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Just admit it.That might be because that's the definition of faith, Captain Tautology
Copy and post this:
I have no logical reason to believe in God, but I do anyway.
That might be because that's the definition of faith, Captain Tautology
Just admit it.That might be because that's the definition of faith, Captain Tautology
Copy and post this:
I have no logical reason to believe in God, but I do anyway.
"I have no logical reason to believe in God, but I do anyway."
Do you feel better now?
Yes, I do actually. It's nice to see somebody admit it.
Faith in and of itself isn't as interesting or absurd as the knots people tie themselves into when trying to make their beliefs logically self-consistent. If you really want to be a gadfly, read some Thomas Aquinas
I like the way thy guy says "we're not here to disprove it" but he has this whole internet call-in show thing dedicated to disproving it.
I think what is more absurd is the fact that faithless people openly deride the concept of faith without one iota of the capacity to even expain it... you simply don't understand it because unbelief by very definition blinds you from that capability.
"I have no logical reason to believe..."
"it's true cause I say it's true..."
"Absolute truth is pointless..."
Faith was established by GOD as the conduit for grace so that we would enjoy an eternal existence by His side. What would be the reward of having gifted us with the free will to choose Him if He just showed up and said, "worship me, I Am your GOD"??? Absolutely NONE!
Even so... to those demanding proof... it's all around you:
16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
- ROMANS - Chapter 1
Oddly enough, you all have like LoneStarState'sPride mentioned yesterday, deposited faith in yourselves... in your own reasoning... if you don't believe me, just think of all the "crazy" ideas you've nonchalantly accepted as valid, logical arguments to convince yourselves that everything around you could not have been created:
You all believe in abiogenesis. Without GOD in the picture, no matter how you slice it this is what it boils down to. You all believe that the gourds of information stored in our genes are a product of random chance and natural selection even when we know the information therein is degrading and losing genetic robustness. Biological complexity is still a staunch slap-in-the-face to those who would believe that some purposeless 'force' would create the genetic richness we see on earth - if "given enough time."
You all believe in cosmic origin devoid of purpose. The fact that we can ascertain that the Universe had a finite beginning is still a troubling matter for unbelieving astrophysicists... The probability that all the Universal constants would take their current values as the Big Bang unfolded to allow for the coalesced formation of atoms/stars/life is for all practical intents and purposes zero... and yet here were are. Instead we have wackos like your buddy Hawking trying to foment the dogma that multiple universes exist, so that you all can justify the fact that chance probability alone could have formed our own universe when given an infinite amount of chances. But you go ahead and place your faith in that.
Then you have other scientists that have come to the conclusion that our flat universe will forever expand and that it was 'meant' to do so. No reason, no purpose... just PoOoOof!... the Universe appeared ex nihilo (from nothing)... and will expand into nothingness again... what a bleak outlook to wrap yourself around... all for the sake of justifying their unbelief.
BTW anyone who claims they've used science to prove our origins is full of crap. We can speculate. We can postulate. We can theorize and hypothesize all we want. No one... ABSOLUTELY NO ONE! can with complete scientific certainty state that they've proven the naturalistic pathway of origins (i.e. cosmic/biological etc...); that is without having been there to observe, measure and test the event in question. We can't even see into the first "300,000" years after the Big Bang occurred and no one was here to confirm all the theorized assumptions that supposedly gave rise to life on Earth.
Under one of the prevailing theories, the conditions required to create one essential batch of biotic molecules (the sugar-phospate backbone for all genetic material) created pools of this material... what they don't emphasize is that said conditions are destructive to amino acids (the other essential biotic precursor). What to do, what to do...? Oh yeah, postulate that maybe a meteor with an aglomeration of amino acids landed in an ocean full of sugars (what?) or vice versa that a meteor full of sugars landed in a sea of amino acids... Ok? So even if we assume that neither scenario depletes the biotic precursors on entry... What gives the biotic concoction the impetus to keep on multiplying and making more of itself (bear in mind that one of the essential molecules was in limited supply)??? Furthermore, what prevents the products from simply falling apart after forming (from chemical degradation, solar radiation, etc...) as none of the biological systems required to stabilize their formation could have pre-existed before the information itself (i.e. the genetic code that creates those stabilization enzymes). There are hundreds of theories out there but they are all limited by the same fundamental flaw... proving them requires us to step outside of the scientific method... our interaction with the very experiments that are required to validate said theories by definition invalidate the 'naturalistic' pathways we tried to claim as causation.
It's akin to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle... any study that attempts to validate how the first biotic molecules on earth eventually became "life" is invalidated by the fact that the scientists themselves become participant to their experiments. They become "GOD" as they control and modify all the kinetic variables that are required to spur the reactions that would otherwise not proceed on their own. Most people can't even comprend why this would matter... so long as the implications of their results keep justifying their lack of belief.
So yeah, I guess you do understand faith... in GODlessness...
Last edited by Phenomanul; 09-08-2010 at 09:36 AM.
I have to step out... and work. Queue the mockfest....
redszero is essentially reasserting the infamous claim of the logical positivists that the only meaningful statements are those that can be analytically or empirically verified. only he is stating it in the form of:
any statement that lacks a sound conclusion drawn from valid premises is a statement that lacks reasoning and is purely based on faith or conjencture.
the problem with these assertions, however, is that they violate their own rule(s). that is why the logical positivist essentially gave up on their efforts to remove metaphysics from logic. it proved to be a more diificult endeavor than it appears to be on the surface.
You just quoted from a book full of contradictions.
If proof was all around, then there would be no threads like this for you to whine about.
Here's a little analogy which could pretty accurately describe two people arguing about god/religion/creation/truth,etc
A man born blind asks you,``what is this thing called green?''
You think to yourself...how do I describe the color green?
You use an analogy and say,``it is like soft music'' ``soothing,soft music''
and he goes away going, ok soft,soothing music...
A second blind man asks you the same question...
you answer, ``it is like soft satin, soothing and soft to the touch'' he goes away saying...ok soft ,soothing satin...
The next day you discover the two blind men are fighting each other, one saying ``it's soft like music''... the other saying, ``no,it's soft like satin''
...and on it goes...
I read that somewhere...sorry if the exact wording is off a bit...
but it struck me pretty heavy when I read it in my college days and it is a very accurate picture of these kinds of arguments...
Neither of them knows what they are talking about because if they did-they would shut up.
We will never know and I, personally, am ok with not knowing.
C'mon, man -- that's not proof, that's dogma parading in proof's clothing. That's great your belief is so strong, but you end up sounding like the Christian version of redzero... that is, completely closed to a different interpretation of reality.I think what is more absurd is the fact that faithless people openly deride the concept of faith without one iota of the capacity to even expain it... you simply don't understand it because unbelief by very definition blinds you from that capability.
"I have no logical reason to believe..."
"it's true cause I say it's true..."
"Absolute truth is pointless..."
Faith was established by GOD as the conduit for grace so that we would enjoy an eternal existence by His side. What would be the reward of having gifted us with the free will to choose Him if He just showed up and said, "worship me, I Am your GOD"??? Absolutely NONE!
Even so... to those demanding proof... it's all around you:
16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
- ROMANS - Chapter 1
Oddly enough, you all have like LoneStarState'sPride mentioned yesterday, deposited faith in yourselves... in your own reasoning... if you don't believe me, just think of all the "crazy" ideas you've nonchalantly accepted as valid, logical arguments to convince yourselves that everything around you could not have been created:
You all believe in abiogenesis. Without GOD in the picture, no matter how you slice it this is what it boils down to. You all believe that the gourds of information stored in our genes are a product of random chance and natural selection even when we know the information therein is degrading and losing genetic robustness. Biological complexity is still a staunch slap-in-the-face to those who would believe that some purposeless 'force' would create the genetic richness we see on earth - if "given enough time."
You all believe in cosmic origin devoid of purpose. The fact that we can ascertain that the Universe had a finite beginning is still a troubling matter for unbelieving astrophysicists... The probability that all the Universal constants would take their current values as the Big Bang unfolded to allow for the coalesced formation of atoms/stars/life is for all practical intents and purposes zero... and yet here were are. Instead we have wackos like your buddy Hawking trying to foment the dogma that multiple universes exist, so that you all can justify the fact that chance probability alone could have formed our own universe when given an infinite amount of chances. But you go ahead and place your faith in that.
Then you have other scientists that have come to the conclusion that our flat universe will forever expand and that it was 'meant' to do so. No reason, no purpose... just PoOoOof!... the Universe appeared ex nihilo (from nothing)... and will expand into nothingness again... what a bleak outlook to wrap yourself around... all for the sake of justifying their unbelief.
BTW anyone who claims they've used science to prove our origins is full of crap. We can speculate. We can postulate. We can theorize and hypothesize all we want. No one... ABSOLUTELY NO ONE! can with complete scientific certainty state that they've proven the naturalistic pathway of origins (i.e. cosmic/biological etc...); that is without having been there to observe, measure and test the event in question. We can't even see into the first "300,000" years after the Big Bang occurred and no one was here to confirm all the theorized assumptions that supposedly gave rise to life on Earth.
Under one of the prevailing theories, the conditions required to create one essential batch of biotic molecules (the sugar-phospate backbone for all genetic material) created pools of this material... what they don't emphasize is that said conditions are destructive to amino acids (the other essential biotic precursor). What to do, what to do...? Oh yeah, postulate that maybe a meteor with an aglomeration of amino acids landed in an ocean full of sugars (what?) or vice versa that a meteor full of sugars landed in a sea of amino acids... Ok? So even if we assume that neither scenario depletes the biotic precursors on entry... What gives the biotic concoction the impetus to keep on multiplying and making more of itself (bear in mind that one of the essential molecules was in limited supply)??? Furthermore, what prevents the products from simply falling apart after forming (from chemical degradation, solar radiation, etc...) as none of the biological systems required to stabilize their formation could have pre-existed before the information itself (i.e. the genetic code that creates those stabilization enzymes). There are hundreds of theories out there but they are all limited by the same fundamental flaw... proving them requires us to step outside of the scientific method... our interaction with the very experiments that are required to validate said theories by definition invalidate the 'naturalistic' pathways we tried to claim as causation.
It's akin to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle... any study that attempts to validate how the first biotic molecules on earth eventually became "life" is invalidated by the fact that the scientists themselves become participant to their experiments. They become "GOD" as they control and modify all the kinetic variables that are required to spur the reactions that would otherwise not proceed on their own. Most people can't even comprend why this would matter... so long as the implications of their results keep justifying their lack of belief.
So yeah, I guess you do understand faith... in GODlessness...
I believe in God, but the alternative isn't simply abiogenesis as you suggest. Life could be as much a property of matter as mass for all we know, and exist in a continuum. And when scientists say our universe had a definite beginning, that doesn't ipso facto mean it was THE BEGINNING of all things, just that our telescopes can only see so far. Considering we still have only theoretical structures to speculate about the more mysterious aspects of astrophysics (like what happens to all the matter that gets sucked into black holes... is it expelled into another dimension? Does it eventually reach a tipping point and explode? Who knows?), characterizing scientists as stumbling over themselves to make the Big Bang inconsistent with scripture is a fabrication. Also, because this universe is all we know, you don't have any basis on for claims about the probability or improbability of matter and life organizing into the shape they have.
I also think it's interesting you make such a point of raising the issue of free will while also citing :
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
I've always had trouble reconciling that passage with the notion of free will. Those who believe in Him do so because God has made himself plain to them... but what of the others to whom God has not made himself plain? Why would God create beings that are unable to perceive him? Especially when the consequence of not perceiving him will result in eternal damnation?
You will say free will is the operator here, but that doesn't make sense. Would the average person even remotely be tempted by carnal sins if God (and therefore the consequences of disobeying Him) were plain to them? Are people who have never been exposed to the Bible created just to go to or limbo? Finally, if God exists and there are people who cannot perceive Him, where do you get off castigating them when they should be the objects of your pity? Would you judge a blind man for not being able to see the way your post shows you judge the non-believers?
Last edited by admiralsnackbar; 09-08-2010 at 10:35 AM.
I should have known Phenomanul would have been in this thread.
Also... WTF is with this statement? I guess this fantasy of superiority you seem to be entrenched in isn't limited to metaphysics? All those who disagree with you merit your sneering not only for their Godlessness, but their supposed unemployment, too? The spirit of Christ is really strong within you, isn't it?
I don't believe you because you don't make any sense. I don't have to have faith to accept the baseless claim that everything was created.
Even if that was true, your point? Abiogenesis will always be a better answer than "it was magic."You all believe in abiogenesis. Without GOD in the picture, no matter how you slice it this is what it boils down to. You all believe that the gourds of information stored in our genes are a product of random chance and natural selection even when we know the information therein is degrading and losing genetic robustness. Biological complexity is still a staunch slap-in-the-face to those who would believe that some purposeless 'force' would create the genetic richness we see on earth - if "given enough time."
No, it isn't.You all believe in cosmic origin devoid of purpose. The fact that we can ascertain that the Universe had a finite beginning is still a troubling matter for unbelieving astrophysicists...
Actually, no, it wasn't zero.The probability that all the Universal constants would take their current values as the Big Bang unfolded to allow for the coalesced formation of atoms/stars/life is for all practical intents and purposes zero... and yet here were are.
1.) Hawking isn't my buddy.Instead we have wackos like your buddy Hawking trying to foment the dogma that multiple universes exist, so that you all can justify the fact that chance probability alone could have formed our own universe when given an infinite amount of chances. But you go ahead and place your faith in that.
2.) Accepting the Big Bang Theory has NOTHING to do with faith, no matter how much you claim to the contrary. The theory was formed by investigating the universe. There is no empirical investigation in believing there is a God.
I'm trying to find the video where this example was given, but I can't right now, so I'll just quote a good example why this claim is bogus:
http://skepticreport.com/sr/?p=499#cardsEver hear impossibly-large numbers quoted as the odds against a cell or a particular DNA molecule having formed “by accident” to create the first living thing? It’s an example of the propensity of creationists to entirely miss the point and set up a specious straw man, ripe for destruction. Ronald Stearns suggests the following to help them see where they are missing the point:
One demonstration that has worked well for me in illustrating the difference between a priori and a posteriori calculations just uses a deck of cards. Give someone a deck of cards, ask him to shuffle it, and then read off the first 26 cards. After your subject does that, jump at him and question his veracity. “You don’t really expect me to believe that sequence is what you pulled up, is it? The odds against getting exactly that sequence is 2 x 10 41-to-1 against!” Then, of course, explain that what the odds were before the exercise is irrelevant, because what is important is that SOME sequence occurred, and that the idea is to understand what that sequence actually was, not what the chances were of obtaining that sequence. If your subject has kept the stack of cards intact, then you can show that you have the evidence. It also looks a lot like a set of geological strata, and you can show that it remains valid even if you take the stack and slide it around, twist it, and fold it a bit, [to provide an analogy for how] geologists really can still unlock the story of geological history, with a lot of work.
1.) Nobody says the universe came from nothing. Stop lying.Then you have other scientists that have come to the conclusion that our flat universe will forever expand and that it was 'meant' to do so. No reason, no purpose... just PoOoOof!... the Universe appeared ex nihilo (from nothing)... and will expand into nothingness again... what a bleak outlook to wrap yourself around... all for the sake of justifying their unbelief.
2.) Just because you don't like how something sounds doesn't make it untrue. Wanting to have a purpose for your existence doesn't actually give your existence a purpose.
Here's a video to shoot down your absolute certainty nonsense:
Again, what is your point? Just because we can't have absolute certainty that an event occurred doesn't mean that it didn't occur.BTW anyone who claims they've used science to prove our origins is full of crap. We can speculate. We can postulate. We can theorize and hypothesize all we want. No one... ABSOLUTELY NO ONE! can with complete scientific certainty state that they've proven the naturalistic pathway of origins (i.e. cosmic/biological etc...); that is without having been there to observe, measure and test the event in question. We can't even see into the first "300,000" years after the Big Bang occurred and no one was here to confirm all the theorized assumptions that supposedly gave rise to life on Earth.
So much bull in this argument.
Why do scientists have to step out of the scientific method? Just because you say they do? And saying "God did it" doesn't answer anything.Under one of the prevailing theories, the conditions required to create one essential batch of biotic molecules (the sugar-phospate backbone for all genetic material) created pools of this material... what they don't emphasize is that said conditions are destructive to amino acids (the other essential biotic precursor). What to do, what to do...? Oh yeah, postulate that maybe a meteor with an aglomeration of amino acids landed in an ocean full of sugars (what?) or vice versa that a meteor full of sugars landed in a sea of amino acids... Ok? So even if we assume that neither scenario depletes the biotic precursors on entry... What gives the biotic concoction the impetus to keep on multiplying and making more of itself (bear in mind that one of the essential molecules was in limited supply)??? Furthermore, what prevents them from simply falling apart after forming (from chemical degradation, solar radiation, etc...) as none of the biological systems required to stabilize their formation could have pre-existed before the information itself (i.e. the genetic code that creates those stabilization enzymes). There are hundreds of theories out there but they are all limited by the same fundamental flaw... proving them requires us to step outside of the scientific method... our interaction with the very experiments that are required to validate said theories by definition invalidate the 'naturalistic' pathways we tried to claim as causation.
Hold on, attempting to replicate a phenomenon automatically means that a sentient being must have caused it? You keep trying to useIt's akin to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle... any study that attempts to validate how the first biotic molecules on earth eventually became "life" is invalidated by the fact that the scientists themselves become participant to their experiments. They become "GOD" as they control and modify all the kinetic variables that are required to spur the reactions that would otherwise not proceed on their own. Most people can't even comprend why this would matter... so long as the implications of their results keep justifying their lack of belief.
No, I don't, actually. Keep saying the same stupid, uneducated bull . I didn't become an atheist because I "had faith in GODlessness;" I became an atheist because there is zero evidence to support the claim that God exists. It's like saying that you have faith in Flying Spaghetti Monsterlessness.So yeah, I guess you do understand faith... in GODlessness...
And since you like quoting Bible passages, I have to wonder if you are in favor of slavery, stoning unruly children to death, killing sexuals and nonbelievers.
Also, disproving abiogensis, evolution, or the big bang theory doesn't prove the existence of God. It never will. And watch the YouTube video in this post so you won't make the same mistakes again.
Last edited by redzero; 09-08-2010 at 10:42 AM.
has to. keeps the demons at bay.
I should have known Phenomanul would have been in this thread.
I was referring to page one of the "The Club" forum, not page one of the thread, dufus... the glass on the sidebar was filled before I came into the thread (i.e. the thread was getting many hits/responses well before I entered)... so again, how am I responsible for 'bumping' a thread that's already on front page of the forum? Apparently the snicker of your trite incongruency flew over your head... typical.
And my complaint was more along the lines of, "good grief not again..."
But it seems as though some of the athiest/agnostic campers in this forum need to get their weekly fix of bashing GOD and believers, so be it... I can't change that. Circle jerk amongst yourselves as much as is needed to justify your beliefs, to make yourselves feel better...
Look at this textbook Phenomanul post. Martyr much? The poor internet prosecuted Christians!!!!!!
Its really ironic how apparently atheists are the only ones trying to make themselves feel better about their beliefs. Phenomanul is so secure in his he can never stay away from these threads.
I ask for proof and now I'm some close-minded fool.
Because you feel the need to deride those who believe, just as Phenom derides those who do not. You already know the answer to the demand for proof, but you're not content to accept it.
I ask for proof and now I'm some close-minded fool.
The difference is that I have a logical reason not to believe. The same cannot be said for any theist.
Interesting statement.
Let's paraphrase a bit:
"God exists because God created faith in God."
Circular reasoning in its most simple form.
Q. How do you know God exists?
A. Because God created faith in God.
The logical form that I can ferret out of this is:
A therefore A
Interestingly enough, one can also use this logic to conclude that the parody deity the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists, because the FSM created the ability to conceive of Its Noodle-y Existance.
but you and the theist are both engaging in metaphysics.
Bingo.
But I'm not using the supernatural.
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