similar manner as what is believed to have happened in the physical sense - given the infinite possibilities, right? Or does this possibility get dismissed right off because it can't be seen?

For an over-simplistic comparison: With furnaces and air-conditioners, heat and cold are produced. We can't see either heat or cold with our eye, yet we don't deny it's existance. If physical creatures can produce un-seen effects, why is it 'logical' or 'scientific' to rule out an un-seen creature (given the evolution thought of infinite possibilities) creating physical DNA?

Has anyone seen the nascence of a 'latent image' on film? Is there anyone who can see it? Yet with the right set of circumstances, it turns into a negative. Is it chance, or designed?

Throughout history, some science fiction has in time become science fact.  How about DNA testing for one? The concept of flight? Star Trek communicators (er I mean voice paging.) Other concepts and tests are being researched as we speak. Should we conclude that non-seen intellegent life DOES NOT exist because it can't be proven? Scientifcally speaking, that is a un-substantiated conclusion. Science principles, of necessity, dictate that experimentation and research continue until the hypothesis is either proven, or dis-proven.

Those who have concluded the matter, have simply jumped to conclusions, IMHO.

tgimaging wrote:
In the body painting images here on this site, I'm convinced that it was pure chance that created (oops, evolved) the patterns and designs on the model's body. Now what were those photographers, models, and MUAs doing while the pattern evolved? Yep, it had to happen by chance given an infinite number of possibilities. No design was involved what-so-ever, right? (And this train of thought is for a simple visual inaminate pattern.)

Well, first, I assume you're not making the assumption that my explanation of theist and non-theist reasoning equates to my advocacy for either one.

But to answer your question in the abstract, the deliberate application of alterations isn't really comparable to changes seen in our immediate and cosmic environment over eons. The comparison is made, of course, to argue that they do compare.

If you found mummified remains of models stretching over thousands of years, with steadily increasing amounts of markings on their bodies, you could theorize that those markings were a development issue in response to the environment. Or they were a societal issue, artificially applied. Once you got to the point where you could take DNA samplings of the markings and the body, you'd see that they were separate and distinct, applied by a designer. But you also find that the models steadily increased in height over thousands of years. You probably attribute it to an incremental change in the biology of the models.

tgimaging wrote:
This is the reasoning that I should use to allow for the infinite complexities of the cosmos with it's orbits, and DNA, and the images my eye and brain can see - right?

You're free to use whatever reasoning you wish. I gave a range of reasoning in my examples that reasonable people have turned to, producing contrary conclusions.

tgimaging wrote:
And, please let me know what your dust turns into. Given all the chances - something has to happen somewhere, right?

Entropy is universal.

tgimaging wrote:
Here's a question for open discussion: Using the 'infinite possibilities' reasoning - how does that rule out a creator?

I never said that it did. I just said people say it different ways.

tgimaging wrote:
Einstein proved that matter is inherently linked to energy (E=MC2).

Actually, that's a theory, not a proof.

tgimaging wrote:
Creatures composed of energy would have to have a chance of evolving in a similar manner as what is believed to have happened in the physical sense - given the infinite possibilities, right?

I don't know.

tgimaging wrote:
Or does this possibility get dismissed right off because it can't be seen?

Just about anything is a possibility. Construct a viable theory about it, explain scientifically how it can happen (the coalescence of energy to consciousness, independent movement, and self-awareness), make a prediction, conduct a test of the hypothesis.

tgimaging wrote:
For an over-simplistic comparison: With furnaces and air-conditioners, heat and cold are produced. We can't see either heat or cold with our eye, yet we don't deny it's existance.

Well, empiricism includes senses other than vision. We can feel the heat and cold, we can measure them and their effects on us, we can hear the rush of the air, smell the heated and cooled air, and so on.

tgimaging wrote:
If physical creatures can produce un-seen effects, why is it 'logical' or 'scientific' to rule out an un-seen creature (given the evolution thought of infinite possibilities) creating physical DNA?

It depends on how the person views logic. But as for scientific - just make a hypothesis that has some predictability, test it, etc. Scientific process doesn't rule it out - it says it has yet to be presented scientifically. It can't rule out a Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. It can't rule out an army of omnipotent energy beings creating life. But there's no proof offered other than the supposition. It may be an article of faith, revealed to one's satisfaction, to be believed. But it's not yet an article of science.

tgimaging wrote:
Has anyone seen the nascence of a 'latent image' on film? Is there anyone who can see it? Yet with the right set of circumstances, it turns into a negative. Is it chance, or designed?

I'm a digital guy, more informed about big bang theory, inflation theory, and ekpyrotic theory than I am latent images on film. Sorry.

tgimaging wrote:
Throughout history, some science fiction has in time become science fact.  How about DNA testing for one? The concept of flight? Star Trek communicators (er I mean voice paging.) Other concepts and tests are being researched as we speak. Should we conclude that non-seen intellegent life DOES NOT exist because it can't be proven?

I think we addressed this earlier.

tgimaging wrote:
Scientifcally speaking, that is a un-substantiated conclusion. Science principles, of necessity, dictate that experimentation and research continue until the hypothesis is either proven, or dis-proven.

And there you go. We agree.

tgimaging wrote:
Those who have concluded the matter, have simply jumped to conclusions, IMHO.

A logical enough opinion.